Wow is my WORD and I am 50

Thank YOU both,

The past few years have been amazing with all the wonderful women who have come forward to play lesbians in film and the real life women who are sharing their life struggles so that others may be enriched. Wow, what it would have been like to be 16 or 17 and have great examples of what it is like to be gay. Belonging is a very important thing… I just turned 50 and realize what an amazing journey this has been.

Well, I am a mother of one son who is an amazing human being and I think being raised by women has had a lot to do with it. It is nice to see his generation of men being more affectionate to one another totally different from the camaraderie of my own.

There is this sense of family that divorce and combined families have brought that it is now only normal to extend their own families to be all inclusive.

I was fortunate to have a wonderful Catholic family that embraced us and the women I was with, through my son’s life. Oh yes and a MIA father that was too hurt to realize how much his son might need him. I always wanted a son and being gay wasn’t an option, knowing in my soul children needed father’s, never considering I would be on of those ending in divorce. How could I be so wrong?

Today my son is a constant reminder of many things and paths traveled. MY son reminds all the time that my unconditional love was is savior and something most of friends just never felt. I learned early on I couldn’t change things and I had to accept things as they were or I would have nothing in my life. The LOVE as it turns out has been the most important thing and being open can only bring this unconditional component.

Most of my friends are straight with husbands that were important in shaping my son’s life. Having amazing gay women surrounding us, who also were there for my son gave him an incredible sense of community that he was better able to share with his friends who have become a big part of his own family.

Fate brings mother’s home and unfortunately breast cancer did it for me. A single mother with high stress work often left me unavailable the times he needed most it seemed. I was very ill and there was a time I imagine he questioned my ability to survive in hospital with a raging blood infection. I stayed home for his 14th and 15th year something I hadn’t been able to do since a month after his birth.

Raising an angry young man took its toll and finally I had to do something I had told him he never wanted a mother to do, choose between a son she loves and life she wants to live. His anger seemed to grow knowing now after all my years of hard work and not being there I could die so what was the point to it all, giving him the reason he was looking for to jump off the deep end. I often tell people that I survived cancer and my son and 12 years later I have the most compassionate man for a son something I had always hoped for.

The love you women have for your children will be the most amazing gift and it is so nice to see that there actually people out there that are more normal than most. It is kind of funny how things have changed and now my partner of 19 years, this year and I are perceived often as the more family oriented and stable couple.

When I came out when my son was 3 even my own mother thought I should probably let my brother raise my son since he didn’t ask for this complication in his life. My mother had a right to her opinion but that statement almost brought us closer together since she couldn’t say anything more that could hurt me. We learned to LOVE…
LOVE is everything…

Congratulations on all of your successes!

Thanks again I feel like I too know you,

Tara Hammond
New Westminster, BC
Canada