static_abyss (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
static_abyss) wrote2018-11-23 03:42 pm
static_abyss) wrote2018-11-23 03:42 pm
LJ Idol Thanksgiving Break: Rosa
Dear Rosa,
We don't celebrate Thanksgiving. We eat the turkey, and we do the stuffing, and we sit at the tables and spend time with each other. But we don't do it for the White people. We do it because we've worked all year and this is a day off, and even if some of us don't get paid, we appreciate the chance to just sit at home and rest. We talk about what's been happening, how the deaths in the family this year have affected us, how Tia Estela is still a fresh wound that pulses everytime we look to the right and see her daughters sitting at her spot on our table.
You and I are cousins, and even if you said the death of Tia didn't affect you too much, I know you felt it anyway. She was kind to us, and she always gave the best Christmas presents. Even if she hadn't, she was always the calmest, easy with a smile that light up like a Chrsitmas tree. She was family, and to us, that means everything.
Or it should.
You said to me, on that Monday, five years ago, that you trusted me because I was family. You were shaking, your eyes on the floor, hand on the doorknob so that I wouldn't be in the way of your exit. I recognized the signs, even if it took me three more years to feel them myself. I backed off, told you I was here. I said we were family, and to me, that was stronger than whatever you may have said or done.
You said, thank you, and then you told me you were gay. Three years later, as we stood in the corner of Jay Street and Benson Avenue, waiting for the light to change so we could walk to Red Mango, I told you the same thing. You weren't the first person I told, but you were the one person who I thought would understand, the one person who had stood before me, trembling under the weight of our family's sins and our Church's ignorance, and asked me to accept you. You had felt the same suffocation of the condemned, the desperation of the doomed, and you'd asked me to help you. When we stood at that corner, the river to our left, a small street to the right, buildings on either side, shielding us from the wind, I asked you for the same.
I didn't think I had to tell you to keep it a secret. I thought that you, who had stood trembling in my kitchen after your own mother outed you, would know to keep quiet. You were afraid Tia Belinda would start a fight that Thanksgiving, and I said to you that if we had to fight, I would fight. I told you that in my home, you would always find allies. That so long as I was there, you would never have to fight the people you love.
I suppose finding out from my sister, two years later, that you had told your mother and brother about me almost immediately after we'd spoken by that river, shouldn't have been a surprise. They were your immediate family, and I assumed you knew your home to be a safe space, too. But it isn't just your mother and brother who know, is it?
I found out what happened this Wednesday, at 7:18pm, as I walked to the 4 train from my college, bags on either hand, my knuckles freezing in the biting wind. I was talking to my mother and she said to me, "Tia Belinda knows you're gay."
Do you remember the terror you felt when you came out to me? The tears you had to hold back, five Thanksgiving's ago, when I told you I would fight this particular battle against our family? Do you remember trying, with an almost obsessive fervor, to find that one priest, amidst all the Catholics, who would tell you that you weren't going to hell? Do you remember how much Tia Belinda scared you?
I stood in front of the Borough Hall train station, with the wind punching every bit of skin I'd left uncovered, for half an hour. I was carrying the rest of Thanksgiving dinner in my hands, my body protesting against a virus that was going to hit me by midnight. I don't have to tell you how hard it is to breathe when someone takes the deepest, most secret part of who you are, and throws it in front of a mob that hasn't made up its mind whether to destroy you or not. I don't have to tell you how hard it is to love someone the best, the way we love Tia Belinda, and expect her to hate us for something we cannot change.
You told your mother and she told all of them, and while I can forgive you for being afraid, for wanting company, for wanting, even, to throw attention away from you, I cannot forgive your mother. She does not understand the fear. She does not understand the way our faith pushed us to the darkest of choices, where there was our faith, our family, or ourselves, but where at the end there was always hell. Do you remember how wanting to live became the same as wanting to die? How every choice you and I made became a desperate reach to earn enough points to save ourselves from damnation? How we were told, from every direction, that it didn't matter what we did, if we wanted to save ourselves, we had to choose to bury who we were?
I wanted to die, Rosa. I wanted to die, and all the thank you's in the world couldn't change that. That you were grateful for what I told you didn't mean that I wasn't as lost or as scared. That I would have fought Tia Belinda for you didn't mean that when I came out to you, I would be any better at fighting the people I love. I can forgive you, even though you never asked for my forgivness. But this year, I cannot forgive you mother.
I cannot sit at the table next to her and say that I'm thankful for all of my family. She does not know how how hard it was to breathe Wednesday night, how she threw in my face a confrontation I wasn't ready to have. I love Tia Belinda, and even though my mother says she took it well, I was afraid to see her on Thanksgiving. Your mother did that. She made me afraid on a day we made for family, on a day I should have sat next to Tia Belinda and let her comb my hair.
Do you remember, Rosa, how good we got at hiding in plain sight? Because I do.
I forgive you, Rosa, but I cannot thank you. I cannot thank your mother, and it will be a long time before I can find it in me to spend time with either of you. Do not take this the wrong way though. We are family after all, and as you and I both know, we must love and protect our family.
Because that is what we know, isn't it, Rosa?
Isn't it?
Sincerely,
Ana
P.S. Happy Thanksgiving.
We don't celebrate Thanksgiving. We eat the turkey, and we do the stuffing, and we sit at the tables and spend time with each other. But we don't do it for the White people. We do it because we've worked all year and this is a day off, and even if some of us don't get paid, we appreciate the chance to just sit at home and rest. We talk about what's been happening, how the deaths in the family this year have affected us, how Tia Estela is still a fresh wound that pulses everytime we look to the right and see her daughters sitting at her spot on our table.
You and I are cousins, and even if you said the death of Tia didn't affect you too much, I know you felt it anyway. She was kind to us, and she always gave the best Christmas presents. Even if she hadn't, she was always the calmest, easy with a smile that light up like a Chrsitmas tree. She was family, and to us, that means everything.
Or it should.
You said to me, on that Monday, five years ago, that you trusted me because I was family. You were shaking, your eyes on the floor, hand on the doorknob so that I wouldn't be in the way of your exit. I recognized the signs, even if it took me three more years to feel them myself. I backed off, told you I was here. I said we were family, and to me, that was stronger than whatever you may have said or done.
You said, thank you, and then you told me you were gay. Three years later, as we stood in the corner of Jay Street and Benson Avenue, waiting for the light to change so we could walk to Red Mango, I told you the same thing. You weren't the first person I told, but you were the one person who I thought would understand, the one person who had stood before me, trembling under the weight of our family's sins and our Church's ignorance, and asked me to accept you. You had felt the same suffocation of the condemned, the desperation of the doomed, and you'd asked me to help you. When we stood at that corner, the river to our left, a small street to the right, buildings on either side, shielding us from the wind, I asked you for the same.
I didn't think I had to tell you to keep it a secret. I thought that you, who had stood trembling in my kitchen after your own mother outed you, would know to keep quiet. You were afraid Tia Belinda would start a fight that Thanksgiving, and I said to you that if we had to fight, I would fight. I told you that in my home, you would always find allies. That so long as I was there, you would never have to fight the people you love.
I suppose finding out from my sister, two years later, that you had told your mother and brother about me almost immediately after we'd spoken by that river, shouldn't have been a surprise. They were your immediate family, and I assumed you knew your home to be a safe space, too. But it isn't just your mother and brother who know, is it?
I found out what happened this Wednesday, at 7:18pm, as I walked to the 4 train from my college, bags on either hand, my knuckles freezing in the biting wind. I was talking to my mother and she said to me, "Tia Belinda knows you're gay."
Do you remember the terror you felt when you came out to me? The tears you had to hold back, five Thanksgiving's ago, when I told you I would fight this particular battle against our family? Do you remember trying, with an almost obsessive fervor, to find that one priest, amidst all the Catholics, who would tell you that you weren't going to hell? Do you remember how much Tia Belinda scared you?
I stood in front of the Borough Hall train station, with the wind punching every bit of skin I'd left uncovered, for half an hour. I was carrying the rest of Thanksgiving dinner in my hands, my body protesting against a virus that was going to hit me by midnight. I don't have to tell you how hard it is to breathe when someone takes the deepest, most secret part of who you are, and throws it in front of a mob that hasn't made up its mind whether to destroy you or not. I don't have to tell you how hard it is to love someone the best, the way we love Tia Belinda, and expect her to hate us for something we cannot change.
You told your mother and she told all of them, and while I can forgive you for being afraid, for wanting company, for wanting, even, to throw attention away from you, I cannot forgive your mother. She does not understand the fear. She does not understand the way our faith pushed us to the darkest of choices, where there was our faith, our family, or ourselves, but where at the end there was always hell. Do you remember how wanting to live became the same as wanting to die? How every choice you and I made became a desperate reach to earn enough points to save ourselves from damnation? How we were told, from every direction, that it didn't matter what we did, if we wanted to save ourselves, we had to choose to bury who we were?
I wanted to die, Rosa. I wanted to die, and all the thank you's in the world couldn't change that. That you were grateful for what I told you didn't mean that I wasn't as lost or as scared. That I would have fought Tia Belinda for you didn't mean that when I came out to you, I would be any better at fighting the people I love. I can forgive you, even though you never asked for my forgivness. But this year, I cannot forgive you mother.
I cannot sit at the table next to her and say that I'm thankful for all of my family. She does not know how how hard it was to breathe Wednesday night, how she threw in my face a confrontation I wasn't ready to have. I love Tia Belinda, and even though my mother says she took it well, I was afraid to see her on Thanksgiving. Your mother did that. She made me afraid on a day we made for family, on a day I should have sat next to Tia Belinda and let her comb my hair.
Do you remember, Rosa, how good we got at hiding in plain sight? Because I do.
I forgive you, Rosa, but I cannot thank you. I cannot thank your mother, and it will be a long time before I can find it in me to spend time with either of you. Do not take this the wrong way though. We are family after all, and as you and I both know, we must love and protect our family.
Because that is what we know, isn't it, Rosa?
Isn't it?
Sincerely,
Ana
P.S. Happy Thanksgiving.
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