Fellow Traveler and I spent much of last evening at a church fundraiser for our friends, a financially struggling family whose dad was diagnosed with Stage 3 melanoma and whose prognosis is pretty bleak. We held the event at the township hall down the road from our church: a spaghetti dinner, cake walk and other games of chance, and auction. Almost all our active members lent a hand in some way. We contributed two cakes and several auction items.
Our teenage friend was there with her family. She defied parental instructions by periodically coming around and talking to us until a sister or parent called her away. At one point she slipped us a piece of paper with her MySpace address.
Meanwhile, we made an effort to be friendly with the parents. At one point the mom actually took the initiative to make small talk with us.
I'd like to think that shared concern about a beloved member of our church family was able to overcome this thing between our households, at least for an evening. But I don't want to keep going back; keep starting over. I wish I could ask the adults in the family, Why?
3 comments:
Would you consider asking them why--in person or writing as might feel most comfortable for you--and with a lot of prayer support from those who care about you IRL and here in blogdom? Or would that just feel too unsafe?
Damn damn damn.
I would wish that you could find a way to call them on this, myself. It's totally inappropriate and wrong. That all you want to do is ask why seems like an incredibly gentle response.
The parents may be afraid you are 'recruiting' their daughter. Homophobia is so ingrained in some people they are not rational. Pray for the daughter and the parents.
Mother of a lesbian daughter
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