I have always been aware of how fortunate I am to have such loving parents. When I was a young adult, I became conscious that losing a parent would be the hardest thing I would encounter during my lifetime. Someone important once told me, "The more love you have for someone, the harder it will be to let them go." Indeed, in late 2018, when I received the news that my Dad had been diagnosed with cancer, the fear and absolute dread of losing a parent became less distant and more prevalent in my life. After his death, even as a world traveler, adjusting to a world without my Dad has felt more foreign over the last eight months than any of the 45+ countries I have visited or lived in. In addition, I have learned that grief accompanies - and stirs - other complex emotions.
My Dad giving a prayer at church
I did not envision that I would revisit a childhood trauma when returning to the church for my Dad's memorial service. In fact, I told my partner that it felt like returning to the scene of a crime. My Dad was a minister, so we spent a lot of time at church. In fact, my faith was very important to me. However, the church became a place where I was traumatized and hurt very deeply by the head pastor, the person in power, when I came out as gay at age 19. The head pastor, who congregants looked to for inspiration and spiritual guidance, invited me out for dessert after I told my Dad I was gay. In a public place, I was told that homosexuality is a sin. I was told that Jesus loves the sinner but hates the sin. I was told to return to the church to get back on track with God's eternal plan for me. I was told that I shouldn't tell anyone about my sin. I was told that if I wanted to go to heaven one day, I couldn't act on my homosexuality. I was told I would live 10 years less than heterosexuals because gay people were unhappy. I was told I would go to hell for my sin if I didn't change my mind. When I tried to share that my Dad expressed his love and support when I came out, I was told my Dad had to love me because he was my parent but that my Dad disagreed with my sin. I felt shame, quietly cried, and said no more. After 19 years of being faithful to the church, my fight-or-flight instincts kicked in, and I fled the church.
After my Dad left the church to work at Hospice many years later, I told my Dad what happened. He cried, reminded me of his love for me, and shared that his own beliefs had evolved beyond the church. Fast forward nearly 25 years later, and the former head pastor was at my Dad's memorial service. Mind you, this was unexpected since he was no longer the pastor due to what I generally understood to be infidelity with a church member. After I gave my eulogy and the service was over, he approached me. He did not express his condolences. Instead, he forced a hug on me and apologized for “some things [I may] have said” all those years ago. He told me that I should forgive him since “[I am] a flawed man.” I did not agree to forgive him. I told him that even though it was a harmful situation for me, I was fortunate to have a father who loved me unconditionally. After some reflection in the months after, I decided that it is not up to me to forgive him or not forgive him. In addition to being poorly timed, this encounter at my Dad's memorial service did not feel like an apology, but instead like him clearing something that had weighed on his conscience for 25 years. In my mind, there are several more appropriate ways an apology could have played out (hint: perhaps not the day someone says goodbye to their loved one), so let this be a lesson for "how not to apologize."
Beyond this one encounter, other hurtful things happened the day of my Dad’s memorial at the scene of the crime. The head pastor at the time who led the memorial excluded my partner’s name as he expressed sympathy for me, my mom, my brother, and my brother's wife. A few family members, deacons, and former Sunday school teachers also avoided me in the condolences line, and the video from the memorial service magically disappeared. While I’ll never know for sure, it is logical to think that these things happened because of the eulogy I gave, where I described my Dad's unconditional love after telling him that I am gay and that my faith had evolved beyond the church I grew up in.
Of course, there were some healing moments at the scene of the crime. More people expressed love, support, and gratitude for what I shared about my Dad than those who avoided me. Many expressed their genuine appreciation for my Dad because he had been the one person in the church who had been loving and helpful to them during moments of hardship throughout their lives. And while I understand that there are good people in churches who simply love their God, I finally came to terms with the reality that there are harmful and radical institutions behind the church that are often not visible to congregants and that seek power and control above all else. While being queer isn't always easy, I am quite relieved coming out meant that "I fled" an institution that more often harms people who don't fit a "traditional" mold than heals.
My Dad at church
Grief is strange. In fact, each day, I find myself not only missing my Dad, but wishing that I could talk to him about things like this. It isn’t lost on me that my relationship with my Dad is why I dared to share who I am and who my Dad was from the pulpit of the very church that harmed me. On the other hand, it took losing him to begin to heal from a harm that has lingered for 25 years. While I knew the grief of losing my Dad would be unimaginable, I had no idea there would be so many layers of complexity involved in the process of grieving.