The journey for equality: My mother's fight through my eyes.

     I'm trying to figure out the reason I'm sharing what I'm about to share. Am I doing this for myself, to vent? Am I doing this for my mother and her own struggle for confidence? Or am I doing this to lash out at all the people who strike down that very confidence to give them understanding? It's probably a concoction of all those ingredients, but for the most part it just needs to be shared.
     Growing up in a small town gives you small town experiences. I had an interesting upbringing amidst all of these experiences. I will say, for the better part of my adolescence things were normal from my point of view. I didn't know of what was happening to my family beneath it all. I had no idea. I think my parents don't regret that, because I had the privelage of two supportive parents who were seemingly in it together for many years. I was blissfully unaware of the problems that would shake everything I knew to be normal in my later teen years.
    My mother and I were not extremely close when I was a child. We loved one another, but I was always a daddy's girl. We had that bond that inheritantly comes with being a mother and daughter. But there was always a wall. For many years I thought I was the only person on the other side of that wall. For many years I wasn't aware of what was building it. I just assumed that it was how life was and I accepted it. For many years, I accepted it. Until something seemingly snapped. Like a tightly wound cord, breaking free and whipping around wildly not knowing where to land but knowing it's finally free. That cord was my mother.
    Before the cord broke, the winding began to present itself to me about 2 years before. She seemed to be pulling farther and farther away from me. My brother was in college and my dad saved face, so I felt all alone. I thought it was just me. I thought I was the only person she was distancing herself from. Little did I know that it was because she loved me too much to show me what she had become. She was in hiding. She was in hiding from her family, from her friends and most importantly, from herself. And much like a tortured prisoner, she began to whither away.
     The most interesting part about how she lost herself was not about her journey back to finding herself. It was about how she was reborn into the person she was always meant to be. She grew up her entire life knowing she was different. The social constraints set upon her by her family began the prison sentence she lived out for far too long. And the handcuffs kept getting tighter.
    I want to tell you that when she came out to me it was a joyous occasion full of love and acceptance. I want to tell you that we celebrated and rejoiced. Unfortunately, the circumstances were not set up for that to happen. I was in my blissful ignorance. And that was shattered. It wasn't that she was gay. It was that I was now like every other kid in my school. Divorced parents. I was too caught up in my torment to realize what was more important. What was about to begin. If I knew then what I know now, that day would have gone much differently.
    For a few months after the cord snapped my mother flailed. She had found her idenity, but at what cost? Naches, or even all of Yakima for that matter, is not the most progessive region. And some of her family (not all,fortunately) was at the core of it all. Most importantly the patriarchs. It was textbook growing up. She went through what most people have the privelage of experiencing in their youth, which is more acceptable from societies standards. She rebelled. She lashed out. She got it out of her system. We did not speak much for those few months. Probably for the better. She needed room to breath after being locked in a box for 46 years. I can't say I would have done it differently. I can't say I would have come out of that stronger, or even alive.
    It was a long year. There was tragedy, there was fighting. I had just started college and my father had just started a new relationship, the one that would last and I knew it. It all was ever changing for a year and half and it was shocking after 17 years of stagnancy. I would leave college and visit my mother every other weekend for fear that loneliness and hatred would do her in. And every visit was a sad struggle. Here was a woman who had finally come to terms with her inner core and what makes her alive, and she had nothing to show for it on the other side. The community didn't care for her. Some of her family cared only to change her by breaking her down. I just wanted to keep her alive. Part of me knew that we had to be strong. I knew I had to help keep her together. I knew someday that this was going to be the key that unlocks my mother and our relationship was going to thrive for it. I was very much right.
    With each visit I started noticing a light. Every new day the light got a little brighter. It wasn't hard to tell after seeing the dark clouds that had surrounded her for many months. It just kept growing. Getting brighter. I knew something was up, but I didn't pry. This wasn't just new to us all. Which is what most people didn't understand. She was new to this as well. And I wanted to keep things on her terms. I wanted her growth to feel natural to her and not forced by me or anyone else. And with every visit I learned new things about her. With every visit we grew closer and closer. What was once a cautionary trip was now something I looked forward to more and more. Then one day she told me. She had met someone, and it felt so real. I saw my mother in a way I have never seen her. I felt more connected with her as her daughter than ever before. She was my best friend. She is my best friend. She was her.
    She fell in love. She fell in love like everyone falls in love. She moved to California to be with the one she loves. She got engaged as people in love do. She became the person she was always meant to be. But, she couldn't get married.
    This may seem trivial in the whole scheme of things. She went through all of this strife and adversity, and now all she cares about it some piece of paper? Well, it was much more than that.
   Before all of this had happened, I was not an advocate for gay rights. I wasn't opposed to gay marriage. I just didn't think about it. And I didn't talk about it. Even after she came out, it was hard for me to talk about or fight for because of the stigma it had on my life and family. But the more I saw the tears roll down her cheeks and the more hatred I saw for this amazing persons happiness, the more passionate I became. I am caring for my wounded. It was a primal instinct that turned into a fire within me. I wanted to see it through. I wanted equality. I saw it as the biggest step towards my own mother feeling human. A human with rights.
    Then is happened. I woke up to a message from my mother's friend Julie talking about how happy she was for my mother and I. She was talking like I had already knew and I was so tired that it deeply confused me. I walked into my bathroom to start the shower and get ready for work. I leaned up against the sink preparing to read the message again, then I got a twinge. Could she be talking about what I think she is? Could this even be possible. I didn't even open the message fully. I went straight to Twitter. It was true.
    As I sat weeping tears of joy and disbelief in my bathroom, I didn't even compose myself to call her. I just sputter out the words through my tears.
     I am so happy for you.
    She was so happy she couldn't even speak. I think I caught her in the afterglow of realizing what had just happened. We just sat on the phone crying and laughing. Then I realized I still had to go to work so I hung up and hopped in the shower.
    This is a big deal. This means so much. I tried not to let the hate bring me down. It got the best of me at times today, but more inportantly got to my mother. Some of the people she has been fighting for years to accept her immediately brought her down. People from her own family. Someone she had shared a womb with. And that's when I realized that the fight isn't over. I wish there was a way I could show them the smiles I see. The light around her. My mother is the happiest person I know. She is so passionate about living the best life she can live , and she came to be like this all on her own. She built strength upon her own will, and I wish I could show that to them and let them know what they are missing. Show them the warrior she has become in spite of their hatred and mental abuse. But that fight is for another day.
   Don't feel bad about celebrating. Don't think that there's ever a time to stop. Celebrate this for the rest of your life and remember it as the day love won. We won. My mother won. The journey I have been on to understand today has been long and full of lessons. And I will never, ever forget or regret it.