Gay Men and the death of mothers: some positive thoughts

One of our Mothership Gay Dating members, piratepete, has just lost his mother. We post the usual condolences, but feel it’s far from enough. It’s a time of extreme anguish we have in the end to all  go through alone.

Even a deeply held faith may help little at first; we begin to question everything we’ve been taught, and can acept no facile answers. Guilt comes like an unexpected tsunami, though we hardly know why, erupting from some reccessed honeycomb of the soul, terribly laying waste our immediate pleasures and future plans.

It’s a given that gay men are devoted to their mothers - they carried us for nine months, protected and made sacrifices for us in early years, and at best stood by us when they found out our sexual proclivities. I recall entering the hospital room where my own mother lay dead, and how the tears shot out of my eyes like some lachrymal orgasm. Gay men probably find it more difficult than their straight counterparts to cut free from the apron strings, and it’s essential to our wellbeing that we do so in the living years.

Suddenly, we need the composure of a sage. Of course, few of us are, and death (especially our own) is something we should prepare for as we go through life. This doesn’t mean being gloomy, it means training for our eventual leavetaking as assiduously as we would plan  for a special and important journey.

One of the Chinese ancients said: “Just surrender to the cycle of things. Give yourselves to the wave of Great Change. Neither happy nor afraid. And when it is time to go, then simply go - without any unnecessary fuss”. Another advised: “Be simple and true to your own nature. Be selfless and at peace with the way things are.”  There’s a lot to be said for reading and studying the words of those who have marched to a different drummer.

The literature of gay death is mostly AIDS-related, but contains the quiet heroism of very young men trying to articulate and come to terms with a virus that violently wrenched them from lives of great warmth and beauty. Paul Monette’s, ‘Borrowed Time’ is a classic of the era of the first wave, tenderly describing the loss of his lover to a largely unknown enemy, before later succumbing himself.

All of us know the parable of the prodigal son; he squandered his inheritance and messed up his life, then went home to ask forgiveness. His father, rather than throwing him out, threw open his arms and called for a feast in his son’s honour. The psychologist Jung says somewhere that the story is unbalanced; it would be much better if his mother was mentioned too. Funnily enough in the non-canonical Aquarian Gospel, it reads: “The door was opened; and he found his mother’s welcome, and his father’s welcome.” The mother is spoken of first, so even Jesus recognises the mother -son link so precious to gay men.

My mother used to rally and say after we had some little disagreement, that I’d miss her when she was gone. That was very true for a while, but as the years have passed I often pass the day of her death without remembering it, which is a sure sign of healing. I like to remember her, and all those I have known best, smiling and bathed in sunlight. Better that than visiting graves, and dragging the grim train of death through life. We may be inclined to enjoy vampire tales, but what we really relish is the promise of immortality. We experience resurrection in our overcoming of loss.

 Yes, piratepete will be back with us when the storm is over, hoisting his colours, sails streaming before a fairer wind.

 By John Hartley

(c)  Copyright 2010.  All rights reserved.

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Danny La Rue’s Funeral
Elton John and the Gay Jesus Movement