In His Image: A Mother’S Reflection on Homosexuality

By Carol Nesbit

A beautiful book a moving saga of small and tragic yet joyful revelations.
Ned OGorman, poet; author of the article Untouchable for Commonweal Magazine

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Aug 21, 2013
• ISBN: 9781490801889

Carol Nesbit

Gifted with the grace to see God’s presence in all that is good, beautiful, and true— especially in all people regardless of their faith, race, ethnicity, or sexuality—Carol Nesbit shares in this book the poignant story of how she had to struggle to see the face of Jesus in her very own son. A former high school teacher of world literature and creative writing, twice honored by the University of Chicago as Outstanding English Teacher, Carol shares her story in the hope of helping other parents of gay children accept and love them unconditionally—as God intends.

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Copyright © 2013, 2014 Carol Nesbit.

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ISBN: 978-1-4908-0189-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-0190-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-0188-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013912704

Printed in the United States of America.

WestBow Press rev. date: 12/11/2014

God did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all; how can He fail to lavish every other gift upon us? Who will bring a charge against us? Not God who acquits. Who will pronounce judgment? Not Christ who is at God’s right hand and pleads our cause! Then what can separate us from the love of Christ?

… I am convinced that there is nothing in death or life, in the realm of spirits or superhuman powers, in the world as it is or the world as it shall be, in the forces of the universe, in heights or depths—nothing in all creation that can separate us from the Love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

(Romans 8:32–35 and 38ff)

In

His

Image

N o one is able to pull the wool over her own eyes as well as a mother who perceives a difference that separates her child from all others. When my son Brian was only three years old, I saw him hide his penis between his thighs while having a bath with his older brother. I was overwhelmed by an intuition that what he did was rooted in a homosexual attitude.

But I had been raised to take the church’s word as if it were the Gospels, and at twenty-eight I was not ready for the awful conflict between my obedience to the church and my love for my son. Consequently, I relegated this fact to the lockbox of my mind. Many years later, long after Brian had declared who he was, I wrote a poem acknowledging all that I had realized.

Lessons in Manhood

The boy can’t sleep.

Over and over he imagines

a handful of beans

mashed all over his brother’s face

at the little table they share

behind his parents’ big one

because his brother was whining

and wouldn’t eat.

He doesn’t know why

the idea of those beans

mashed on his brother’s face

doesn’t make him laugh

like the cartoons they watch on TV.

He doesn’t know why; he knows

only

how his stomach is churning,

stuffed with too many beans

choked down because he was scared,

scared of his brother’s breathless crying,

of how his mother looked.

In the bathtub,

he hides his penis between his legs,

afraid of this part of himself.

So like his father.

Hey, fellas, come on. Let’s fight,

his father calls after a quiet meal.

His brothers bound

into the family room;

he lags behind

wishing

for someone to come

to stop this torment.

"Here, take these blocks;

build a fort."

He watches walls rise against him.

His mother comes silently

into the room where he’s trying to hide

behind her winged chair,

away from his father’s eyes.

But his father singles him out.

Let’s get him, guys.

His brothers catapult for him,

laughing.

He cannot escape their impact;

the relentless slow pace of his father

numbs him in place.

He sees his mother’s hands unclench

whenever his father leaves;

he wishes his father gone for good.

Long after his wish is granted,

he cries often at night,

convinced of his own brutal power.

As Brian grew older, he not only hated to play-fight with his father and brothers but also disdained sports in favor of more creative pursuits.

My reaction to these further differences in Brian only made me jam the truth still more deeply into my mind’s lockbox. After all, I rationalized, I was much too intelligent a person to be frightened by old stereotypes. Besides, I was in the know. I’d had homosexual friends since my college years, and I was open-minded, accepting, and certainly uncritical of gay people.

How clever and foolish I was at that time, refusing to acknowledge that the mere and tremendous fact that the person in question was my son was making me blind. Unhappily, I could not even discuss the issue with my husband because he was not a man to whom communication came easily. I also believe that he, too, would have found it hard to face the truth about Brian. Looking back, however, I do think one incident from Brian’s first year shows that my husband was not totally unaware of Brian’s difference. I was out shopping one day when Brian was only eight months old, and I came home to find that all of his long golden curls had been shorn—down to a crew cut. I’m reasonably certain his father gave Brian so drastic a cut because, wherever we went, people would compliment us on our very beautiful little girl. That