1
“You must change, you don’t change, you don’t come back to this house!”
Wu Xin threw down the phone, feeling that everything she had worked so hard for was hopeless.
These years, many of her sister’s children are married, some early on the grandchildren, New Year’s Day, a family reunion is very lively, except for their own son, Xiao Xin, who is nearing the age of two girlfriends, one is not brought home. Wu Xin also did not give her son a “deadly order”, each time Xiao Xin promised to be very quick: “Mom, when I reach 30 years old, I will give you an explanation.”
However, when this “account” came, Wu Xin was dumbfounded, in her opinion, she “all the waiting and expectation are gone”.
On the phone, her son, who had just turned 30, said, “Mom, I’m gay, and I’m not going to marry a girl.”
Wu Xin was born in a family with many sisters, and her husband was a coach driver who retired and stayed home. For so many years, the two have been together, raising their son, taking care of their aging parents, and the couple has to prepare for their son’s marriage – Xiao Xin works in Shanghai, and it’s not easy to put together a down payment.
“What’s wrong? Had a fight with your son?”
“No …… nothing.” Faced with her husband’s concern, Wu Xin clumsily concealed her inner turmoil.
The husband saw that nothing was asked and turned his head back to watch TV. The first time she discussed this with her husband, she asked him to push the child, and each time her husband advised her in turn, “Let’s just let nature take its course.”
“Let nature take its course, let nature take its course, look at what our son has become!” The thought that her husband was not concerned about her son’s life, Wu Xin’s heart was angry, and did not intend to tell her husband about her son. Whether her son is out in the world of flowers, or just curious to try, no matter what, she categorically does not accept that her son is gay.
She wants to wait until her son “changes” over.
2
One night in November 2012, He Yun steadily held the phone, ringing, she tried to control her slightly trembling voice: “Why didn’t you …… tell mom earlier?”
The seemingly reproachful tone of voice from the mouth of He Yun, thousands of miles away from He An like a relief.
From this sentence, the mother and son really reacquainted and accepted each other, and four months ago He Yun, just like a different light.
He Yun was born in an intellectual family in Guizhou, as a generation of youth who experienced the mountains and the countryside, a stable life for her has a fatal lure, after resuming work, He Yun with their own competence and knowledge, soon in the man-dominated education sector to make a world.
As the mother of two sons and the principal of a school, He Yun arranged her life and work as precisely as the schedule on the wall. With an older son by her side already married and a younger son, He An, thousands of miles away but already a gold-collar worker, He Yun is very happy with this.
In July 2012, He Yun received a phone call from He An, and after she put down the phone, she was a little happy. Since the youngest son graduated from college, the mother and son get together only a few times a year during holidays, thinking that He An is not young after all, He Yun wanted to ask him several times about his personal life, but He An always excuses himself by saying that he is busy at work. Unexpectedly, this time the young son actually had to fly back to Guizhou to attend the wedding of a classmate, although only one day, but see He An has such a “consciousness”, He Yun is very happy inside, as if soon to see the young son’s own life event can be resolved.
“Mom, let me tell you something.” After going to the banquet He An returned home, knowing that He An would be leaving the next day, He Yun, who thought it was some happy event, hurriedly pulled his young son to sit down on the sofa.
“Say it, mommy listen.”
“Mom …… I have to tell you, I’m gay.”
These three words ripped through the dark night sky like lightning.
“What did you say?!” He Yun thought his child was a little drunk.
“Mom, I said I’m gay, and I like boys.”
Three words struck He Yun’s mind, one second she was still immersed in elation, the next her brain had gone completely blank.
“Mom, Mom!” He An called He Yun several times before He Yun slowed down, her mind began to fly to retrieve everything she knew, related to homosexuality, the books she had read, the reports she had seen, the stories she had heard …… but all the things she could think of together were not enough to make He Yun’s current doubts half relieved.
“Gay people can’t get married, and they won’t have offspring of their own.” All the doubts and unanswered questions turned into great anxiety and anxiety, thinking that his son could not have a beautiful family like most people, the more He Yun thought about it the more difficult it was to control his emotions.
“These …… these are all born, not an acquired choice ah.” He An spoke intermittently, trying to comfort his mother, who was constantly in tears in front of him, but found that the other party had long been unable to listen to his words.
What is in front of him makes He An give up the possibility of explaining to his mother, he wrapped his arms around his mother, who has given birth to him for 27 years, with the constant sound of crying.
3
“I won’t let you leave the country if you are like this, you are gay, there is no hope for my life.” In the winter of 2016, Li Bing sent an angry reply in WeChat to her son, who was in college.
Two hours ago, her son Wang Lei suddenly sent a long string of text by WeChat. According to her son’s request, Li Bing retrieved a movie called “God Bless Bobby” on her computer and jumped to finish the film, those big conversations were too raw and boring for her, and it seemed that the ending of the characters in it was also eight sticks away from her.
Before that, Wang Lei had been the “other people’s child” in all people’s eyes since he was a child, and he had already started the process of applying to study abroad after studying at a 985 university. Although Li Bing and her husband’s income is not high, but the good thing is that their son’s grades can get a scholarship, the two together, the study abroad funds will not be a problem.
After Li Bing finished watching the movie, her son went on to send a very long epistle. Her eyesight was not very good, and the words on her phone were a little too dense to read, so Wang Lei manually typed again.
“Mom, when you finish watching this movie, I think you guessed what I want to say, yes, I am the same as the boys in the movie, I like the boys too ……
It is too sad to keep a secret in the bottom of your heart for 20 years, after going to college, I know I have to make plans for my future, I want to wait until I am older to study abroad and work to be independent before telling you, but it is too torturous to keep this secret every day ……
If my existence makes you sad and sad, I will be sad, but please imagine what I have experienced these 20 years, I can not imagine, for a child, what in this world than to hide their true nature 20 years more difficult things.”
Li Bing, who had finished reading the letter, had long forgotten the scene in the movie where the hero fell off the bridge, and she began to worry about her son.
“Son isn’t this a disease for you?”
“It’s not a disease.”
“Will not change?”
“There is no other choice.”
“What do you make us parents do like this, no one’s parents can accept it.”
“Why would it be unbearable?”
“My son is like this, we can’t hold our heads up for the rest of our lives, we don’t have that here.”
“So I have to be productive, don’t I?”
“Will you never marry a woman in your life?”
“No.”
“I never dreamed you would be like this.” These were the last words left by Li Bing.
Stills from the movie “God Bless Bobby” Li Bing retrieved a movie called “God Bless Bobby” on the computer
Wang Lei on the other end of the phone was in a deep tangle, should he take his leg out or take it back?
In the process of preparing to study abroad, he had already met many of his kind, the vast majority of whom were planning to come out after settling abroad, or even simply go far away to a foreign country and never look back.
“I think it’s easier for them to accept that I’m a straight guy who doesn’t want to marry a girl than a gay guy. And so what if my parents accept it, those relatives are the main conflict, so want to live in peace around Mom and Dad? Does not exist.” Wang Lei deeply agreed with this view.
A more difficult problem is also in front of Wang Lei, only relying on scholarships without relying on family assets to prove that his road to study abroad is to be postponed indefinitely, even if he relies on himself to save money after graduation, “the money has not been saved enough, they first save are old.
Wang Lei felt that he could not afford it, which is not what Wang Lei wants to see.
“Okay mommy, the joke ends here.” He thought back and forth for a few minutes, and sent a screenshot that he and his classmates had made up, the content is a conversation with a classmate, the conversation, he explained the conversation with his mother as a “sociological survey”.
“Baby you scared mommy, you do not explain to mommy tonight, I will die!”
Wang Lei used a fabricated reason to quickly end the conversation, out of the locker of a leg or retracted, which means that the matter of leaving the country temporarily do not worry.
4
“You should not joke with your life.” The doctor painstakingly advised the hospital bed Zhou Li, “you as a senior maternal pregnancy is already at risk, you so repeated abortions on the body’s impact is great, it may be life-threatening.”
The 37-year-old Zhou Li can not remember how many times she had a miscarriage, despite her careful preparation for pregnancy, but also took the initiative to come to the hospital to keep the baby, but the child still did not keep.
Zhou Li eagerly asked the doctor, “Can I have another baby?”
“It depends on the situation. What you need most now is rest.” As an obstetrician, I’ve seen a lot of the hardships of preparing for pregnancy at an advanced age, but it’s not common to have repeated pregnancies and miscarriages like Zhou Li, who already has a healthy child.
In the face of the doctor’s questions, Zhou Li turned her head to the side silent, the doctor will no longer ask, and the ward compared to those young maternity, the senior Zhou Li like an alien, she did not talk to others, until a few days later her family picked her up and discharged.
After being discharged, Zhou Li went to see a famous local Chinese doctor and got the answer that she needed to “recuperate”. After a few days, the dusty casserole was turned out, every day, stewing on the fire with a variety of unknown plants, looking at the black juice bubbles, Zhou Li as if she saw a new life beckoning, hold back the strange smell, bowl after bowl of bitter black water poured into the stomach.
Zhou Li is filled with only one thought: get pregnant and then have another.
Zhou Li went to work in the community early on, worked as a stall, and then started her own business, after several ups and downs, her clothing business to a million scale, at that time, 21 years old, she also had her own son, Xiao Long.
But now, the original peace of mind to enjoy life Zhou Li, but “want a second child” torture hysterical.
The two of them have less time to meet after entering the key middle school at the age of 16. Thinking of the rebelliousness that adolescent boys may have, she also specifically advised Xiaolong not to fall in love and wait until he was in college, to which Xiaolong agreed. The fact that Xiaolong has top grades in school and has not been involved in close relationships with the opposite sex makes Zhou Li very satisfied.
It all happened in the summer of 2012, Zhou Li was thinking about her future life, while she finished cleaning her son’s room, just when she was packing the things in the trash can and dumping them, a white tissue paper attracted her, with curiosity, she carefully unfolded the tissue paper, a milky white translucent stuff was presented in front of her eyes – a used condom.
Zhou Li hesitated for a few seconds, thinking that the more she thought about it, the more wrong it was. Xiaolong did not have a girlfriend, so how could there be …… Wait, Zhou Li remembered that she had something to do last night and could not go home, and Xiaolong said she would take a “close male classmate” home ……
The home of Xiaolong is still immersed in the joy of a short period of freedom, until the discovery of frowning mother, the expression also followed by the gloomy up.
Zhou Li did not beat around the bush: “You said, are you gay?”
“Yes.” Xiaolong did not hold back. He knew very well not to presume to change the thoughts of the previous generation, nor to doubt their love for him. Perhaps every generation has something stubbornly unrelenting to die for.
5
Wu Xin describes herself as having had a year of purgatory.
For a whole year, she had no contact with her son, and whenever her husband and son were talking on the phone, she turned her head to the side or simply left. Prior to this, Wu Xin also struggled with her inner self, but she kept reminding herself that she couldn’t back down, yet what else could she do?
The first few times her strategy worked, as soon as her son called back, Wu Xin went on the offensive: “Look, someone else had another baby, we don’t ask you for much, we just hope we can be grandparents someday, sooner or later.” She put her tone as gentle as possible, trying to get her son to listen to her “teachings” in this way.
Within a few days, her communication with her son became less and less, and the content of communication became: When will you find a girlfriend? When will you get married?
After a short while, her son simply stopped calling back, and Wu Xin no longer took the initiative to call. On the contrary, the husband and son communication became more, father and son in the phone like two brothers talking about the world, so that the side of Wu Xin very uncomfortable.
“It’s hard to feel bad, it’s up to others.” Wu Xin thought, how I am the mother of my son, he will have to come to me one day. The reason for this is that throughout 2012, she did not contact her son again, both of them waiting for the other who compromised first.
In 2013, the deadlock between mother and son was still broken by her son Xiao Xin, that summer, Xiao Xin called his mother: “Retired at home for so long, I’ll invite you out for a trip.” Wu Xin was a bit indecisive, and her husband interjected, “Since my son invited me, let’s go.” Wu Xin did not know what happened next, she was still figuring out if she wanted to talk to her son about a lifelong event.
The heat wave in Fuzhou in September had not yet faded, Xiao Xin took Wu Xin around town first, and by the next day, the crowded hotel, so that Wu Xin thought it was some kind of pyramid scheme to meet, and so by the time she was coaxed by her son into the conference room, it was jammed with people. The participants were clearly divided into two categories – parents and children. It was indeed a meeting, an offline event about homosexuality to be exact.
On that occasion, Xiao Xin also took to the stage to speak about his sexual orientation, which became clear when he was 15 years old and then hid it for 15 years before telling his parents. For the first time, Wu Xin heard that her son had suffered years of repression and anxiety in silence.
After the seminar, Xiao Xin introduced his boyfriend Xiaotao to Wu Xin, who also met his “in-laws”. Xiao Xin confessed that he and Xiao Tao have been getting along for many years, has been suffering from no opportunity to explain to the family, now participate in the forum is a serious illness under the strong medicine.
A doubtful explanation, accompanied by the birth of another doubtful. Wu Xin’s trip to Fujian ended, along the way she was thinking, other people’s families are peaceful and harmonious, but why should their own families suffer because of their own private thoughts? She did not want to continue.
Before saying goodbye Wu Xin said to her son, “No matter what, you are my son.”
When she returned home, her husband was also beating the drum on the side: “All out to play and meet with her son, and still unhappy, is there something wrong?” Before the whole year, Wu Xin countless times want to tell her husband the real side of her son, but worried about how to do in case the father and son turned against each other, but her husband took the initiative to ask, Wu Xin finally decided, the year or so of experience, told her husband exactly.
The husband felt the pressure of his son, and his own year-round running around is no different. After half an hour of communication with his wife, the husband copied the phone, “Son, we accept you, as long as you live a happy and healthy life.”
As a father, he also blamed himself a little: “You should have told dad earlier so that he could share with you.”
6
He An was not at all unprepared, after he left, He Yun found a stack of reading materials that his son had left on the coffee table, a copy of “My Gay Child” by an author named Aunt Lotus Root, similar in age to He Yun, and a copy of “Knowing Gay People”, a beautifully printed science booklet.
He Yun still spent a week to read the two booklets, but bigger questions emerged: Is there something wrong with their own education? Why did one of the two children already have a family and children, while the other was gay?
The stubborn woman had to find out. With professional instincts and curiosity, He Yun began searching the Internet for information about homosexuality.
On November 11, 2012, in a park on the outskirts of Guiyang, hundreds of young men and women of all shapes and sizes gathered in what appeared to outsiders to be an ordinary Hanukkah party, but “insiders” knew that it was a matchmaking event organized by the local gay community in Guiyang.
“I’m not like you, I’m straight, but I’m also like you, because I have a son who is gay.” He Yun introduced himself.
When He Yun searched the Internet and found that there was a local gay community in Guiyang, she made up her mind to find out what the real gay individual was like, whether it was the “decadent Western lifestyle” she had once known, or whether it was “just a different choice for another part of the population,” as the brochure said.
When He Yun finished introducing himself, the same-sex matchmaking-themed party fell silent and broke out into sustained applause. Soon a few young people took the initiative to communicate with He Yun, and the name “Mama Yun” spread – it turns out that there are parents who can accept their gay children.
He Yun has understood that homosexuality is just a pebble that has been sleeping in the riverbed of history, but this pebble also has an unknown side – at school, you have to try to hide it, or you will be bullied; in the workplace, you can’t say anything about your love life; the most difficult thing is still the family, in the face of the urging to start a family, most homosexuals will hide their identity and marry a person of the opposite sex, and the lie will only bring more pain.
He Yun will never forget when leaving the party, the pair of red eyes crying, they are similar to their own son, or even younger, but in front of life has to carry all kinds of pressure.
Back home, He Yun serious thinking, only to understand those children’s experience, 27-year-old He An also experienced, as a mother can not do anything about it?
He Yun figured it out, and that’s how the article began with that phone call: “You should have told mom earlier, so you could have been less tangled, less painful for so many years.”
For He An, who was still excited and confused at the other end of the phone, the heart that was hanging in mid-air finally fell.
He Yun also thought of those young people at the party, the pair of restless and expectant eyes, what should they do?
7
In 2013, He Yun made a bold decision to gather local gay parents in Guizhou, hoping to work together to help families still struggling and struggling to recognize and accept their gay children.
At first, He Yun was still a bit scared, after all, being an educator for more than 30 years, she would be recognized when she walked down the street.
But the support of her family revived her. He Yun’s sister told her, “It is because homosexuality is not yet understood that it has brought endless suffering to countless families and individuals, and more understanding means less tragedy.”
Soon, more and more parents joined her, and this included Wu Xin and her husband. Each time she shared, Wu Xin would relate her year-long struggle with her son, and since she and her husband accepted Xiao Xin and Xiao Tao, the two families have become closer, and in Wu Xin’s own words, “Our family is no less red-hot than other heterosexual families.”
Zhou Li is still not pregnant after all the tossing and turning. At a sharing session, Zhou Li said while wiping away tears from the corners of her eyes, “I’m just worried that if he’s alone in the future and doesn’t have children, who will take care of him when he’s old?” The understanding Xiaolong on the side kept comforting her mother.
Zhou Li, who has friends who are gay in real life, was dismayed to learn that her son, Xiaolong, was gay. She didn’t ask her son to have a child and didn’t blame him, but the failure to get pregnant again and again made her fall into worrying about Xiaolong’s future life.
Xiaolong did bring his boyfriend home that day, and after admitting to his mother that he was gay, it did not spark a fight between mother and son. But he was still stung when he happened to learn that his mother actually wanted to try to have another brother or sister because of himself – he had thought that his mother’s lack of opposition meant that she accepted him, but he didn’t know the sacrifices his mother had made behind the scenes.
After some careful thought, he began to search the Internet for “gay mothers”, and soon he found He Yun.
After listening to He Yun and Wu Xin’s story, Zhou Li realized that once she also had one or the other worry, those others family ups and downs, are not as warm as their own family harmony, after all, the child is their own. What she expects now is that her son will have a partner who can support each other.
In June 2015, Wu Xin’s son Xiao Xin and his partner Xiao Tao went through the marriage process in the U.S. The two framed their marriage certificate and hung it in the new house they purchased together in Shanghai. What Wu Xin wants is for the two to work hard and strive for legal surrogacy to have a child of their own.
And until this year, Wang Lei still can only quietly wait, the procedures for leaving the country has not been done, he can not say anything, can only wait to embark on a foreign country alone, and then start a new life. This road is not good.
(All characters are pseudonyms)
Recent Comments