Love Perserveres

It's Blogging for LGBT Families Day, which draws me out of my bloggy hiatus. What a year it's been, politically, in the US, for many LGBT families: so many weddings!  It's amazing how fast the political landscape in this country is changing.

I'm spending the day home with a sick child. For the zillionth time, we're watching High School Musical 2.  I've been trying to get her to drink fluids, trying to get her to rest, trying to get her to alternate activities so she doesn't just spend the whole day watching TV (even though, if there's any day to watch TV all day, it's a sick day).  I'm thinking about planning  dinner and watching our garden out the window, while also trying to finish a work report in the way one does when a child is sick and the office calls.  Pretty much, just a regular gay old day around here.

But I've got a story to tell, about love and dementia.  My mom had a stroke last fall, and then she fell getting out of bed a few months later, and the combination of the stroke and the fall and the passage of time has accelerated her dementia (where are the blogs about taking care of aging parents?).  She doesn't always make a lot of sense anymore.  But recently, this happened:

Mom: I'm glad everything worked out with you and Politica. 

Me: Yes, it really has.  It's good.

Mom: You're very happy.

Me: Yes.

Somehow, out of all the confusion, she remembers that we're happy.  And given that she declined to come to our first two ceremonies, and had a really hard time when I came out to her in the first place, I think this is really quick remarkable.  She's watching and listening and growing and learning, even though her brain is weakening.

It's nice to be loved, and it's nice to have love be noticed.  And nice that my very Catholic family has managed, in its own way, with very little explicit talk, and a lot of passage of time, to fold in two happy lesbians and their daughter.  Hurray for all of us.