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Blended Family Worth the Effort
A Path Through The Forest:
Rebecca's Story
These days the word "family" is used by
conservative politicians and Christian leaders to
draw a clear line between "us" and "them". It's
another maneuver to divide us as a nation, to set
forth the right-wing agenda and to preserve the
status quo for white heterosexual America. The
Falwells, Robertsons and Bushes want our
community to be divided - they want us to feel
rootless and to not have the support of our
biological families. They do not want us to be or
have a family.
They would certainly cringe at the thought of
a "blended family" - one in which our relatives,
lovers and friends know one another, spend time
together and, yes, even like and support each
other. Their horror at such a thing is alone well
worth the effort, not to mention the emotional
health and wholeness such a family would
provide us. During the holidays, it becomes most
important for lesbians and gays to define family
and to take the steps to blend our families of
choice and origin if that is what we choose.
It is all too common for lovers and friends to
separate during the holidays to spend time with
their biological family - more often from a sense
of obligation than desire. But as we become
more committed to the fight for self-respect and
civil liberties, honesty becomes a value we
refuse to compromise. The day will come when
"Mom and Dad will have a heart attack if they
know," and "I'm tired of living two lives" will
have to be reconciled.
Coming out to our relatives is draining, time
’ consuming and exhilarating. The trick to
remember is that it is an educational process for
everyone involved. Our parents need to go
through the same process we went through when
we acknowledged ourselves as lesbians or gays.
Persistence and patience will usually win out as
we tty to consolidate our biological family with
our chosen family. We also need to remember
that, no matter how uncomfortable at first, we
need to create or capitalize on situations where
our two families have to interact. They will
never establish a relationship unless they get to
know each other.
While in pursuit of the blended family where
our lovers, friends and relatives play charades
after a Thanksgiving meal, we must remember to
nourish and comfort our individual emotional
needs. We are buffeted from all sides by the
oncoming holiday season, and there is nothing
wrong with reserving time away to spend either
alone or with special friends. It is, if anything,
imperative that we anchor ourselves within our
chosen families and the community while we are
helping our biological family struggle with
society's homophobia.
However patient or persistent we are, there
are times when it is okay to let go, when it is
crucial to move onward. If our biological
families desert us or persistently refute us they
leave us only one choice - to leave them behind
as we get on with the rest of our lives.
The process of consolidating our families
centers around honesty, and that means honesty
with ourselves and with others. If you are forced
to choose between the two, and would rather
spend the holidays with a lover than with Mom
and Dad, then do it. And tell Mom and Dad why
you are doing it. The only good thing to come
from Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No" campaign
was the information that it is perfectly acceptable
to say no to something and stick to your
decision.
The point at which we draw our biological
families into our daily lives as gays and lesbians
will be the time when we turn the comer toward
consolidating our lives into a healthy whole. And
we will have taken a major step toward a firm
and unshakable "family".
That Falwell and his groupies will hate to see
that day is just icing on the cake.
Nine days after her death I stood in a forest
clearing, near a waterfall, one of many mourners
at a memorial service for Rebecca Wight. Her
lover was lying wounded in a guarded hospital
room hundreds of miles away. Rebecca’s sister
Evelyn conducted the memorial service. The
mourners were as diverse as Rebecca's interests,
causes and responsibilities. Faculty members
from the university's college of business where
Rebecca studied and taught stood beside long
haired men wearing sandals; members of the
campus gay group stood beside community
Rebecca Wight
leaders from our small town. The mourners
joined hands and formed a circle with
counselors, housewives, musicians, carpenters,
shopkeepers, and poets Rebecca had befriended;
teenagers and elderly people she had counseled.
We were all there to honor and remember our
friend. The service began with a Native
American ceremony to purify the forest, to
reconsecrate nature. Evelyn took sage that she
and Rebecca had grown in their garden, dried in
their kitchen; she lit it and walked our circle with
the smoking sage. Evelyn spoke of her sister's
love for nature, how she'd spent much of her life
in nature and how, on the anniversary of her
birthday, the family would scatter Rebecca's
ashes over her beloved Blue Ridge mountains.
Evelyn didn't speak of the outrage, the horror,
that had brought us to the circle in the forest
She didn't need to remind any of us that
Rebecca's brief and valuable life had abruptly
ended in nature.
The sage smoke rose through the pale lace of
new leaves and I tried to imagine Rebecca's last
day-before there was any story, only a walk in
the woods-the time just before the story, which,
if we are to believe toe telling, is about a woman
who died for loving a woman.
Rebecca had taken a long weekend away
from graduate school in Virginia to meet her
friend Claudia Brenner who was on sabbatical in
Ithaca, New York. They met as often as they
could at that halfway place along toe
Appalachian Trail in Pennsylvania. They were
lovers and friends and this was a much
anticipated reunion. Because their meeting place
was north of us and nine days earlier, I tried to
imagine toe clarity of spring light through toe
nearly bare branches of toe May forest It had
been several weeks since they'd last been
together, so toe two women must have had so
much to say of mutual friends and new events.
They probably interrupted one another often as
they caught up with all the tellings. They paid
little attention to the man who twice approached
them as they hiked toe trail. The women's feet
were silent over last season's leaf fall, but their
voices must have risen like smoke through toe
leafless trees. In toe late afternoon they found a
place, near a stream, to make camp.
In our clearing, the mourners spoke of
Rebecca and I tried to listen, but toe story came
back, intruded upon toe present and upon
imagined memory. Stephen Roy Carr walked
again and again into a different clearing, near a
stream, in another forest.
Rebecca Wight lived a life of gentleness: she
counseled at a crisis center, she was an
environmentalist, and an articulate proponent for
gun control. One minute Rebecca was resting in
late afternoon sunlight with her lover; in the
next, she was running from muzzle flashes and
gun thunder while bullets tore her flesh,
shattered her bones. Then she was dead, lying
in her own blood in a darkening forest.
At toe memorial service we read poems; a
woman minister led us in prayer; we spoke
aloud the gifts Rebecca had given to us, the
truths she taught us. During toe ceremony we
briefly left toe clearing to plant a rhododendron
tree in toe nearby woods. The children at the
service watered toe young tred and we were told
that when it bloomed toe blossoms would be
red, Rebecca's favorite color. We were giving
something back to toe forest.
A month after toe memorial service a
newspaper report of toe Gettysburg hearing of
Rebecca's murder would say she was killed
during a "lesbian encounter". Webster has three
definitions for toe word encounter, they are "1.
to meet unexpectantly; come upon 2. to meet
in conflict; engage in battle 3. to meet with,
force difficulties". Rebecca and Claudia had
been lovers for a year. Together they had
planned this time in toe forest; their friends and
families knew how eagerly each woman looked
forward to that May weekend. Yet their reunion
is called an encounter.
The report also has toe police investigator
referring to toe victims in his testimony as "toe
girls". Rebecca was 28, Claudia is 31; the 29
year old murderer is referred to in toe same
testimony as "a man. We might question if law
is capable of transcending language.
Gentle Rebecca died a violent death. But that
is not enough. Since she is dead, and all we
have of her now is toe memory of Rebecca,
memory will be put on trial, her way of loving
will be exhibited for public scrutiny. She will
not, even now, be at peace. Her murderer's
defense can be his righteous outrage.at women
who spumed his advances, who chose their own
good company over his. A rape victim wore her
clothes too tight; a battered wife failed to have
dinner ready on time; a woman died because she
loved another woman in toe forest early one
May evening. In crimes against women in this
country, it is toe victims who are put on trial.
What gave that murderer, that Stephen Roy
Carr, toe right? What made him think he could
stalk and seek to kill those women as though
they were animals in season? Carr may have
been a lunatic and homophobia may have pulled
toe trigger of his rifle, but toe persistent, archaic
sexism of our society armed that lunatic and
gave him stalking rights. In toe pre-trial hearing
at Gettysburg, Carr's attorney, Michael George,
claimed his client was provoked by his two
victims, by their disinterest in Carr and interest
in one another. George claimed toe lesbian
relationship would be an integral part of his
case. Surely there are other ways to defend mad
men? This attorney seeks to perpetrate, to
further, to encourage outrage. Who gave him
that right?
At that same hearing, Claudia Brenner
testified. Wearing toe new scars from five
bullets, her privacy was violated again and
again, her mourning disrespected by an
accusatorial line of questioning. Yet stood as an
example of strength to all people, who they
were. This woman had to defend love and a life
choice when toe crime was murder, not love, not
choice. The disparity is horrifying, yet, it seems
it will be allowed.
Near toe end of toe memorial service
Rebecca's father asked us to remember Claudia
who had struggled to save Rebecca. Rebecca's
sisters and brothers showed us that they all
Cont'd Page 5
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