Silence Is Golden

I was lying in bed late last night listening to the rain falling outside my window and the thunder rumbling off in the distance when I had an epiphany.

MY MOM KNOWS!!!

She knows! She has to! Like Red Bricks once told me, mommas always know! The signs have pointed to it for years – I just never noticed it until now – and something happened this past week that seems to have confirmed it. Whether or not she’s willing to admit it, though, may be a different story.

Friday, I was volunteered by my dad to go with my mom and him to Lowe’s to pick up some lumber and other things he needed to do some work around the house. As a compromise to make up for taking my oh so valuable time (of doing nothing), they agreed to go to Walmart to pick up some junk I needed for my classes that start next week.

So, we get to Walmart, and my mom and I walk down the school supplies aisle. Low and behold, there’s a clearly gay guy talking to a girl at the end of the aisle. I cringe. Any second now she’s going to lean over and whisper something about him in my ear. We walk past him and the girl. Waiting, waiting. On to the next aisle… nothing! She never said a word to me about him.

Maybe I’m reading too closely between the lines here, but that – her silence – speaks volumes to me! She always has something to say about anyone who sets off her gaydar and this guy would have set it off. But she said nothing.

Every time she has said something to me in the past about a guy she thinks is gay, I quickly brush it off and change the subject. Maybe she finally realized this or saw something in my expressions that sent her the message to stop… that hearing her say those things makes me uncomfortable and that she’s talking about her own son when she talks about them.

So maybe I’ve gotten further along than I thought… and without actually doing anything to boot!