Meeting the In-Laws

V.'s been mostly estranged from his dad for many years - decades, really - first because of the "unmarried mom" thing then of course for the queer thing. But when V found out that his dad was now in a nursing home and asking for him, he decided it was time to go up there.

It was actually a wonderfully healing weekend. Neither of us were sure of what to expect, but though V's dad isn't one to be demonstrative or be much into conversation, things went well, and by the end of our visit on Sunday, V's dad surprised the hell out of V and reached out to shake my hand goodbye then spontaneously pulled me forward to share a cheek-kiss. V was in shock, in a good way.

We also stopped by to visit V's sister, and that was so sweet. She was SO happy to see V, and very loving and affectionate towards me.

There was another start to a sweet reunion as well: We went by several of the places where V used to live in the area, and he was shocked to see that one old church building next door to one of his old houses was not only still standing (he'd been told it had been torn down) but it was actually being renovated. That church building was hugely significant to V, because it was occupied by an art colony of hippies who we now realize through our research were quite well known, and in fact were featured in a recent "Summer of Love" exhibit at the Whitney. But the main thing is that the people there were open to V hanging out there for long periods of time, coming over whenever he wanted to, and using their home/commune as an escape from the abuse he was suffering at the hands of his step-mother next door. The woman in the main couple who lived there made a huge difference in V's life, not just through her kindness and teaching and guiding V through all kinds of things, but also by very actively attempting to intervene whenever she saw V being treated abusively. Through talking to the folks who were there doing the renovations, V was able to confirm their names (he had an idea but wasn't sure) and by late that night once we were home, we'd located a way to contact them, and V sent a very moving thank you letter to that woman, for all that she did for him over 40 years ago. From everything we read about the direction her life took, I hope and mostly expect that he'll receive an equally warm and deeply healing letter back. I haven't mentioned this to V yet, but since this woman is not TOO far away (in Virginia), if she and V begin to correspond regularly, I may suggest that we ask if she would consider officiating at our ceremony. While I'd love to have a rabbi or rabbinical student officiate the Jewish ceremony that I really want, it would mean even more to me to have someone so very special to V do this very special thing for us. And from everything I've read about her, including the still-active spiritual center that she and her husband founded in AZ after they left NY, I could be very happy with someone like her officiating at our wedding even if there wasn't that connection between her and V.

Anyway, back to the in-laws. Our plans now are to visit up there every month or so, which is going to be a hit on our budget that we do NOT need, but it will be a very necessary expense. We're going to try and find a hotel with a kitchen so that we can fix most of our meals, even if all we do is bring stuff already fixed from home and heat it up, since eating out for two days almost doubles our cost for the weekend and isn't the healthiest thing to do anyway. I figure we can eat a big breakfast/early lunch before we leave home on Saturday, bring stuff for a nice relaxing dinner Saturday night and a substantial breakfast on Sunday, plus then make sandwiches and other [hopefully relatively healthy] finger-foods for the trip home. We also discovered a Trader Joe's that's right on the way, so we could pick up stuff for meals there as well, plus restock for the month.