So, mom called to tell me about Dave’s passing. Dave was the significant other of my gay uncle (on mom’s side) for a few decades. Keep in mind, I barely know the guy, she had to remind me of his name. Nor did she tell me how he died, just that he had. But what was most interesting to me was that she said “Your uncle mike’s … paramour”. And she does tell me about the passing of all sorts of family members, most of whom I just do not know. She thought that it might matter more to me because “well, you know…”<\/p>\n
Now, she gets points for progress, but let me provide some context. The last time I recall her discussing Dave was shortly before christmas, while both me and my sisters were at home, before I was out to the family, so we’re talking at least a decade ago here. We’d gotten a card from Mike & Dave, with both names on it, and my little sister asked who Dave was. Mom’s response was a slightly strained, “Dave is Mike’s, … um, friend.” My sisters and I teased her about that one. She got flustered and said “What would you rather I say? Lovers<\/i>?!” To which my sisters cheerfully responded, “uh, yeah.”<\/p>\n
I can’t say I blame her, I’m not quite clear on what a good term to describe Mike & Dave’s relationship would be, as a distant, outside observer. Long-term lovers? Husbands? Partners? I mean, I hesitate to use the term boyfriend for something that hasn’t passed the three month mark, but it seems inadequate to describe something that has endured more than a decade. Partners seems antiseptic and filled with plausible deniability (what sort of business do you run?). Ironically, in common usage, “lovers” denotes a sexual relationship rather than a love relationship. And husbands is, of course, legally inaccurate. *shrug*<\/p>\n
On a barely related note, of my aunts & uncles, Dennis is probably the one to whom I feel closest. Sadly, that’s not saying alot. I think a better developed sense of connection to my extended family would be a very good thing. Of course, that means going to some pretty out-of-the-way locations and spending time with them. =)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
So, mom called to tell me about Dave’s passing. Dave was the significant other of my gay uncle (on mom’s side) for a few decades. Keep in mind, I barely know the guy, she had to remind me of his name. Nor did she tell me how he died, just that he had. But what … Continue reading “Mom’s still in her phase (but getting better)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1087\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}