Two Letters
Tell your mum you're trans
Before my mum died, she wrote me a letter. It wasn’t a very long letter, but it’s not always the word count that matters. It couldn’t have been easy for her to write it, the nerves in her hands creating a permanent fist, completely unable as she was to lift up her arms. Dictation only possible with help from someone familiar; someone who’d be able to translate her soft vocalisations and half-nods. For somebody at the end stages of motor neurone disease, it’s fair to say it was long enough.
This letter, typed and printed out on the home printer - folded over twice and placed into an envelope - was given to me by a woman who knew she was going to die. A woman whose independence had almost completely been robbed from her over the previous 5 years. A woman who was trying to finally learn how to drive when she got the diagnosis. A woman who taught me to not judge others, just because they’re different. A woman who baked an incredible cake for me every single year. A woman who couldn’t have children biologically, so adopted me - and never, ever let me think I was anything less because of it.
I had wanted to tell my mum about all the things I was feeling. To come out to her. I wanted her to know me better - to know the real me. Before she was diagnosed with MND, I played it over in my head, again and again. I’d sit her down, just the two of us, and I’d reveal the truth to her. I never really ever had any doubts about her acceptance - I knew what sort of woman she was. She wasn’t sheltered. She wasn’t hateful. But when that diagnosis came - the devastation it wrought, I retreated. Took a step backwards. The way I saw it, she had far too much to deal with already.
And so, that letter she wrote - it wasn’t addressed to me. Not the ‘me’ of now, anyway. The name on it isn’t my name anymore. The pronouns aren’t the ones I use, and the hopes for my future she expressed for me aren’t exactly ones I recognise for myself. The ‘man’ she imagined me growing into never manifested. And strangely, despite being adopted, I now resemble her somehow. When I look in the mirror, I see her in my dark brown eyes. My hair. My height, and posture. It makes no sense, but there you go. Lots of things don’t make sense.
I still have the letter. I don’t look at it very often, because it hurts to. It reminds me of an upsetting time in my life, and it makes me think about all the things I lost when she died. All the little moments we never got to have together. How I never got to be her daughter. How I never got to know her properly as a person, the way you only can do as you get older. Everything just froze into place when I was 15. Time stopped, and what I was feeling seemed inconsequential.
She died when I was in my second year of University. Very shortly afterwards, I came out to everybody. Of course, it made everything worse - was an additional strain on a family grieving, but I just couldn’t hold it in any longer. I suppose having a parent die helps put into perspective the fragility of life. Makes you evaluate your priorities. I struggled that year - had to take a little bit of time off. Get some extensions on assignments. When I did come back though, I started seeing the University counselor. She was a kind faced, hippie-dipyish woman with wooden beads around her neck. We talked about me, mainly - but I told her about my mum. Told her about the note. Tried to communicate how complicated it all was. How messy.
She said what I should do is; I should write her a letter back - as if she were still alive. A reply to her letter. In it, I should outline all the things I always wanted to tell her, but never could. Then, she said, I should put it in a bottle, and throw it into the sea. At the time, I thought it was a really dumb idea - not just because we were in London - where there is no sea, but also because I wasn’t feeling especially spiritual. Back then, it felt like a totally ineffective solution - like a plaster over a cut artery. Almost laughable in its simplicity.
At that time, I didn’t really know what I wanted to say to my mum anymore. Nothing I could have written would have been enough. Besides, she wasn’t lost on some remote island somewhere, waiting for a note from me, she was gone. Dead. I had missed my chance - and that was my fault. The relationship I had hoped for with her was never going to happen. She’d never take me out for us to get our hair done together. Never see me get married. I knew that I was on the precipice of some of the most difficult years of my life, and she wasn’t going to be there to help me through it.
It took me a few more years to come around to the idea; before I actually put pen to paper and tried to, impossibly, put everything I was feeling into words. I wrote to my mum, and I told her how much I missed her. I told her about my transition, and about how much I was struggling. I told her about my dreams, and my heartbreaks. I told her things that are strictly between us. Then, on Brighton beach, I threw it towards the sea. I didn’t have a bottle, and so the letter got taken by the wind, careering off up the beach and missing the water entirely. I watched as it turned into litter. My cinematic moment of grief was about to become a £50 fine.
I laughed - exasperated. It was so typical. The only logical outcome that made any sense for a life that, up to now, had been nothing but disappointments. Is anything going to go right for me? Or have I messed everything up? I thought about my letter, now a piece of rubbish, blowing into the face of a litter-picker or holidaymaker. I imagined them reading it, and thinking: Wow, this is tragic. What a downer.
In the letter my mum wrote for me, aside from my dead name and the wrong pronouns and her dreams of me becoming a man, the most important thing she said was that she wanted me to be happy. This was the overarching message. I knew it wasn’t ever going to be possible for me to achieve the former, but the latter? With time, I might be able to get there… so long as I pursue what’s true to me. So long as I start being more honest with the people in my life who I care about. So long as I confront hardships with the same level of dignity as she confronted hers. So long…
The most important thing my mum taught me in my short time with her was; that being adopted never made me any less her child. That biology wasn’t what defined you. So then, I already had my answer, didn’t I?
Not being able to come out to my mum doesn’t make me any less her daughter. Whether she knew it or not.
so tender and has such a flow to read, thank you for sharing