The Wedding: A Family's Coming Out Story (16 page)

            “The
Rabbi basically gave him exactly what he wanted. When, where, how, even
if
we
have a wedding is, as far as they’re concerned, out of our hands.”

            “I
really don’t know where you’re getting all this from. I wish you would just
calm down, and let it go. Nothing happened in there.”

            “How
can you say that?” I was getting really revved up now. It was one thing to have
the Rabbi subvert what I saw as the real issues, but another entirely to have
my own husband-to-be deny that his father was about the yank the plug on our
plans. “Even though he had some problems with this, it sounded like your father
was coming around. Remember the last time we were in Montreal? We were at
dinner at Le Latini? It was the first time we’d sat around together and talked
about the wedding. And he actually sounded fine to me. OK, we didn’t get into
great specifics. You and I hadn’t even worked out any of those for ourselves.
But he sounded
fine.
FINE!

            Then
I dredged up a particularly incongruous moment from a batch of memories,
moments now tainted by this rabbinical encounter:

           
“Do
you remember?”
– I spun the question into an accusation – “Your father
suggested –
he actually suggested -”
I sputtered, recalling the scene
now with bitter irony. “He even suggested we do a videotaped invitation!
Remember, I was working for Oprah at the time? And he said, ‘Why don’t you ask
if she’ll read a line or two on camera’. I could swear to you he wasn’t
kidding, either. Now, forget for a second that she’d never do it, and put aside
the fact that you know I’d never get into an intimate conversation with Oprah,
let alone ask her to appear on a wedding invitation videotape – but your father
seemed really enthusiastic, even ticked by the idea. I figured it showed he had
started to put aside his fears and get into the spirit with us. So what’s
happened?”

            Andrew
remained stone silent, so I answered myself. “We decided to have it here in
Montreal. That’s what it’s about, right?”

            He
kept right on staring ahead at the road.

            I
began to imagine a journey through Sheldon’s fears, and as I mapped out the
terrain of his subconscious, I grew more agitated.

            “He’s
ashamed. This is totally about shame. When the wedding was in New York, it was
one thing, but now everybody will know, and see him being part of it. And
accepting us as a couple, publicly, is just too much, right?”

            “What
are you making yourself crazy for? Everything’s fine. Nothing’s changed.
Nothing happened.”

            “How
can you say that? Did you hear the Rabbi? And did you see the look on your
father’s face? It’s like he just won the lottery! Are you in denial about this,
or what? How can you not see this?” Now I was spewing, in a fine rage. Andrew’s
rejection of my perceived reality had left me feeling abandoned.

            For
the better part of a year, Andrew and I had shared this dream, building a
vision of it, together. Now, in one fell swoop, Sheldon was ready to topple it.
And for me, it felt like a thunderbolt from out of the blue, tossed by some
callous, omnipotent force.

            And
worse yet, I believed that Andrew was willfully ignoring it.

ANDREW   
It was like we were at
different meetings. And the one Doug attended was in some threatening place I
had no interest in visiting.

            “How
can you say nothing happened?!” he shouted.

            “Because
nothing happened. You’re driving yourself – you’re driving
me
nuts!
Nothing
happened.
You’re totally overreacting!”

            “No,
you’re
totally in denial! It’s like we weren’t even in the same room
together. We’re not powerless here. After all, we’re still talking about
our
wedding. We are absolutely helpless, though, if you can’t – or won’t – see
what’s going on here!”

            “I
can’t – no, I
won’t
talk to you if you’re going to be like this. That’s
it.”

SHELDON   
Doug must have been
crazy, to think I was seriously suggesting he get Oprah to do a videotaped
invitation! And he was mistaken in fixating on the Rabbi’s suggestion that Roslyn
and I come to a joint decision. I liked that he suggested dialogue, and
compromise. I didn’t think that his words were intended as some judgment from
the highest court in the land -
“you must obey,”
nor that any decision
Roslyn and I reached should be binding.

ROSLYN
   
I can’t
say I was disappointed in the results of the meeting. Rabbi Berman took pains
to present himself as a man of religion, not a counselor. His was a religious
reply, not a therapeutic one. In fact his response came from the Conservative***
wing of the religion, and after all, he is a Conservative Rabbi. In addition, I
shouldn’t have been surprised; Judaism practiced north of the Canadian border
is typically a notch more conservative than its American counterpart.

Sheldon and I have always chosen to attend an
Orthodox synagogue. When Doug first came to services with us, he expressed
surprise that I would willingly attend services where women are obligated to
sit in separate side sections, while men sit together at the center. Actually,
it’s never bothered me a bit. I’ve never felt I was being demeaned as a woman.
I’d chosen to be there, and if I didn’t want to be there, I could always leave.

I wasn’t brought up in a particularly religious
home; rather, it was traditional, and therefore observant. I never went to
Jewish school, because some people believed young women could learn what was
important at home. My maternal grandmother moved in with us when I was a girl,
and she was my most treasured source of Judaic knowledge, instructing me in all
the ritual and tradition.

There was at least one lesson I didn’t learn
about Orthodox teachings until adulthood when I already had four grown
children. I heard it said in my synagogue that homosexuality was considered an
“abomination”. This was disturbing.

“Why am I sitting here, when my sons aren’t
welcome?” I asked myself. I talked to Sheldon about becoming members at the
Conservative synagogue, but it was a half-hearted effort, since I knew he’d
never leave the tradition he’d known all his life. And part of my heart was
with him on this.

I remember attending Orthodox synagogue as a
child, and I’ve taken comfort from the rituals ever since. There’s solace in
knowing that it is consistent. There’s so much insecurity in the world,
everything is in flux today; you have to kill yourself to keep up with
technology, culture, societal shifts. Still, you know when you go to pray,
every Jew in an Orthodox synagogue around the world is doing the same thing.

There’s the paradox. It’s not comforting to know
my sons aren’t welcome there. What is comforting is that it doesn’t change.

Although I’m very fond of Rabbi Berman, and he’s
been unusually supportive of my work in the gay community, he had missed the
point as far as I was concerned. He had completely ignored the question of
whether there was anything wrong with the boys’ wish to have a public union in
the manner they planned.

            He
listened well, though. And his advice that Sheldon and I join together to form
a United Front was both scripturally sound and good parenting. Any two parents
will always have differing opinions, but when your decisions regard the
children, the repercussions are greater and demand that the two of you sit down
and compromise to reach a consistent position. Our household had always been
run this way. It’s helped us work together, and it’s taught the children that
they couldn’t split us, that Sheldon and I could always formulate a compromise
that would satisfy us and them.

            Ultimately,
I felt the Rabbi sided with Sheldon, and that was fine with me. Sheldon
obviously needed the support.

ANDREW   
That evening, when Doug
and I got back from the Laurentians, we got together in the den with my
parents. We all, for the most part, reiterated the key positions we’d expressed
that morning. What impressed me most was my father’s outright honesty about his
feelings. I sensed that for the first time, he felt he had a forum where he
could acknowledge his deep fears and reservations without being berated by my
mother for his narrow-mindedness. He was sincere and honest and made a
concerted effort to negotiate his inner conflicts, with the clear goal being to
reach a point within himself where he could accept and follow through with this
wedding.

Therefore, when I looked back to the Rabbi’s
statement about respecting the wishes of your parents, I really didn’t see this
as a threat to our plans. Whether I was in complete denial of this possibility,
I can’t say. But my key belief, from day one, had not altered. I always felt my
father would go through with whatever Doug and I felt was appropriate, even if
it meant some kicking and screaming on the long journey down the aisle.

ROSLYN
   
After
we got home that evening, Sheldon confronted me. “You’re always going along
with Andrew, encouraging him.”

            Only
hours after a meeting I’d set up to give him a forum, Sheldon was already back
to the same old complaints. So though I’d heard accusations like that before,
this time I was incensed. “Encouraging him to do
what?
Something
terrible?
No. To do something YOU don’t want him to do. He’s not asking for something
illegal – he’s not asking me to commit homicide, burglary, robbery. He wants to
have this celebration of his relationship.
Why shouldn’t I support that?

            Part
of me wanted to hear him out, but I was too emotionally involved.

SHELDON   
Roslyn suggested that I
talk to a psychologist. “You’re not getting anywhere talking to me” – as if I
was the only one who needed to travel any distance toward compromise. "We’re
coming from places so far apart. Why don’t you speak to Dennis?”

            When
it was clear that none of them could ever hear my concerns, I contacted Dennis.
I had met him before, and was quite impressed. So I sat down in his office with
little trepidation. He listened patiently while I explained my frustrations.

            “Never
mind that they don’t agree with my position. Let them sympathize that I’m
having trouble with this, and then we can start talking. Because until they
recognize that there’s a problem here, that I’m uncomfortable with this, and
that most of our friends are troubled that this could happen in their
community, then we have nothing to talk about,” I told Dennis. “They’re not
dealing with reality, they’re just being flippant. ‘Oh, nonsense, you’re
ashamed, you want to put it in a closet.’ That kind of talk doesn’t get us
anywhere. It just shuts me down.”

            As
a good professional, he listened but didn’t take sides. At the end, though, I
got the impression he sympathized with my predicament. By this, I do not mean that
he expressed a negative attitude regarding the intended affair, but rather that
he understood my frustration that nobody could understand that it was possible,
if not inevitable, that I would have all these concerns and misgivings.

            After
I’d seen Dennis several times, I felt some relief in having the opportunity to
express my position. But it didn’t, practically speaking, do much good. At
home, nothing was changing.

ROSLYN
   
Intellectually,
I knew I was right to be angry with Sheldon for what I perceived as his
unwillingness to accept Andrew as a gay man without feeling shame. Shame is
such a powerful emotion that we even feel “ashamed” to admit it. By rejecting
Andrew’s idea of how the wedding should be, he was symbolically rejecting our
son. My heart told me I was being unfair since giving up shame is a big step
that needs to be worked through over time.

            Meanwhile,
Andrew and Doug were moving ahead with their plans, and since it was difficult
for them to do some of the requisite leg work from New York I continued helping
them with many of the necessary details. Though many of my friends continued to
criticize my involvement in the planning, I was thankful for the support of
others, like my colleague Mark, cousin Miriam, and friends like Roma and Lona,
to mention just a few.

            As
the new year approached, Sheldon – thanks to therapy – felt ever freer to
chastise me for my involvement in plans which he disapproved of so adamantly. I
found myself at a crossroads. In seeking to create his own marriage, Andrew had
unwittingly created one of the biggest challenges for mine.

            There
was no way I could gently extricate myself from this rift. I would have to make
a painful choice.

ANDREW
AND
DOUG

January-March
1996

ANDREW   
Here it was, New Year’s
Day.

            “Exactly
nine months to go until Labor Day,” Doug observed. “So, you think it’ll be
natural or caesarian?”

            “Very
funny. It doesn’t look like there’s going to be any delivery. Not at this
rate.”

            “What
do you mean?”

            “I
got a call from Leslie Hoppenheim. She never got the checks.”

            “What
do you think that’s about?”

            “I
don’t know. I’ll call my mother later and see what’s going on.”

            Leslie
Hoppenheim is the no-nonsense party-planner my mother found to coordinate the
wedding. She runs a booking agency out of her home in Hampstead, a few blocks
from my parents’ house. We first met Leslie on the last day of “The Rabbi
Weekend,” as Doug had taken to calling it. That was back in late September, and
Doug had brought cash to pay the initial deposit.

            Having
our first business meeting in her home, in the middle of conservative
Hampstead, only reinforced the feeling of having this wedding in my parents’
backyard. When we sat down to talk, Leslie was upbeat, with an edge.

            “So,
this is
unusual
, isn’t it?”

            “Yeah,
it is,” I replied, not too defensively. “I guess some people are more surprised
than others. But we want to focus on making this a great night for everybody.
So whether they’re on board with the concept when they walk in, or not,
hopefully they’ll have a good time.”

            “Well,
I’d say if your family is comfortable with this, everybody will follow their
lead.”

            True
enough. And no small goal.

            She
ticked off the details she’s already covered with my mother: photographer,
band, or maybe a DJ… Then there was the question of a video. Doug thought it
was an unnecessary extravagance. He’d always say it was money that didn’t need
to be spent. I told him we’d cut back in other areas. “And don’t worry, this is
going to cost so much less than either of my sister’s weddings, believe me.”
And that would undoubtedly be the case.

            From
the outset, Doug had been very sensitive about the money. He wanted to keep the
cost low enough so that if we needed to pay for it ourselves, he could swing
it. There were a few problems with that scenario, however. We’d purchased our
apartment in July, and the cost of renovations sent us deep into hock on a
half-dozen credit cards. Doug wasn’t having his most flush financial year, and
if my income was a heartbeat, it would flat-line. But he looked at each
financial decision as if it were coming out of our bank account. The way I saw
it, we needed to keep the cost down, while creating the best wedding we could.

DOUG   
The
New Year’s report from Leslie Hoppenheim gave me pause. Roslyn knew for weeks
that the deadline for payment passed on December thirty-first. I was less
concerned about the missed deadline than the reason behind it. Roslyn wasn’t
the type to miss a down payment. She is nothing if not organized. And while she
may be late for everything from dinner to theater, museums to the gym, I knew
her well enough by now that this deadline having come and gone was a sign of
something not quite right.

ANDREW   
Later that afternoon, I
called my mother. After a bare minimum of the usual chit-chat, I told her about
Leslie’s call. “Did you mail her a check?” I asked.

            “No.”

            “You
know the deadline was yesterday, right?”

            “Yes.”

            My
mother is never monosyllabic. “What’s going on?”

            “I
meant to talk to you about this before now. I’ve had to make a decision. It’s a
decision that’s very hard for me. I can’t be involved in the planning of the
wedding any more. It’s causing too much strain between me and Daddy. He doesn’t
want to do this, and I have to stand by that. I just can’t do it anymore. I
can’t be involved. I’m sorry.”

           
What
do you mean you can’t be involved?! What’s going on here?
I thought to
myself. The only ally in my family was abandoning me. I got a sense from my
mother’s tentative statement that she was having a difficult time breaking this
news to me. I began to empathize with her as I recognized the anguish that she
too was fraught with this decision. I withheld my own reaction and quickly
ended the conversation. But nothing had prepared me for this.

DOUG   
We both looked at each other,
shell-shocked. I heard him repeat the conversation, but it wasn’t real. It
didn’t sound like Roslyn. Or not the Roslyn I’ve known. I tried to battle back
rising anger; Andrew’s face was a mask of melancholy. I couldn’t recall seeing
him look so haunted, as if a switch had shut him down. Unaccustomed as he was
to being overtly rejected by his parents, this obviously came as an astonishing
blow. I stuffed down my own bitterness, and tried to think affirmatively, for
him.

            “Look,
whatever happened just now, it doesn’t have to finish our plans. We can call
Leslie and ask for an extension.”

            “She
can’t do that. That’s not how it works.”

            “OK…
Well, how about we ask how much she needs and we FedEx the money to her
ourselves?”

            “She
needed it yesterday.”

            “If
you tell her what happened, don’t you think she’ll understand?”

Andrew
looked cross, and I assumed that he didn’t want to get into the public exposure
of this private dispute. “OK, we can be more vague…” I vamped, “We… we can say
– there was a
misunderstanding
, and
we
need to send the deposit.”

            “Let’s
just forget about the whole thing! It’s causing too much trouble.”

           
Too
much trouble? Isn’t it worth the trouble?
I asked myself.

ANDREW   
“If my parents are
really backing out of the whole thing, are we prepared to do it all ourselves?”
Doug didn’t answer. “Can we come up with all the money? And it’s not just the
money – there are so many details. Can we do all the legwork from New York?
You’ve never had a family wedding, you have no idea how many minuscule details
there are. Managing all that from here in New York will be impossible.”

            That
was the trouble it would cause for us. I was even more worried about the
trouble it was causing my parents. If my father was so completely against this
that my mother couldn’t even be involved, I just didn’t feel like it was worth
putting them through any more pain.

DOUG   
I was so focused on Andrew that
I didn’t discern his unspoken concern about his parents’ feelings. As far as I
was concerned, this goal was well worth
our
trouble, and I wanted to
know if Andrew felt it was worth it, too.

            “Maybe
this is just temporary. Maybe your parents need more time with all this, and
putting the deposit down right now was too big a commitment when they’re still
grappling with everything. What do you say we put down the deposit as a sort of
insurance policy? If they come around soon, then we saved all the plans we’ve
made up until now. If they ultimately decide they won’t be involved with our
wedding, we’ll make the decision later about either paying for it ourselves, or
giving it up. If we make the deposit ourselves, we can make the big decisions later.”

            “But
we could lose all that money.”

            “I
don’t think it’s going to be lost. I think we’re going to get married, one way
or another. If not, I’m willing to take the risk. I think our wedding is worth
it, do you?”

ANDREW   
With his question
hanging in the air, I left the room to do some housework, and avoid the issue.

            After
a few hours of mulling it over, I went looking for Doug. He was lying on top of
the bed, fully clothed, at three in the afternoon. All the eager pragmatism
he’d mustered earlier had been squeezed out of him. He had that pursed up look
that tells me he’s catastrophizing. “What have you been doing?”

            “You
know.”

            “Fretting?”

            It’s
like a domino game of calamities he plays in his head at times like this,
conjecturing every possible miserable outcome, tracing the ripple effect it’ll
have on our lives.

            “Is
it worth all this?” I asked. “You look absolutely miserable.”

            “And
you?”

            “I’m
feeling miserable, believe me.”

            “Don’t
worry, you look miserable too.”

            We
almost laughed.

            Doug’s
eyes narrowed a little. “This is
our
wedding. Not your mother’s. Not
your father’s.”

            “Are
we ready to pay for it – all of it –
everything
– ourselves?” I asked,
though deep down inside it really wasn’t the money I was most concerned about.
Rather, I was torn between my own dream and my parent’s fear of public
humiliation in front of friends and family.

DOUG   
For the first time since I
proposed a year ago, I saw despair in Andrew’s eyes, and I knew the joy of our
plans was being siphoned out of him, leaving him empty and drawn. A flash of
anger detached me from Andrew’s pain, and put me in mind of my own. I was
flooded with resentment for the position we’d been put in.

            Ever
since the weekend we first met in Montreal, Sheldon and Roslyn had welcomed me
into their family with a casual forthrightness that would surprise many
observers. My first encounter with the wider Merling clan was on Passover at
the Montefiore Club, in an imposing dining room that looked more like a grand
library. Thirty or so family members were decked out in formal dress for a meal
around a mammoth square made out of four long boardroom tables. And though I
went to this first Passover seder with a flock of butterflies, Roslyn and
Sheldon made me feel unquestionably welcome. Following their lead, the rest of
the family did likewise. And in the years since, even if some of the family
offered me more warmth than others, I have always been treated with respect.

            Since
I had been separated by distance and circumstance from much of my own family, I
found a surrogate, of sorts, in Roslyn, Sheldon, and the family they welcomed
me into so willingly. And over the years, as I grew more deeply in love with
Andrew, I also grew to love his parents very much as well.

            Now,
sitting in bed on New Year’s Day, looking into Andrew’s wounded eyes, seeing
the reflection of my own feelings of betrayal, I was filled with a new resolve.

            “If
this is something we believe is right, then I think we should see it through.
And I think it’s right. What do you think?”

ANDREW   
“I do too. But this is a
lot of money,” I reminded Doug, avoiding the real issue.

            “I
know it is. But we can also cut back. We don’t need the video. With that room
you don’t need flowers. That would knock off twenty-five hundred at least right
there. And do we need a full bar? Why can’t we do a cash bar? Jews don’t
drink.”

            “At
this wedding, they’ll need a drink.”

            “OK,
but we can economize,” Doug insisted.

            “Economize,
yes. But it’s not worth all the work, and all this extra stress with my family,
if we’re not going to do it right.”

            “OK,
let’s sit down and go over the budget again, and pare it down to the essentials
we both can agree on, then we’ll see how low we can get it.”

            I
took my file out of our office, and we convened at the dining room table. We
debated the essentials, then crunched the numbers.

            “How
are we going to come up with that?”

            Doug
did a little calculating. “I can put away half from what I earn in the next
nine months, if we watch our spending carefully. And I have a credit line from
a credit union account at reasonable interest. And we won’t go on a honeymoon.”

            “We’re
going to need to get away for a vacation after this is all over, whether you
call it a honeymoon or not.”

            “Maybe.
But it’ll have to be simple and short. And we’ll put it on a credit card.”

            “Which
one? We’re thousands in debt from the renovations.”