BIGGEST LIFE-CHANGING EVENT

“What has been your biggest life-changing event?”

This is another great question.  Certainly, nearing 40, I’ve had many life experiences that could be dubbed “life changing”.   There’s my conversion to Catholicism, Loss of Relationships, Jobs, going to college.  

While losing a job or a relationship certainly rank up there in the “life-changing” spectrum, and certainly a religious experience is no doubt going to change one’s life.  I believe the single most life-changing event that has had an effect on me is the death of my grandmother, Ann.  April 17, 2000 my life changed forever.  We were very close, even in the aftermath of my coming out.  I choose her death as my biggest life-changing event because even now, 13 years later, not a single, solitary day has passed in which I haven’t thought of her, remembered her.  

Grandmother is the only member of my family that I ever truly felt close to.  She, perhaps more than anyone in my family, “got me”. As a child, she doted on me. Visits to her house in the summer or during school breaks were fun.  We would see movies, she would take me bowling, and we would go to church.   We just had so much fun.   I’m sure she said “no” a few times, but I held the distinction of being her first-born grandson, and, admittedly, her favorite.   She made sure to write me letters (I think this is where my love of writing was born…especially of letters).   She would send me “care packages” throughout college.   Besides doting on me, to me she was the definition of style, grace and class.  She was a high school drop out (with only about 6 weeks of school left), but she was a brilliant lady and I think she was quite beautiful.

Although I know that it was her time to pass from death to life, I will forever wonder what our relationship would have been like had we been given a few more years.   I am not close to my family now.   Yet, I wonder if we had a few more years what might have been different.  Would she have really embraced her “gay” grandchild?   Would she have been the glue that kept the family together?   I have no doubt that we would speak very often.  We would probably be closer now than we ever were.

Here’s my confession:  I owe so much of who I am to this beautiful, classy lady that I was blessed to call my grandmother.   Oh, we had differences of opinions about some things, but generally we were seeing eye to eye.   She instilled in me a love for things that are lasting such as music and writing.   I would not be the pianist I am today were it not for her teaching me the foundations of piano, giving me a piano and seeing that I was able to take lessons.   From a very young age, she instilled a love for writing letters.  I remember getting letters from her as a youngster and proudly writing back as early as the third grade.  

Her death has left a void that nothing but my memories of her can fill.   I know that she is with me each and every single day.  While no longer in the physical realm, she is with me spiritually.   Why do I choose her death as the biggest life-changing event?   Because the day she moved from this life I lost my grandmother, my biggest cheer leader and advocate, and most of all, my friend.