by Mary Cardaras
I made sure my children and future mother-in-law were comfortably asleep before I ventured out across the Charles River to Cambridge to bear witness to history being made at midnight May 17. I had to be there.
I am a lesbian of Greek descent.
For years, I have been on the outside looking in. Always different. No explanation ever desired by anyone. Like so many others, I endured the stigma of being myself. I have always said my being a lesbian is the least interesting thing about me; today, it seems to be everything about me.
A flood of memories came to me as I stood with hundreds of people outside Cambridge City Hall. I watched the faces of dozens of couples as they emerged from processing their papers, their first step to legal marriage in my state. Their faces glowed with unabashed joy and elation. I was struggling to sort out my feelings. This wasn't supposed to be for us.
I remember as a young girl being attracted to female teachers and friends while flirting with the boys I'd much rather have been playing ball with. The message from Greek parents and Greek-American society was to keep close to family and Greek friends. The emphasis for girls was to behave like one in order to attract the attention of a nice Greek guy from an acceptable Greek family. All could dream about a big fat Greek wedding and procreating Greek children to complete the Greek circle of life. It is the way of all ethnics, I suppose.
I remember a woman, a close family friend as I was growing up. She was different, too. Why couldn't she find a nice Greek guy? She never did and it wasn't because she couldn't. It was because she didn't want to. As a child, she paid me particular attention. I remember her kindness and gentle way. I think she must have seen in me some of herself. I wish she could have been with me to see us in Massachusetts. She died earlier this year in a nursing home, after complications from diabetes. She had lost a leg to the disease. I had heard that at her funeral there were quiet whisperings about a woman with whom she shared part of her life.
I remember hiding from my family and friends my deepest thoughts and feelings—especially my feelings of failure that I couldn't fulfill their hopes and dreams and my feelings of inadequacy that I just wasn't acceptable as I was.
I remember being asked to a dance in high school and then being unasked. The Greek parents of the boy just didn't want him going out with the likes of me. I was Greek all right. That was a step in the right direction, but I was the wrong kind of Greek.
I remember living in Los Angeles, walking to a club with my girlfriend. We were just walking and were pelted with eggs by some young guys in a passing car.
I remember being threatened on a dark Philadelphia street by a car full of drunken men who taunted and frightened me as I scrambled to get into a restaurant to safety and to the comfort of other human beings around me.
I remember being told by the relative of a new love that she could understand her niece's love for me if she were ugly and unattractive to men. Why would she choose to be with me? She was so beautiful. Me, a woman who never cries in front of others, was reduced to tears in front of a stranger.
After we got together, my Greek partner and I were excluded from a family wedding if I was going to come. In fact, the family banned us from all family gatherings for years. We were two women raising two young sons produced by a marriage that failed and also whose legacy was a father, who had abdicated any and all responsibility. That same family embraced a son and his partner only after being told they both were HIV positive. We lost Leo to AIDS in 1998. Did we also have to prove sickness to be accepted and loved, to be happy? Life is different now. The pain was great and deep, but years later we have all healed.
I wish Leo could be here. He would have been among the first in line at City Hall. He would have been celebrating our victory as equal human beings entitled to all the rights and privileges of any other people. AIDS killed Leo, but it was the homophobia that really brought the disease and this vibrant, beautiful man together.
I remember the parents of a woman I loved in Philadelphia. Both were Holocaust survivors and pious Jews. Both were doctors. Surprisingly, I was accepted without question, an instant member of their family. Freyda loved me. It was enough for them.
I was so moved by their feelings and words over the months and years of our relationship. Paula told me stories about the Greeks in camp. They used to share their food with other starving people. She said she never would forget their generosity of spirit in the worst of circumstances. My being Greek represented something for her.
I asked Paula why she was so accepting of her lesbian daughter and of me and of all our friends. She said with such poignancy and candor, 'After surviving what I survived and seeing what I saw, do you honestly think I care who my daughter sleeps with? I want her to be loved and happy. I want her to make a life with someone.' I loved Paula for those sentiments. I still love her for them.
Marriage was never a consideration for people like me. It was one of those things that was not realistically in our thoughts as a possibility because of who we are and who we happen to love. It is difficult to get used to the idea that we could choose to have what many of our parents chose to have—-a marriage that could last a lifetime and children to raise and to watch grow into adulthood.
I am confident that we gay people will be very good at marriage and prove to be excellent parents as well. The reason is precisely because we can never take marriage and parenting for granted. How could we? We never expected to have them. Not ever. Married or married with children—for us, these are precious gifts. It makes them all the more sweet. Sweet gifts to fight for, protect, and help make possible for others across the country.
Mary Cardaras is a Chicago native, and currently lives in Boston. She is an Emmy Award-winning journalist with CNN and Fox News who recently retired from the business to teach.
