In 1991 I wrote a letter to my father. It took me two months to write and about three minutes to read, and I carried it around in my jacket for another week before I left it on his kitchen table and drove home and didn't answer the phone for two days. It's the last letter on this page.

In the years since, I've met a lot of people who wrote a letter like that, or wished they had, or were still carrying one around in a jacket. Some of them let me read theirs. Last spring I started asking if I could put them here, so that somebody sitting at a kitchen table right now, with a pen, might see that they're not the first, and that it goes a lot of different ways, and that most of those ways are survivable.

Some rules I've kept. Every name has been changed, including the parents', the towns and anything else that would point to a real family. Each person read the final version and said yes. Nobody under 18 is identified beyond a first name, which is also changed. I haven't tidied up the letters much; where someone wrote in a hurry, I left it. Where they've told me what happened after, I've added it in a note.

These aren't the only ways it can go. They're just eight. There's no advice here about whether to write your letter, or when, or if. Only you know your family and your situation. If you're in a house where it isn't safe to say this yet, it's all right to wait. Waiting is not lying. It's waiting.

Dear Mom and Dad,

I'm writing this instead of saying it because every time I've tried to say it on the phone I've ended up talking about the weather, and you've probably noticed I've had a lot to say about the weather lately.

I'm gay. I've known for a long time. I'm not confused and I'm not going through something, and nothing happened to me, and it isn't anybody's fault, because it isn't a thing that needs a fault. It's just what I am, the same way I'm left-handed and I hate cilantro.

The reason I'm telling you now is that I'm tired of having a whole life you don't know about. His name is Daniel. We've been together a year and a half. He's a high school chemistry teacher and he fixes the lawn mower and he thinks Dad's jokes are funny, which is going to be a real problem for me at Thanksgiving if you ever meet him.

I know this isn't what you pictured. I know you might need some time. Take it. I'm not going anywhere. I'm the same kid who broke the garage window and blamed the Hendersons' boy. I just wanted you to know all of him.

I love you both.
Michael

Mom, Dad,

I've started this letter about fifteen times. I'm just going to send this one.

I'm a lesbian. There. I've been trying to figure out how to tell you since I was sixteen, and I was afraid, and I'm still afraid, but I've been home twice this year and pretended for a whole week each time, and I can't do it a third time at Christmas. I'd rather you know and be upset than not know and have me sit at the table being somebody I'm not.

I'm okay. I'm doing well in my classes. I have friends who know and they're fine, and there's a group on campus I go to on Wednesdays, and I have a girlfriend named Sarah who is kind and smart and very nervous about you reading this.

Please don't stop paying for school. I'm sorry that's in here, but I've thought about it. I'll figure it out if you do. I'd just rather not have to.

I'll call Sunday like always. You don't have to say anything about this if you're not ready. I just needed you to have it.

Love,
Jenny

Mamá y Papá,

You raised me to tell the truth, and I've been telling you a small lie for about fifteen years, by not telling you something. So here it is. I'm gay.

I know what the Church says. I know what Father Ruiz says. I've spent a long time with that and I'm not asking you to argue with it or with me. I still go to Mass. I still pray. I don't think God made a mistake with me, and I'm not going to pretend He did to make things easier at the dinner table.

I'm not asking you to march in anything or tell the cousins. I'm asking you not to make me choose between being your son and being honest. I'll always be your son. I just don't want to be a guest in my own family.

Whatever you need to say, say it. I'd rather hear it than have it sit in the house.

Su hijo,
Luis

Dear Mom and Dad,

You've both asked me, in different ways, why the divorce, and I've given you the polite answer, which is that Steve and I grew apart. That's true. It's also not the whole thing, and you deserve the whole thing.

I'm gay. I think I always was. I married Steve because I loved him, in a way, and because at 24 in our town that's what you did, and I don't regret it, because it gave me Josh and Katie. But I couldn't keep doing it, and Steve knows why, and he's been more decent about it than I had any right to expect.

The kids know. I told them before I told you, and I'm sorry about the order, but they live with me and they had to. Josh said "okay" and asked what was for dinner. Katie had a lot of questions and I answered them. They're fine. They're going to be fine. What they need from you is exactly what they've always gotten from you, which is to be their grandparents.

I'm not seeing anyone. I'm not asking you to understand it all at once. I'm asking you to keep coming on Sundays, because the kids look for your car.

Love always,
Rachel

Mom and Dad,

I'm gay. I'm sorry I'm telling you like this but you found the letters from Chris and I'm not going to lie about them and say they're a joke. They're not a joke. He's my boyfriend. Or he was, I don't know what he is now, because you called his mother.

I'm still me. I still have a 3.6. I'm still going to finish the season. I didn't change. You just know now.

I'm going to stay at Aunt Linda's for a while because I think we all need to not be yelling. She said it was okay. I'll still go to school. Please don't come get me in the middle of the day, it's embarrassing and it won't help.

I love you. I know you think this is the worst thing. It isn't. I'm still here.

Danny

Dear Mother,

I've been meaning to write you this letter for forty years, and I'm writing it now because you're 81 and I'm 55 and I decided I didn't want either of us to leave without it being said.

Ruth is not my roommate. Ruth has never been my roommate. Ruth and I have been together since 1971, and she is the person I've built my life with, and when I said "we" for the last twenty-seven years, I meant her. I think you may have known. I'd like to stop wondering whether you knew.

I'm not asking for anything. You've always been kind to her, and she loves you, and she's the one who reminds me to call. I just wanted to say it plainly once, in my own handwriting, so it exists.

Your daughter,
Grace

Dad,

You died in February and I never told you, and I've been angry at myself about it since the funeral, so a friend said to write it anyway. So I'm writing it anyway.

I'm gay. I wanted to tell you a hundred times. I wanted to tell you at the lake in '92 when you asked why I never brought anybody home. I wanted to tell you at Mom's funeral. I wanted to tell you in the hospital, at the end, and I didn't, because I told myself you had enough going on, and that was a lie; the truth is I was scared, and then you were gone and it was too late to find out I didn't have to be.

His name is Andre. You'd have liked him. He can back a trailer better than I can, which you'd have found hilarious.

I don't know what you'd have said. I've decided to believe it would have been okay, because you were a better man than I gave you credit for, and because there's nobody left to tell me otherwise.

I miss you.
Kevin

Dad,

I'm going to leave this and go, and I'm not going to answer the phone for a couple of days, because I need you to have time to be whatever you're going to be about it before we talk. That's not me being a coward. It's me knowing us.

I'm gay. I've known since I was fourteen. I've spent nine years being careful around you and I'm done being careful. It's exhausting, and it's made me a worse son than I want to be, because you can't be close to somebody you're hiding from.

You didn't do anything wrong. Mom didn't do anything wrong. It's not the divorce and it's not the city and it's not anything. It's just me.

I'll call Thursday. If you don't want to pick up, I'll call the Thursday after that. I'll keep calling. I'm your son, and I'm not going to stop being your son over this, and I hope you'll decide the same.

Tom

I asked everyone on this page the same question: looking back, what helped? Not advice, just what they noticed. Here's what they said, more or less in their own words.

• Having somewhere to go afterward. A friend's couch, an aunt, a roommate who knew. Everybody who had a plan for the first night was glad of it, even the ones who didn't need it.
• Telling one person first. A sibling, a friend, a cousin. "Saying it out loud once to somebody safe made saying it to my parents possible." Four of the eight said some version of this.
• Writing it down. Even the ones who ended up saying it in person had written it first. "The letter was for me. It's where I found out what I actually wanted to say."
• Giving them time, and saying so in the letter. "I'm not going anywhere" and "take the time you need" came up over and over. Parents often react worst in the first hour and best in the first year.
• Not arguing on the first day. "They said some things. I didn't answer them. Six months later they didn't believe those things anymore, and if I'd fought about them they'd have had to defend them."
• Keeping the ordinary things going. Sunday dinner. The Thursday call. Fishing. "The relationship survived on the routine while the big thing sorted itself out."
• Letting a "nod" count. Several people said the mistake they almost made was waiting for the speech, the hug, the words. Some parents will never give a speech. They'll fix the lawn mower. Let it count.
• Other people's parents. Nearly everyone said that a parent's turning point came from talking to another parent who'd been through it. Not their kid. Another parent. There are groups for exactly this (below).
• Remembering that it isn't all on you. "I thought I had to manage their feelings. I didn't. Their feelings were their job. Mine was to be honest and to stay."

I'm not going to list phone numbers here, because numbers change and I'd rather you find the current one than an old one. But here's what exists, in most cities and a lot of smaller places, and how to find it.

• A support group for parents, families and friends. There's a national organization of exactly that, with local chapters that meet once a month, usually at a community center, a church hall or a library. Ours meets on the first Thursday evening at the community center on the boulevard. It's run by parents, for parents. If your mother or father is struggling, this is the single most useful thing I know of, because the people in that room have been where they are. You can find the nearest chapter through any community center or through the reference desk at the public library, and yes, you can call and ask on your parents' behalf.
• A hotline for young people. There are toll-free lines staffed evenings and overnight by people who will talk to a young person who is scared, or who has nowhere to be tonight, and who will not judge and will not hang up. The community center has the current numbers on a card by the door; so does most any high school counselor's office, whether or not you want to tell the counselor why you're asking.
• The community center itself. Ours has a lending library, a Wednesday drop-in for people under 21, a Tuesday group for people over 50 (Grace goes), and a bulletin board that will tell you more than I can. If there isn't a center where you are, the nearest college often has a student group that will point you to what's around.
• A doctor or counselor you trust. If the letter has left you not sleeping, not eating, or thinking you'd rather not be here, please tell a person, tonight, in your own voice. A friend, a doctor, a hotline. Danny's aunt. Anybody. The letter can wait. You can't be replaced.

If you've written one, sent or unsent, and you'd be willing to have it here, e-mail me. I'll change the names and the places, I'll show you exactly what I intend to post, and nothing goes up without your yes. Letters that ended badly are as welcome as the ones that ended well; that's the point. If you're under 18, I'll need to talk with an adult who's looking out for you first, the way I did with Danny's aunt.

And if you just want to write to somebody who's been there, without any of it going on a page, that's fine too. I answer everything. It might take a few days. I read them at night, at the desk, under the envelope.