A LETTER TO OTHER FATHERS
by Jay Lewandowski

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To the father reading this,

My wife is the writer in the family. She asked me to put something down for the fathers. I'm going to keep it short. I make dies for a living. I measure twice and cut once and I don't say much.

When my son told me he was gay I didn't say anything. I went down to the basement and ran the grinder until midnight. I didn't talk to him for two days. He drove back to Chicago and I didn't walk him out to the car.

That is the thing I am most ashamed of in my life. I'm 58. That is a long life to have only one thing like that, I know. But it's the one.

I want to tell you why I did it, because I think you might be doing it too.

I wasn't mad at him. I was scared. Scared somebody would hurt him. Scared he'd get sick. Scared about what the guys at the shop would say, and I'm not proud of that one. And under all that I felt like I'd failed some test as a father that I didn't know I was taking. I thought maybe I didn't play catch with him enough. I played catch with him plenty. That had nothing to do with it.

On the third day I called him. I told him I was sorry I didn't say goodbye. I told him I loved him. He said, I know, Dad. I said, I don't understand this. He said, That's okay, you don't have to understand it today. You just have to keep calling.

So I kept calling. Every Sunday night for almost three years now.

Here is what I'd tell you.

1. Call him. Today. Whatever you said or didn't say, call him. You don't need a speech. "I love you, I'm still your dad" covers it.

2. You don't have to have it figured out. I didn't. I still don't have all of it figured out. Love him anyway while you work on the rest.

3. Go to a meeting with your wife. PFLAG. Sit in the back. You don't have to talk. I didn't talk for three meetings. There were other fathers there. Steelworkers, a dentist, a farmer from up north. Regular guys.

4. Don't let other people's opinions make you lose your kid. Turns out the guys at the shop weren't the problem I thought. Two of them said nothing. One said "so what." One quit talking to me for a while and then came around. One of them has a nephew. Nobody ever brought it up the way I feared.

5. Meet the person he loves. Shake his hand. Take him down to the basement and show him your lathe. That's what I did. I made him a candleholder. He still has it.

6. He's still your son. He still roots for the Brewers and still can't park a car. Nothing important changed.

When that boy in Wyoming died last fall, my wife and I sat on the kitchen floor and called our son. I thought about all the fathers who weren't on speaking terms with their sons that night. I was almost one of them. Don't be one of them.

That's all I've got.

Jay

If you want to write to me, I'll write back. Catherine reads me the mail but I type my own answers. Slow.
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Last updated Tuesday, September 21, 1999