Too gay to be Texan...

It was all embarrassment until the gratitude I learned when I found out he was gay.

I was 8, and I was in love for the first time.  He had these huge blue eyes and a cleft in his chin that I was sure I would never get over.  Fact is, I never did.

Every other girl was obviously in love with him too, so I knew I didn't have a chance.  But, for the first time in my life, I decided I couldn't live with myself if I didn't try.

Speaking to him was way too much to ask of my pathologically shy self.  But I could sew.

I drew out several designs, and finally settled on a tiny pillow with an embroidered "B + J" with an arrow-pierced heart.

There are countless moments lost to me, but I will never forget the adrenaline-pumped encounter I somehow gathered the courage to waylay him in the crowded church hallway and thrust my offering into his surprised hand.

We locked eyes for one excruciating glance and then it was past.

Nothing was said and no follow up from either of us was made, but I did hear from my aunt that he displayed the pillow in his room for Christmas.

His room being a shrine I knew I would never approach in my life.

We were in the church puppet team together, and the experience of touring the Navajo reservations with our group was an experience of canyons and unprecedented contact and unprecedented need.

Several years later, we spent a week performing for VBS in Port Arthur and I dressed daily as a mime.  One afternoon, I felt a presence behind me and then felt a tug on my tufted costume tail.  Looking around, I could only see his smile and sparkling eyes and I tried not to faint.

I thought I had left behind the cosmos he inhabited when I left for college, but a year later he descended upon my claimed city.

Excuses were made and meetings evaded until an afternoon lunch with our various college com-padres that somehow could not be avoided.

One I had considered a best friend since our first pre-college days in the woods, had heard my childhood stories of woe and shameful pillows.  Being faced with the unexpected embodiment of my first affections, she took the path of betrayal for the sake of an inside laugh.  "How goes the sewing these days, Jess?"  And the blood rushing to my cheeks.  The blood was in his cheeks too, but his embarrassed smile faded as the silence spread.

My first response when I heard he had come out was relief.  The memory of feeling his little sister for so many years when I wanted something completely other settled into a tolerable realm.

It took several more years before I considered that epoch from him perspective.  That he accepted my graceless pursuit with kindness for so many years.  That he showed me empathy without the usual ulterior of desire.

I have never done this for another or experienced anything like it from anyone else.

Granted, he has left me with a predilection for the unrequited and for the sexually ambiguous.  Still, I doubt I will ever experience such kindness as the gentle touch he brought to my young, sheltered love.