One of my mom’s best friends when I was growing up was named Charlie. Charlie’s partner was named Mark. Their kids were Dobermans. My mom’s other friends were black, Indian, hispanic and white. Some were married, some weren’t. One of her friends adopted a baby boy from Vietnam. My mom kept the newspaper clipping that showed him arriving in America.

In our neighborhood, our next door neighbors were from Honduras and the neighbors across the street were from Puerto Rico. The Puerto Ricans taught me how to break dance on cardboard laid out on the driveway.

One of the ladies on the block was an old Jewish lady with a New York accent. My dad would look out the window and say, “There goes Walkin’ Fartin’ Fran.” I would jump up off the couch and run to catch up to her. We would walk together nightly, she would fart, and we would tell each other stories.

One of my best friends was an immigrant from Korea being raised by a single dad. Another was first generation Italian American. Another was half Jewish. 

I say these things because at the time, none of this occurred to me, it is only in retrospect that I see the differences, but to me there were no differences. This is the world that I knew, the world that shaped how I think, believe, react, love. 

I wasn’t raised in the church, but as a kid, I asked to go to church. My parents didn’t want to go, so they just dropped me off. It’s kind of funny to think of it now. I went to church alone, but I did know other kids there. Claudia’s dad would drop her and her brother off, too. I think her dad was self conscious being from Korea and not understanding the language well. He waited in the parking lot until service was done. 

So the 3 of us would sit together in the pew like little orphans. 

I liked to go to church. I liked the singing and the talking, the way the preacher’s voice would raise and lower, somber one moment and punctuated with excitement the next. But no one talked to me. Except Claudia, of course. No one asked me to tell them my stories like Walkin’ Fartin’ Fran did. I kept going anyway. I was baptized, confirmed. Now I was one of them, but knew none of them and none of them knew me. Except Claudia. 

To the people that may have been seen as outsiders, I was counted as one of them, embraced, seen and heard. To the ones on the inside, the ones that were teaching about the selfless love of Jesus, I was treated like an outsider. His message still got through, though, in spite of them.

After my mom passed away, I received a Christmas card in the mail from Charlie and Mark. I realized I had never told them that she had died. I sat down to write them a letter. Ironically, Charlie and Mark were still together over 40 years later, and my own parents were not. I felt compelled to tell them what they had meant to me as a kid. They were an example of deep committed love to another human being. Their love transcended societal norms, cultural taboos, and even religious ideology. They just didn’t give a fuck what anyone thought. They stuck it out. They loved each other and I got to be a part of their lives.

What a blessing.