Amanda in progress

August 10, 2006

Dear Amanda

Don’t laugh. When I read the first paragraph of your
letter I looked at the return address on the envelope again to
make sure it wasn’t from Marty. Well! Think about it. He’ll
be 30 in a year and a half, never engaged, never knocked some
girl up, and Aunt Chris once told Uncle Jim that Marty is
“cynical about women”. If there is another “coming out” in the
offing in this family, yours could prove to be mild.

This might be my favorite picture of us. You are six
months and I’m 33. IT was your first visit here and your
grandmom had just died days earlier.

Either my gaydar is rusty or it only works on men, because
I have to admit I didn’t see this coming. I’m not surprised to
read that you told Amelia. The first person I ever told was
Aunt Chris. I was 12 and she was 14.

On the big scale of things, even if it might not seem so
to you, it reads like your parents took the announcement better
than most. Only word “choose” gives me a little pause, but in
their startelement, it can certainly be understood. What you’ve
got going in your favor is that your parents can reference a
stable gay couple they’ve known ever since they met, and before
you yourself were born. My mom had even less to work with
dealing with it and I was even younger than you.

You’ve got to be fair and give them time, Amanda. No
matter how forward-thinking people tell themselves they are,
NO ONE takes this news very well from their own kid. You have
been gradually accepting this realization about yourself into
your reality, and now you have to allow them time to incorporate
it into their own. I’d say, allow a general amnesty on clumsy
remarks for at least a year.

With all she’s got on her plate right now dealing with
Grandmom, instinct tells me this news wouldn’t raise an eyebrow
on Aunt Chris these days. I don’t think I could shock that girl myself.

As far as the Cameron side goes, I feel like I’ve paved the
way for you a little, and your news won’t have the kind of shock
value it once carried. If there’s anyone on that side you want
to put off telling until I’m around for moral support, count on
it.

As to your love life, no doubt you’ve discovered yourself
that luck is luck regardless of orientation. When you discover
there’s some wonderful woman you truly love, I hope she loves
you back just as truly. But, experience says you’re bound to
get your heart broke a couple times first. Few of us hit one
right out of the park the first time at bat.

You’ve surprised me my niece but you haven’t changed a
single feeling of mine for you. We’re still exactly the same
people we are in these pictures.

Love,

Uncle Dave (and Uncle Jim)