‘… while doing this may revolt some people I know or people who say they know me, I am confident that my real friends will tell me what I already sense — that they have known for some time now, and they’re cool about it.’
MY mother, Josefina Anonuevo Dichosa, would have been 88 today. I cannot imagine how she would have been like had she still been alive today, because I have friends her age or older who remain hale and hearty, and others who already show their age. For better or worse, my mother died at the ripe old age of 58, much younger than I am today, and indeed I’ve lived more years without her at my side than with. But I write this piece today for a special reason: because my mother, like 99.9% of mothers, was a warm and caring mom, one who valued learning and sharing and loving and, most importantly, one who was accepting.
I think I was in my pre-law years when she one day asked me if I knew why one of the two of my father’s older sisters who survived World War II with him and who lived with us had a glass of water in her room. “She’s toning,” my mom told me, chuckling. “She is asking Johnny Midnight for help so that you and so-and-so would break up.” I was amused. And then my mother told me that her two sisters-in-law had asked her once why she was so welcoming of my girlfriends; you see, there were those they liked and those they didn’t. I have never forgotten my mother’s answer: “Kung sino ang mahal ng anak ko at nagmamahal sa anak ko, mahal ko rin.”
It is in honor of such an accepting mother that I’ve chosen to go public with this piece in which I will admit that I am 60 and I am happy.
Well, in other cultures you can substitute the word happy with gay. But gay is such a broad term covering the LGBTQ+ community, and if I am asked which of those letters apply to me then I will say it is the middle one — the B.
Beyond that, I feel I need not explain.
Not that it really has been a secret among those I’ve grown up with, especially the UP Law community, and not that it matters much anymore. I am aware that the first real and formal “proof” that I wasn’t as straight as a whistle may have become public in 1998; that was the year when I was bold enough to like a smart lawyer-friend from UP Law and to actually go out with him. But the cat was out of the bag when he one day wore my Rolex to his law office, surprising those who knew him and who pestered him as to the ownership of the wristwatch. He had asked them to guess, telling them only that the guy was from UP Law as well, but they couldn’t correctly name the owner. And when he finally revealed who it was, it apparently shocked and surprised most of them. After that I can imagine that my secret was a secret no more, except that no one ever asked me straight (no pun intended), perhaps out of respect of the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” philosophy.
But yes, as an older generation would put it, “Dalawa ang relo ko.” Do you get the imagery of a flick of the wrist?
I think I’ve been fortunate that I never grew up having to struggle with my “inner demons” as many others of my generation and more so the younger ones have had to, some being driven even to take their own lives just to escape the opprobrium. But yes, I had my own family issues, actually with my father, who one day surprised me with a two-page, handwritten letter on legal (yellow) pad; he had come home from Canada and I think it was during a reunion of distant relatives there that he was told (or overheard talk) about me. So, in his neat very un-doctor like long hand he was asking me: “What are you doing with your life?” “If you want to enter politics, you’re destroying your chances.” He also added: “Even your advancement in companies may become an issue.”
That was my father, who had been born, was raised and died long before political correctness and, yes, ESG.
One time, when I drove to Laguna to pick him up for our weekly drive back to Himlayang Pilipino Memorial Park in Tandang Sora to visit my mother, he noticed that I had come with a friend, whom he mistakenly thought was (and many others today mistakenly think is) my partner. “I am not going with you to Manila,” he said. “For as long as you come here with your friend, I will not go with you.” After that, I would just send the driver to pick him up and they’d pick me up at BGC on their way to Himlayang, and then we would reverse course after having a quick lunch.
But times do change. In the final year of his life, living in my condo in BGC, he surprised me one morning when he said “Let’s have dinner tonight. You can bring anyone you like.”
That’s as much of an about face he had made, maybe about two decades later; but he died without us ever talking about it. In the end had he surrendered (or accepted, as a friend suggests)?
Maybe, he realized eventually that his fears weren’t as real as he had suspected. Or maybe he realized that I was more capable of handling the matter than he first thought.
Which is one major reason why I’m writing this: because there may be fathers reading this who are similarly situated as my father was more than two decades ago. If the idea of having a son who swings both ways or, worse, the other way, is truly reprehensible to you, I hope you realize that it is no longer seen as any fault of yours or of your bloodline; it is not a blot on the family tree to be locked up in the closet (ha-ha); in fact, if your beloved son could not be the captain ball of the varsity squad that you can be proud of, maybe you can even sit together in the stands and cheer on the team he so ardently supports.
Seriously: there is far more to your son than his sexual preference. Appreciate the whole totality of him. Please.
But I also write this now, at age 60, because I am free. In fact, I’ve said it before that when my father died in 2016, free is how I felt — I no longer had to worry about taking care of elderly parents as I had buried them, or worry about how they would react if nosy relations were to tell them things about me (real or imagined). And so last September when I turned 60 I looked around and said I was happy with my life — I was relatively healthy, relatively debt-free, working in a great company with great folks, enjoying a wide array of friendships made throughout the years, so generally nothing to complain about except for one little thing: it’s been difficult staying in the closet for decades, especially for a claustrophobe like me.
That was the last remaining item to be checked off my list — and while doing this may revolt some people I know or people who say they know me, I am confident that my real friends will tell me what I already sense — that they have known for some time now, and they’re cool about it.
Years ago, I used to repeat something I heard: if a guy is still single at 30 he is either smart or gay. Well, I can say that if a guy is still single at 60 he is definitely smart and happy.
Because yes, I am 60 and I am happy and part of the B in the LGBTQ+ community.
Happy 88th birthday, mama.
Thank you to RCJ, Cong Izzy and Cong Ronny, Gang, Lester, ASHM, BingB, Jake, coachBo and T Reina, Ana Amigo, Dra Krista, Tippy, FLOTUP Gaby, Ellen, MayAnn, Pat and Atty Gina, Louie, Amifaith, Nancy and Rod, GJ, RV, Joanna and Diana and T Aiding, Karl, Martin, Elmore, Abra, Ron, Gene, Anna, Atty Francis, Kaycee and Rocky, Gian and Marnie, Steve C., Ken and Carl, my NAC boss Dennis and a number of others who shared their thoughts with me when I first told them about this piece.
Salamat above all for the respect.
