Sydney Gossett
“Use the intellect God gave us, and love one another” was Tom Nelson’s closing comments after sharing his story with some 60 people. Tom Nelson and his wife Linda, are both current members in Fortunate Families, and had come to Siena Heights University (SHU) on Dec. 4, to share their stories with us.
Fortunate Families is an organization made up of (mostly) Catholic parents who affirm, celebrate and seek equality for their gay, lesbian or transgendered children, and travel around the country sharing their coming out stories.
Last Tuesday, Tom and Linda Nelson came to SHU to share their “coming out” stories at two different sessions, one at 4 p.m. in the DH conference room, and one at 7 p.m. in the Ledwidge Ballroom.
Linda Nelson first got up to speak. Frail, short, and quiet but very moving as she spoke. She told us of her gay son John, a 42 year old man who is a publicist in New York. As she told the room (made up of faculty, students and the Adrian community) about John’s coming out story, she told us about hers as well. “It took me 3 years to come out of the closet… 3 years to tell anyone that I had a gay son” she admits.
When she finished telling her story, her husband rose out of his seat and hugged her. The embrace lasted for a few seconds, the room silent with everyone admiring their love and strength. Then Tom rose, and began to tell his tale.
Tom Nelson had 16 years of Catholic schooling, and graduated from Notre Dame. Now 82, Nelson has five daughters and 1 son, with some grandkids and great grandkids thrown into the mix. He tells us of his one son Mark who is gay, and how no one would have ever have guessed that his son could be homosexual, “I had my stereotypes of what a gay man was, and my son was none of those. In elementary school, he had to go to the dentist before his hockey game to get five teeth extracted, and when he woke up, he went to the bathroom and puked, then said, ‘Ma! Take me to the game!’”
The smile on Tom Nelson’s face started to fade as he started talking about his son’s college years. He had always spoken in disgust on the topic of homosexuality, “love the sinner, hate the sin!” he said. When Mark was a freshman in college, he attempted suicide by swallowing a whole bottle of painkillers.
As Tom Nelson’s son laid down on his bunk to die a vision came to him/ It was God proclaiming, “I made you just the way you are, and you are good”. When the vision ended, his son went to the bathroom and puked up all the pills, and stayed up two whole days in fear of falling asleep and never waking up.
At the end of the semester, Nelson had to drive 800 miles to pick Mark up and drive him home. On the way home Nelson asked his son, “are you gay?” and the response he got was, “I don’t want to talk about it”. No words were exchanged the rest of the drive.
The next few years Nelson spent at the library, devoting all his spare time reading any book about everything and anything on the topic of homosexuality. He realized that being gay had nothing to do with choice or the environment one is raised in. He also realized that being gay was not a choice; no one would choose to go through the years of harassment and inequality that the LBGT (lesbian, bisexual, gay and transgendered) community faces.
When Nelson opened his eyes and came to realize what his son was going to face, his opposition quickly changed. “I have come to know many gay persons. We have dined together, walked together, traveled together, worshiped together, and laughed and cried together. I have some new stereotypes as a result. Almost without exception, I have found my gay friends to be likeable, loveable people of high integrity. More than that, most seem to have a resilience, a forbearance for life’s burdens.”
Fortunate Families is based out of Rochester, NY, but the Nelsons reside in Grosse Pointe, Mich. Besides their two stories, there are 34 other similar coming out stories available on the Fortunate Families website, which is www.fortunatefamilies.com along with many other resources to help further educate ones’ view of homosexuality.
SHU’s Gay Straight Alliance group PRIDE brought the Nelsons to campus, and over 60 people attended the event PRIDE’s next meeting will be January 14th, 2013 in DH 206.