"My responsibility was to tell you the truth, that your own child is homosexual": Michael Tolliver's "Dear Mama" letter

"The letter" was meant for reading, not acting: At 4:35 of this clip from the More Tales of the City miniseries, it's Mrs. Madrigal (Olympia Dukakis) and Mona (Nina Siemaszko) rather than Mary Ann (Laura Linney) who bring Mama's letter to Michael (Paul Hopkins) in the hospital, and it's Mona who reads a drastically condensed version of it and then takes Michael's dictation of an understandably shortened (but with some important stuff left out) and unfortunately sentimentalized version of his reply, during which they're joined by Mary Ann and Burke (Colin Ferguson). The letter concludes in the next "chapter."

"I'm sorry, Mama. Not for what I am, but for how you must feel at this moment. I know what that feeling is, for I felt it for most of my life. Revulsion, shame, disbelief -- rejection through fear of something I knew, even as a child, was as basic to my nature as the color of my eyes."

-- from Michael's letter, in Armistead Maupin's
More Tales of the City

by Ken

Tonight's business, as I explained last night, is the "coming out" letter Michael sends his mother back in Orlando, finally breaking the news (at age 27) to his parents that he's gay.

Note that I didn't say Michael writes the letter. As I mentioned, he actually dictates it to his friend Mary Ann while he's lying in a hospital bed paralyzed from the neck down by a sudden mysterious illness. Before we get to the letter itself, I think it may be helpful to skip ahead to Mary Ann's own reaction, as she expresses it to her current Mr. Right, Burke, when they return to 28 Barbary Lane from the hospital.

Mary Ann is recalling her first meeting with Michael, which -- as he never tires of reminding her -- took place in the "singles" supermarket her Cleveland friend Connie took her to shortly after her arrival in San Francisco, when she tried to pick up a potential Mr. Right who turned out to be Michael's boyfriend of the moment.

"He was so cute, Burke . . . but I was furious with him, because he was with this guy I really liked, and all night long I just kept saying to myself, 'What a waste . . . what a waste.' I believed that, too. I really believed he was wasted, that he had gone wrong somehow. Of course, I told myself I felt sorry for him, but I was really just feeling sorry for myself. I found out all the Mr. Rights weren't made for me, and I couldn't handle it."

"That's O.K. People change."

"I didn't. Not for a long time. I used to feel . . . I don't know. I guess I thought I could change him, become his friend and make him relax around women or something. I didn't count on finding out that I was the one who needed to relax."

Burke startles Mary Ann by revealing that during the cruise to Mexico on which they met, when Mary Ann was traveling with Michael, he was at times "almost eaten up with jealousy" over her relationship with Michael.

"Michael and you together. Michael and you laughing and conspiring together. Michael and you playing tricks on Arnold and Melba [their shipboard tablemates]. Michael and you pretending -- hell, you weren't pretending -- you were married. You were as married as two people could ever be."

GETTING BACK TO THE LETTER

Michael's decision to out himself to his parents is prompted, as I mentioned, by a letter he receives from his mother, which Mary Ann has brought to the hospital from his apartment, and he has her read to him. In it Michael's mama goes on at length about how upset she is at an old high school classmate of hers who has refused to support Anita Bryant's Save Our Children campaign. (Yes, it's 1977.) Lucy "has all of a sudden become real militant about the homosexuals," and "called us heathens and hypocrites and said that Jesus wouldn't even let us kiss His feet if He came back to earth today."

After all these years it suddenly seems significant to Mama that "Lucy never did marry, and she was really pretty." Michael's father "pointed out that Lucy takes modern art classes at the YWCA now and wears Indian blouses and hippie clothes, so I guess it's possible that the lesbians have recruited her."

(Michael himself spent a good part of his growing-up years worrying about how he would explain not getting married to the good folk of Orlando. I've already quoted Michael's description to Mary Ann -- during the trip back from Mexico, when he first thought seriously about coming out to his parents -- of the phenomenon of the "eccentric old bachelors" of Orlando, including his own Uncle Roger, who are permitted to live out their unmarried lives without being shunned as long as they don't actually have any visible contact with one another. Michael recalled his uncle's "decent eunuch's funeral," reflecting that "I had never seen him touch another human being. Not one," then saying, "I hope to God he got laid.")

Mama's letter concluded:

We are all praying that the referendum in Miami will pass. If the homosexuals are allowed to teach in Miami, then it might happen in Orlando. Reverend Harker says that things have gotten so bad in Miami that the homosexuals are kissing each other in public. Your Papa doesn't believe that, but I say that the devil is a lot more powerful than we think he is.

Mikey, we had to put Blackie to sleep. I hate to tell you that, but he was mighty old. I know the Lord will look after him, like He does with all His creatures.

All His creatures, that is, except the homosexuals. (Papa, by the way, is such a paragon of morality that he eventually has an affair with his daughter-in-law, Michael's brother's wife.)

Mary Ann tries to soften the blow for Michael. His mother "doesn't know what she's saying." (Michael: "She's a capital-C Christian. They always know what they're saying.") But she wouldn't say that "if she knew. Not her own son." (Michael: "She'd say it about somebody else's son. What the hell is the difference?") Finally Michael asks Mary Ann, "Got your Bic handy?" She says, "Sure." He says, "Take a letter, Miss Singleton."

The letter occupies a chapter by itself, a chapter called "Dear Mama."

Dear Mama,

I'm sorry it's taken me so long to write. Every time I try to write to you and Papa I realize I'm not saying the things that are in my heart. That would be O.K., if I loved you any less than I do, but you are still my parents and I am still your child.

I have friends who think I'm foolish to write this letter. I hope they're wrong. I hope their doubts are based on parents who loved and trusted them less than mine do. I hope especially that you'll see this as an act of love on my part, a sign of my continuing need to share my life with you.

I wouldn't have written, I guess, if you hadn't told me about your involvement in the Save Our Children campaign. That, more than anything, made it clear that my responsibility was to tell you the truth, that your own child is homosexual, and that I never needed saving from anything except the cruel and ignorant piety of people like Anita Bryant.

I'm sorry, Mama. Not for what I am, but for how you must feel at this moment. I know what that feeling is, for I felt it for most of my life. Revulsion, shame, disbelief -- rejection through fear of something I knew, even as a child, was as basic to my nature as the color of my eyes.

No, Mama, I wasn't "recruited." No seasoned homosexual ever served as my mentor. But you know what? I wish someone had. I wish someone older than me and wiser than the people in Orlando had taken me aside and said, "You're all right, kid. You can grow up to be a doctor or a teacher just like anyone else. You're not crazy or sick or evil. You can succeed and be happy and find peace with friends -- all kinds of friends -- who don't give a damn who you go to bed with. Most of all, though, you can love and be loved, without hating yourself for it."

But no one ever said that to me, Mama. I had to find it out on my own, with the help of the city that has become my home. I know this may be hard for you to believe, but San Francisco is full of men and women, both straight and gay, who don't consider sexuality in measuring the worth of another human being.

These aren't radicals or weirdos, Mama. They are shop clerks and bankers and little old ladies and people who nod and smile to you when you meet them on the bus. Their attitude is neither patronizing nor pitying. And their message is so simple: Yes, you are a person. Yes, I like you. Yes, it's all right for you to like me too.

I know what you must be thinking now. You're asking yourself: What did we do wrong? How did we let this happen? Which one of us made him that way?

I can't answer that, Mama. In the long run, I guess I really don't care. All I know is this: If you and Papa are responsible for the way I am, then I thank you with all my heart, for it's the light and the joy of my life.

I know I can't tell you what it is to be gay. But I can tell you what it's not.

It's not hiding behind words, Mama. Like family and decency and Christianity. It's not fearing your body, or the pleasures God made for it. It's not judging your neighbor, except when he's crass or unkind.

Being gay has taught me tolerance, compassion and humility. It has shown me the limitless possibilities of living. It has given me people whose passion and kindness and sensitivity provided a constant source of strength.

It has brought me into the family of man, Mama, and I like it here. I like it.

There's not much else I can say, except that I'm the same Michael you've always known. You just know me better now. I have never consciously done anything to hurt you. I never will.

Please don't feel you have to answer right away. It's enough for me to know that I no longer have to lie to the people who taught me to value the truth.

Mary Ann sends her love.

Everything is fine at 28 Barbary Lane.

Your loving son,
Michael

FOURTEEN CHAPTERS LATER . . .

Mary Ann asks Michael if he's heard from his parents.

"I guess you could call it that. My mother wrote to say that my 'sin against the Lord' was killing my father, and my father wrote to say that it was killing my mother. " He smiled wanly. "They're terribly worried about each other."

AND THEN IN THE BOOK'S FINAL PAGES . . .

in the chapter "Happy Ending," in which Michael is back home at 28 Barbary Lane and walking, Mary Ann encounters him in the courtyard "testing his legs like a newborn colt."

"I'm a healthy, strapping boy again, and Jon and I can . . . well, never mind that part. Plus -- oh, miracle of miracles! -- my mother sent me a pound cake yesterday!"

Mary Ann smiled. "I know. Jon gave me some. I'm glad she's coming around, Mouse."

"We don't know that yet. There wasn't a message. Just the pound cake."

"She's trying, Mouse."

He smiled. "A fruit cake would've made me a little nervous."

As a matter of fact, as we see finally in the 2007 Tales sequel Michael Tolliver Lives, in which Michael in his mid-50s has to deal with his mother's final decline, Mama really never does come around.

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