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To: Suzanne Bittle <suzanne2ndhand@gmail.com>
From: Alicia A. Zimmermann <alicia@zimmermann.org>
Sent: Monday, Jun 15, 2015 at 7:32 AM
Subject: Sylvie’s Butter Tarts
Dear Suzanne,
I was finally at book club last Thursday and remembered to ask Sylvie for her maple butter tart recipe. I have attached the scan of the recipe card she sent me - it has metric measurements but rather than try to do the conversions myself I thought you would prefer to have the recipe as provided! Let me know if I can help translating - after thirty years switching back and forth from one system to the other I feel fairly confident about where to skip and where to be generous.
How are you and Rich doing this week? I know from Jack that last week was a busy one for Eric. Has he spoken with you any further?
I realize I said this in my last email, and don’t mean to push or pry, but Bob and I have been in where you are in very broad terms -- a son who came out to us after successfully hiding his anxiety about being gay (among other things) for years. So please don’t hesitate to email or call if you need someone to talk to who understands how complicated these family conversations can be.
Salut,
Alicia
To: Alicia A. Zimmermann <alicia@zimmermann.org>
From: Suzanne Bittle <suzanne2ndhand@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, Jun 15, 2015 at 1:56 PM
Subject: RE: Sylvie’s Butter Tarts
Dear Alicia,
Oh my goodness, thank you! This is just the thing for Dickey and I to make as a special treat for the potluck next Sunday. It’s a christening Sunday with three little ones being welcomed into the congregation and we always try to do something a little special on those occasions.
I’ll be sure to let you know if Dickey and I can’t work out the conversions.
I do truly appreciate your support for our family. Dickey hasn’t said much, yet, and I thought it best to give him a little space. We had been expecting this day for years and somehow it still caught us by surprise, do you know? I think Rich and I had been thinking for so long it would be someday in the future we forgot that our little boy is now twenty years old and a young man!
I know Dickey’s told Jack this (we’ve asked him not to tell anyone else for now) and with Rich’s permission I am sharing this in strict confidence: Rich himself has, in the past, been in relationships with men. He considers himself to be bisexual although we don’t talk openly about it because it would almost certainly mean the loss of his job with the school system. We actually met, back in college, because for a brief period we were dating men who happened to be roommates -- and then the following year took the same political science class together. Once we were together it … at the time (perhaps even still today) if you were a man dating a woman you were looked on with suspicion by the gay community. Rich never really felt welcome, particularly once we were a couple.
So we didn’t … we both knew about and were comfortable with the fact he dated men in the past but we never talked about it. It was safer to half forget it rather than constantly remember not to speak of it, if that makes any sense.
But of course, we should have told Dickey, I can see that so clearly now. We thought -- at first we couldn’t tell him as a child because you never know what children will say. We couldn’t have something slip out. We started to notice the signs in grade school that he ... but as Rich likes to remind me, being a figure skater or a baker or a fan of pop music or shirts in lavender and buttercup doesn’t indicate the first thing about a person’s sexual orientation. He could have grown up to be straight and made the girls very happy with all that baking, you see? So we thought we shouldn’t pressure him. I knew he'd started talking about liking boys on his vlog and thought he would tell us when he was ready. I had a mother who was constantly asking me about boys and I wanted to give Dickey more privacy to explore his feelings.
We thought he ought to find his own way. And we thought he knew how PROUD we were of him. I am heartsick that he thought we might … reject that part of who he is.
Rich is taking him out hiking on Wednesday morning and I’m hoping they’ll find a way to talk it out between the two of them. Words don’t come easy to Rich, but I know he has some things he wants to say to his son.
Does the worry ever stop? My Dickey is so brave and yet as a mother I want to hide him away where the bigots and bullies will never be able to find him.
In treasured friendship,
Suzanne
To: Suzanne Bittle <suzanne2ndhand@gmail.com>
From: Alicia A. Zimmermann <alicia@zimmermann.org>
Sent: Monday, Jun 15, 2015 at 4:16 PM
Subject: RE: Sylvie’s Butter Tarts
Dear Suzanne,
Thank you for trusting us with this part of your family’s story. May I share this with Bob, or do you prefer that I keep it in confidence? It is so frustrating that people like you and Rich or Jack and Eric need to make calculations about physical safety and financial security around such commonplaces as speaking openly about past relationships or acting like a couple in public. These are experiences that Bob and I have never lived first-hand, only secondarily as we support Jack’s right to decide when and how to share this part of himself and his experience with more people.
Have I mentioned how happy I am (we both are) for Eric and Jack? I don’t think you have seen the two of them together as much as Bob and I have but I hope you have also seen how simply besotted they are with one another. On Jack’s graduation day it was so clear how comfortable they were in one another’s orbit -- even though it took Bob practically shoving Jack off in Eric’s direction to get them (or at least Jack) to see it! Jack’s happiness radiated from him all during our vacation on the Cape -- and I hope you have seen similar for Eric.
It is Jack’s thriving in the world, and being with people who make him happy, that is most important to me. Of course I worry. Every day. I have woken every day since Jack’s overdose thinking how thankful I am that he is still alive and that we have yet another day to share with him. I am his mother - I cannot help but worry that someone or something will try and succeed in taking him away from us (A car accident? A plane crash? A freak injury on the ice? A homophobic “fan”?). I try to carry my worry alongside my determination to support him living the life he is most happy living.
(I don’t always succeed -- my yoga instructor would say I need to practice more mindfulness.)
I will be thinking of Rich and Eric especially on Wednesday. Again (again!) please don’t hesitate to let us know if there is anything we can do to support you all.
Salut,
Alicia
P.S. There’s a woman who runs an art gallery in Québec City that I think might be very interested in your work -- would you mind if I showed her the bowl you sent at Christmas? And a few examples from your website? Have you ever considered expanding your market into Canada?