my ex-mother-in-law and my cousin.

my ex-mil is the tiniest meekest most submissive old fashion mexican woman that i’ve ever known; more so than my own grandmothers; but she recognized that her son was different (gay) when he was a toddler and she warned everyone that she knew that if they had a problem with her son, then they had a problem with her and to air their grievances now so she can know whom to cut out of her and her son’s life. (that’s a big deal for traditionalist mexicans like her family).

growing up, i winced a lot when i saw my aunts, uncles and cousins bully and beat the tar out of my cousin to “toughen the sissy out of him” and “beat the sugar out of his blood” because he was so flamboyantly gay. decades later; those same people fell upon extraordinarily hard times and my cousin took them all in. by doing so: he literally gave the same people who abused him so much that he had to ran away at 14 years old to protect himself from them and then turned around to give them a roof over their heads and food on the table for them when they asked.

i aspire to be both people; it think that they’re the best examples of humanity that i’ve seen with my own eyes.