The next few weeks were busy with work and on the weekends we were staying and working on the farm. It was great to be up there, just the two of us, working all day in the sun, bathing in the outdoor shower and sleeping naked, spooning and fucking on the porch. I wished that the rest of our lives could just be like that. However, when Sunday evening came, we had to pack up, drive home and pick up our everyday lives on Monday. After a few more weeks, he asked me to move in with him and I gave up my apartment which simplified our lives.
One Friday, Josh met me at the train station and said, "I was thinking we could stay in town this weekend and go and meet my parents on Sunday."
"Sure," I said.
I knew that family means a lot to Josh and I was a little nervous about meeting his parents. He never really talked about them, although he had mentioned his brothers, sisters and some cousins and he had talked to all of them on the phone on several occasions. "What have you told your parents about me.....us?" I asked.
"I told them I had met a special someone and his name is Tom," he said softly. "They don't seem to understand. It may not be the most pleasant situation we are going into."
"If you would rather meet them alone, I understand..."
"No Tom, I think we should meet them together. I feel that we have made a good start on a solid foundation as a couple. This situation is not about me alone, but rather us. The last thing I want to do is put you in an awkward situation, it may be the first resistance we meet as a couple and I would like to meet it head on with you. What do you think?"
"I'm game, I'm ready to take on the world...I just think that if your family is against our relationship, this may be the worst resistance that we are ever going to meet." He smiled softly and raised his eyebrows and gave me a hug.
On Sunday, we drove over to his parent's house. We had not discussed anything since he first mentioned this, so I felt that he trusted me. I must, however, admit that Tom's rather gloomy forewarning had made me nervous and the drive over to his parent's house went by way too fast.
We walked around the house and found them sitting at a table on the back patio and only his father stood up when we reached the table. "Hello, Eli Phillipson, and this is my wife Shirley," he said and shook my hand. His wife sat and looked at me and nodded her head and said a rather cold and formal, "Hello".
"My name is Tom Huber, pleasure to meet both of you," I said.
They nodded at Josh and we sat down at the table. "Help yourself to some coffee," his father said and Josh poured cups for both of us. We sat there in a very awkward silence sipping our coffee until his mother spoke up.
"I guess I really don't understand why the two of you are here," she said in a cold manner.
"I wanted you to meet Tom and for him to meet both of you. As I told you earlier, Tom and I are a couple and Tom means a lot to me." Josh said in a friendly, upbeat tone.
"A couple of what? A couple of friends?" his mother asked in an unfriendly tone.
"I think you know what being a couple means," Josh said in a monotone.
"No, I don't. A couple is a man and a woman," she said, reasonably neutral, and then she turned and addressed me. "Tom is a very eligible bachelor and has many women who are interested in him."
"I would certainly believe that ma'am." I said very calmly and in a friendly tone.
She then turned in a very angry, haughty and accusative tone directly to Josh, "Well, Josh's father and I don't understand this at all and certainly don't accept this. We never expected this and certainly had no idea that Josh was interested in this type of perversion. Is this why you and Kate broke up and you have never settled down with a woman, is it because you are interested in laying with men? You know it's against the Bible, we raised you to be a good Christian boy and we always thought you were. Now you come round here with some, some man that you've shacked up with and expect us to smile, to throw our arms around you?"
Hmmm, I thought, she would make a good trial lawyer throwing out a string of innuendos to try and confuse the witness and manipulate the jury. She wasn't speaking to him, rather at him, almost as if he were a person she despised, at least at that moment.
She prattled on about how could Josh do this to his father, her, the family, the family's reputation, they would be excommunicated from the church, did he not have any shame and on and on for at least ten minutes, one would have thought that Josh's transgression was the source of world hunger, war and devastation. She finished off with her grand finale--Didn't he understand how unhappy he was making his father, her, the entire family and opening himself up to being damned to hell for eternity?
Finally she had run out of arguments and statements leaving a tense, awkward, thick silence that enveloped us all.
I had watched Josh while she was speaking. His face and body language were expressionless, however I could detect a flicker of emotion in his eyes. I couldn't understand if it were anger, disappointment, sadness, hurt, or a mixture of all. I could however feel an anxious, melancholy energy emitting from his body. I also knew that Josh was not just hurting for himself, but for me and for us, our relationship. I felt so bad for him and wished so much this wasn't happening. While my heart was heavy, my anger had risen, how dare Josh's mother speak to him like this? How dare she spit this venom and hate towards him? I was seething with anger and I knew I had to control myself for Josh's sake.
Josh sat and looked directly at her without saying a word, just staring at her with an expressionless face. While she sat there glaring at him, she seemed nervous that her diatribe didn't seem to have any effect on him and he just sat there looking directly back at her with his piercing brown eyes. Perhaps she, herself, now had the feeling that she had gone too far. His father sat there with a frightened, confused look on his face and seemed powerless to react to what just happened.
I was confused regarding my role in this drama. This was Josh's family, was it his responsibility to answer them and I should sit there quietly? Does Josh have a strategy that I will ruin if I start talking? If he doesn't have a strategy, will it make things worse if I say something? "What the hell?" I thought. My highest priority at this time was my concern for Josh and I just did what felt right. I reached out and took his hand in mine and before I knew it I was talking.
"Mrs. Phillipson, Josh is a fine and wonderful man, well-educated, god-fearing and has a heart of gold. A man whom, I believe any mother or father, would be proud to call their son and any one who was fortunate enough to win his heart and soul to call him their partner.........
I believe that it rarely occurs in life, but sometimes, if two people are very, very, very fortunate, they meet each other, and in a split second, feel in the very depths of each of their souls, that this person is the one, the missing half that makes each of their souls and lives complete......
This is the experience that Josh and I have just had. In that split second there was no concern about gender, race, creed or color, it was about the realization that this soul right in front of me is the one that makes my soul complete and vice versa. I cannot, even myself, believe how lucky and fortunate I am to have met Josh......Being together with Josh has given me more joy than anything else I have ever experienced. I won't be presumptuous enough to speak for Josh, he can tell you his own experience.....
We are two grown men, we are not looking at the world through rose-colored glasses. Our relationship also brings with it many challenges, same sex relationships are not considered conventional or even acceptable and we risk being met with ridicule, scorn and discrimination. I personally believe that to live one's life together with THE ONE is worth every mountain I will have to climb and every pain I will have to suffer.......
There is one pain, however,that is especially difficult and that is one where one's own flesh and blood, the two people who gave you life and taught you to believe in yourself, encouraged you to dare to work hard and overcome all obstacles to be the best person you can be, who hoped only for your happiness, wealth and good health, suddenly do not support you, or refuse to recognize you or even worse try to get you to NOT be the person you have become.....
Neither Josh nor I have committed any crime, any felony. Many people may have the opinion that our relationship is wrong, a sin, an abomination. The only thing we have done is to find each other, fall in love and be happy and we want the freedom to live like any other happy couple........
I apologize that our relationship may put you in a difficult and uncomfortable position, one where you have to question and challenge your own values. In your hearts you know Josh, your son, who loves the two of you more than anyone else on this earth. You know, in your hearts, that he would never intentionally do anything to hurt you. I know that both of you love Josh and I personally believe that Josh's happiness is of supreme importance to you and that, if you thought Josh sacrificed his own happiness to make you happy, you would be miserable."
Josh's father sat straight in his chair with two tears running down his sun-streaked cheeks. His mother was bent over in her chair sobbing. I looked over at Josh and tears were streaming down his cheeks. He stood up, pulled me up and gave me a bear hug and sobbed into my shoulder."
For some time, neither Josh's father nor mother moved from their spot, they seemed to be in shock. Josh went over and bent down and hugged his mother and she put her arms around him and cried like a baby. Josh's father stood up from his chair and came over to me with his right hand extended. He shook my hand and patted me on the shoulder with his left hand. He turned around, patted Josh on the shoulder and then went into the house.
Josh helped his mother into the house and after some time, he came out and told me his parents had gone straight to bed. He embraced me and whispered in my ear, "Thank you." I hugged him back, squeezing his firm body with all my might.
He tossed the truck keys to me, "You drive."
We rode in silence and I could sense he was still disturbed and his mind seemed to be elsewhere. I pulled the truck into the driveway, and was about to open the door to get out when he spoke.
"Wait, I need to tell you something," he said with his brown eyes boring into mine. "I had always figured it would be a more romantic setting when I do this, but goddamnit, it's the right time.......Tom, I love you." and he grabbed me in a big, tight bearhug.
"Josh, the timing couldn't be better and you know I'm not looking for any lovey-dovey shit," and we had a good laugh, one that broke the tension of the past couple of hours.
