Why I Enjoy Lunch With Them

Today I went to lunch with Mom and a friend of hers.  The town in which they live is a bit different from my neighborhood, where I have two Chinese restaurants (one Halal) as well as Mexican, Italian, Greek and Japanese/sushi establishments--not to mention a nice little bakery/cafe that isn't Starbuck's.


Most of the restaurants here are franchises of chains.  We went to one of them: Ruby Tuesday's.  I didn't mind:  The food is better than what's served in most other chains, in my opinion, and the service is professional and friendly.


Probably the only people in Florida who are happier than she is to see me are my mother and father.  And I really enjoy her company.  Today, I understood why:  I don't feel like I'm explaining myself or rationalizing (or, worse, defending) things I've done.  I simply feel like I'm having a conversation with another woman who happens to be sympathetic and empathetic.  And, knowing her as a friend of my mother's makes me feel closer to my mother, which is something I appreciate. 


In some ways she is like my mother:  She doesn't have a lot of formal education, but she is very intelligent and wise.  Her religious faith is also important to her, as it is for my mother.  Both are what people would call "practicing Catholics":  They go to church, observe all of the religious holidays and pray.  Plus, they are what some people would say are the "true" adherents:  They defer judgment to the God they believe in, and try to be loving and helpful to people.


As it happens, I have another friend like them:  Millie, who  rescued Max.  With her, with my mother, with my mother's friend, it's not a matter of being "accepted as" a trans person or a woman.  I simply feel like a whole, integrated person around others to whom I can relate, and who understand me.  I'm not a case study or a subject for experimentation--or, worse, someone who fits, or doesn't fit, into what they saw in some textbook in a gender studies course or manual from a workshop. 


That said, I do have friends who are educated in the sense that most people mean.  And they have accepted me on my own terms.  But I don't think their friendship has much to do with their schooling.  By the same token, I don't think whether I can become or remain friends with someone has much to do with that person's religious beliefs, or whether or not she or he has them. I take that back:  I've actually encountered love, acceptance and pure-and-simple helpfulness from people who were motivated, at least in part, by such beliefs. 


Back to my mother and her friend:  The time I get to spend with them will make me at least a little sad, for a little while to go home.  At least I know I can have similar experiences there--whether by having lunch, going for a bike ride or just talking with someone to whom I don't have to defend anything I've done.

Lunch With My Mother And Her Friend

When I was a teenager, I enjoyed the company of my mother's friends, especially two in particular.  Mrs. Orzel and Mrs. De Land were both very intelligent and interesting people, and I always noticed that my mother was happier and more confident when she was around them.  Maybe that was the reason why I enjoyed being around them:  They made my mother into the person I knew she really was.

Of course, even though I never sensed that they were speaking to me with condescension, I knew even then that I could not consider them as friends or peers.  They were my mother's age, give or take, and I was less than half that.  And, of course, I was living as a boy.  Perhaps they knew that, at least in some ways, I was different from the others.  Those differences may well have been the reason why we got along and I actually preferred spending time with them than with my so-called peers.

My mother is still in touch with Mrs. Orzel who, like her daughter,  has been battling cancer in another part of the country.  She has sent her regards to me, and I've sent mine to her, through my mother.  Sometimes I think I'd like to see her again.

Yesterday I had the sort of encounter I would like to have with Mrs. Orzel--with another of my mother's friends.  We all went to lunch at the local Ruby Tuesday.  And I saw the same sort of change in my mother I used to see when she was around her friends all those years ago:  She was a happier and more confident person.  That has something to do with the fact that her friend can empathise with her in ways that my father, whatever his other virtues, never could.

Fortunately for my mother, this friend lives very close by.  They play bingo together, along with a few other female friends about their age, and sometimes they get together for lunch.  My mother's friend is almost the definition of a "lovely" person:  You feel good about yourself, and a sense of peace, when you're around her.  And I felt that she not only accepted, but welcomed, me.  Perhaps my being my mother's daughter was reason enough for her.  That's fine with me.  I never had the sense she was "tolerating" me.

I have always felt close to my mother.  But I have had, lately, the sense that our relationship is going to change.  I could not say how; I still don't think I can.  However, I think that perhaps some emotional channel of which I'd previously been unaware will open up.  It may well have to do with the wishes I had when I was talking with my mother's friends all of those years ago.