Thoughts about Parents

My parents continue to email me after receiving the photo greeting cards we make of Hester (we have been doing on each major holiday). They even sent a stuffed lamb for Easter to Hester. I am surprised that everyone was right that they may be in contact more when I had a child. I am happy, mostly, with the tentative nature of our interactions. I wonder if this is the start of re-establishing our relationship or not.

When I hold Hester, my mind wanders to thinking about how my parents held me. I think a lot about my mother. I think about how much I love Hester and how my mother must have felt the same way when holding me. I think about how I never want to be estranged from Hester and how much it must hurt my mother to be estranged from me. I wonder about her choices in regards to me, especially the choice to cling to religions that say being queer is bad. I know God and religions are powerful forces in her life but each time I look at Hester, each time I hold her, each time I see her I feel the presence of God with each of us and in the love we have for each other. I wish my mother and father could get beyond what man says God believes and could see that God made me in His image as much as he made them in His image. I wish they could see God in Hester, Clementine, and themselves. I am not so angry with them anymore. I am more surprised that something made by men, religion, could come between the love a parent has for their child.