Passage

On Monday of this week, Clyde’s mother, Joyce, passed away.

Two weeks earlier, Joyce had what felt like a heart attack, but wasn’t. The episode took her to the hospital, where, despite undergoing a heart catheterization, she was very much in good spirits. When Clyde and I visited, she joked about the staff bringing her two lunches by mistake and listened with interest to our stories about reinventing Video Library. Doctors released her a day or two later, and everyone assumed she would recover completely.

Last Monday morning, Joyce was on the phone, chatting with a friend.

A heartbeat later, she died.

* * * * *

Clyde and I met on May 28th, 1992. By November, we were officially a couple. In December, Clyde took me home to New Albany for the very first time.

We were in Grenada — about halfway there — when my curiosity got the better of me. “How did your mother react when you said you were bringing your boyfriend home for the holidays?”

Clyde hesitated. “I didn’t tell her.”

My jaw dropped. “You didn’t tell her?“

Clyde shrugged. “No.”

At first, I thought Clyde had kept me a secret out of fear — but I was wrong. Clyde wasn’t hiding me; instead, having grown up in Joyce’s home, it simply never occurred to him that I would be anything but welcome.

* * * * *

It took me all of ten seconds to feel as though I’d known Joyce forever.

Joyce was a tall woman with a crown of white hair, a high forehead, sparkling eyes, and a broad grin. Her clothes were smart and stylish. A casual elegance infused her voice and gestures. She was curious about me, but her questions were always polite and never prying.

From the very beginning Joyce treated me like one of her own. When bedtime came, she walked with me and Clyde to one of the back bedrooms, nodded at the door, and said, “That’s where you two can sleep.”There was no drama; no one demanded explanations or set constraints. Joyce just accepted me, and that was that.

* * * * *

Years went by. Every time we visited, Joyce made hospitality look effortless. In her kitchen, incredible meals — chili, shrimp grits, fried chicken, lasagnas — appeared out of thin air. The arrival of unannounced friends and neighbors was never even a challenge; with grace and practicality, she expanded menus to accommodate the crowd, making it look as though she had planned for a dozen extra guests all along.

Joyce made conversation seem effortless, too. We shared a common roots in the Church of Christ, so we often talked about religion and faith. She loved swapping stories, loved getting insights into Clyde’s everyday life, loved catching us up with the antics of her friends in New Albany, loved sharing the latest clever things the grandchildren had said or done.

When my own family held me at arm’s length, Joyce accepted me. She never failed to introduce me to friends and acquaintances, never balked at the fact that I was her son’s husband. Eventually, her decision to love us so openly gave other people around her the courage to speak up about their own gay sons and their partners — a remarkable thing, in a small, conservative Southern town.

* * * * *

For most young men, traveling extensively with a mother-in-law is a chore; for me, time with Joyce was always an adventure.

Though in her seventies, Joyce didn’t hesitate to take on the world: Paris, London, Bangkok, Rome. Travel delighted her; in Bangkok, not even a punctured ear drum deterred her from taking in every exotic sight, from elephant treks to boat rides on the River Kwai. Wherever we went, she made friends along the way.

There were small adventures, too: beating the Baptists to the Country Club buffet, talking her way through airport security after accidentally leaving an ice pick in her carry-on bag, making the rounds from party to party on Christmas eve. Joyce never hesitated to embrace whatever life brought her way, and she faced every minute with enthusiasm and style.

And she is, of course, directly responsible for my greatest and most treasured adventure: my life with Clyde. Along with her husband, Joe, Joyce played a huge role in making Clyde the clever, stable, gentle man he is today. His tender heart mirrors hers; his casual grace and tolerance is part of her legacy.

* * * * *

Last Wednesday, had you been in the cemetery at New Albany, you might have joined us at Joyce’s graveside service.

Under the green burlap tent, you would have seen what you might have expected to see: a casket beneath a spray of flowers … a minister holding a Bible … a double row of folding metal chairs for the family of the deceased. And it would have been there — in those chairs — that you would have seen a first remarkable thing: in a small, southern town, on the very front row, a gay man sitting openly and proudly with the husband his mother loved.

Pull back a bit. Now, in addition to the family members you would expect, you will see friends who have driven from as far away as Atlanta to be here — people who delighted in Joyce’s “open house” policy and who became a part of the family simply by joining us at the cabin by the lake these past few years.

Pull back further, and you will see a crowd of hundreds of people: friends who have known Joyce for half a century or more; friends from high school days; friends who double-dated with Joe and Joyce; college roommates; dozens of people who, having moved to town decades ago, still call Joyce “their first real friend in New Albany;” adults who who, as teenagers, felt more at home in Joyce’s house than their own; Mexican immigrants who gave up a day’s pay at the local factory to pay tribute to a remarkable woman who supported them in their plans to find work, to get educations, and to make a life for themselves in her hometown.

if you stand here with me a moment, baking in the glare of a fierce Mississippi summer, you will know you are in the presence of a woman who changed untold lives for the better … simply by being the woman she was.

Goodbye, Joyce.