The Night I Took All the Pictures Down ...

It was earlier in the summer when Chris had come from New York to San Antonio to visit.  I was still having a really difficult time calling him Chris, and didn't, most of the time, out of rebellion, mostly, but also because I seldom had reason to, as he was not around much.  He had begun to take testosterone in March and I'm sure there were some subtle changes, but none that I could really see. I didn't, and still don't, have much fear about the physical changes, for some reason.  I guess it might be because I've always lived by the adage that you should never judge a book by its cover.  I had seen both of my twins grow up from being little girls who allowed me to dress them for many years in girly clothes, to teenagers who shunned all things girly and preferred wearing boy clothes or non-gender clothes.  I would sometimes joke that I'd love to see them in a dress or skirt from time to time - and both did attend their senior proms in dresses and heels (much to everyone's surprise and appreciation - they looked amazing!), but I had grown accustomed and at ease with the clothes they wore and their more tom-boyish demeanor's.  Both were exceptional and dedicated basketball players in high school and rugby players in college.  They were never going to be girly girls.

So, anyway, Chris was at our house this one night.  After we had all spent a fun evening eating and then playing games at the kitchen table, at one point I saw that Chris was at the top of the stairs leaning into her bother's room talking to him.  I wandered up there and pulled Chris into the hallway toward the wall of pictures.  On one side of our upstairs hallway are pictures of Chris and Courtney when they were little.  On the opposite side of the hallway are 2 other walls that hold pictures of my son, Billy, and my daughter, Alexis, when they were little.  I tried to pull Chris to stand in front of the wall of him and his twin, but he resisted, saying, "I'm not doing this."

I knew what that meant without any further explanation, and I guess he knew why I was pulling him toward those photos.  I don't really know what I would have said if he had let me stand there with him and look at them, because he didn't want to hear whatever it is I might have said.  I think he had no desire to go back there at the same moment I needed him to go back there with me.

I walked away from Chris, upset.  He walked away, upset with me.  After he left that night ... I took all the pictures off of that wall - fully intending to never put them back up again.  Now I know, that that little girl in all those pictures is not who Chris sees himself to be, but on that night, all I could feel was that he was taking her away from me.  And so, in anger and pain, I thought maybe I was suppose to erase her, too, and so I tried to, by taking those photos down off the wall and packing them away.

The next morning I walked by that wall and it was bare.  Bare of all the precious, framed pictures of my twin girls.  Bare of every memory each picture held for me.  I was alone in the house and I looked at that bare wall and fell to my knees in the hallway and cried.  And then ... I got up.  I went and found all the pictures and ... put them back on the wall again.  No matter what, I couldn't live with all those memories hidden sadly away in a closet somewhere.  I needed them where they had always been, to remind me how much I loved all those days with my babies.

After this incident, a friend sent me a message suggesting something she thought I should do that might help me.  She said, "Sometime, when you are with Chris, you should ask him to lay with you and ask him to let you talk about Chloe.  Maybe this will help both of you."  I haven't really had the opportunity to ask Chris to do this, as he lives in New York and we haven't had much time together over the past 8 months since he began transitioning, but ... one day I will ask him to do this for me. And after we talk about my precious Chloe ... I think we should talk about Chris ...