Family, Friends, and being Transgendered (Part 2 - Extended Family)

Part 1 of this set of posts detailed my family, or basically lack thereof.  As I mentioned there I've come to accept how it's turned out and have moved on from that; however, it is hard to not have any actual family contact.  My mother's side of the family really only consisted of my grandparents (one of which has passed, the other I'm not sure of); and her two brothers.  I'm sure there are probably uncles/aunts out there somewhere; but if so I've either never met them or I was so young I don't recall meeting them.  While my birth name consisted of parts of each of her brothers names, I never really had much of a relationship with either of them and that was fine.  I was very close to my grandparents growing up; but as I got older I grew apart from them - mainly due to the distance they lived from us and partially due to other more personal reasons.  So any relationships with that side of the family has long since sailed.

My father's side was a little different.  He had three brothers and a sister, I believe he was the second child in the list; his sister is actually only a couple of years older than I am so there is quite the spread between their ages (20 years total give or take I believe).  We spent a fair amount of time around them as a child; we'd often go to my grandparents on Sunday's where there would often be one or more of my uncles (and as the years progressed, their own families) there - my aunt being so close to my age lived at home most of those years.  During my younger years, I wasn't a real fan of going in there - I would rather have spent time at my paternal grandparents house instead; but as the years progressed, that switched 180 degrees.  My father's family (for the most part) was a lot of fun to be around.  In fact, the only gripe I had was that they insisted on calling me by a name I didn't care for ("Little <father's name>") - which really bugged me since I wasn't named after him to start with and it wasn't the name I used; however, after many years that passed and I really began to enjoy the visits over there.

Of my three uncles and one aunt; two stood out.  First off, my aunt.  As previously mentioned she wasn't that much older than I was and when we were younger she provided a "play mate" so to speak when we'd go over there - that was something I didn't have with my mother's family (I do have cousins on my mother's side; but they're either several years younger than I am or they had moved away after a divorce).  Obviously as she grew older that changed - especially since she matured far quicker than I did; but nonetheless, there were a lot of fun times.

The one that really stood out was my uncle who was directly younger than my father.  Technically I guess he was the middle child of the five.  He was always the "life of the party" so to speak and the uncle that all of us kids loved as he went out of his way to be entertaining.  Frankly, when you got a couple of them together they were funny; but this uncle was always the one that made the effort with all of the kids - which initially was just myself and my brother; but later on was quite a few of us as my uncles (including him) got married and started their own families.  I still recall being in his wedding - I was probably 8 years old at the time and I can distinctly remember the tuxedo fitting, the rehearsal, and the actual wedding - I was the "ring bearer" and had to walk down the aisle with my aunt's younger sister (I believe, maybe it was her niece, I was too young to pay attention to specifics like that <G>).  At the time, I really didn't even want to be in the wedding as I was 8 and would rather have been playing a game or something.  However, they just celebrated their 35th anniversary a week or two ago and looking back I'm eternally grateful that I can say that I was a part of a wedding that's lasted 35 years and is still going strong.  And his wife (my new aunt) was just as wonderful as he was - for as obnoxious as he could be, she could go toe to toe with him. :)

But I don't want to get ahead of myself so back to the story at hand.  As I grew into my early to mid 20's, my parents had divorced and I fell out of touch with my father's side of the family - keep in mind 20 years ago the Internet was still in it's infancy as far as general use; computers weren't in every house; and there was no Facebook; so it wasn't like it is today.  In fact, it wasn't until my grandmother passed that I saw any of them; but when it happened I did go to the viewing - and I hated that I did.  I loved her a lot; but going to that was such a mistake as instead of remembering her how she was - my eternal image of her is one of her lying in that casket.  A few years later when my grandfather passed I chose not to go for this reason.  Since I really hadn't been around them in so long I figured they probably didn't notice; although if they did it probably caused some animosity; but I stand by my decision.  I wanted to remember him just as I do; sitting in his chair in the living room "holding court" so to speak.  I have that image of him indelibly etched into my memories and it's a far happier image than I have of my grandmother.  So if there is any animosity regarding that decision then so be it as I felt it was right at the time and I still do.

Fast forward to about a year ago.  My roommate, my wife, and myself went out to breakfast on a Saturday morning.  It's funny, we had no intentions of going where we did when we left the house as where we ended up is a good 30-40 minutes away; but I suppose fate intervened that day.  As we sat down at our table we ran into one of my aunts - as it happened to be it was my favorite uncle's wife.  She noticed me - I was shocked that she recognized me after all of these years.  Especially since while I wasn't fully done up as "Madison" - it was just before I went "full-time" so I was more or less dressed androgynously that day.  We were able to spend a few minutes talking which was so nice.

As it would happen, after the chance encounter above, there was some contact via Facebook - as I said my "male" account was already friends with many people including both of them; but there really wasn't any contact.  As it was getting later in the year, they invited myself along with my wife/daughter to a Christmas party.  That had me torn; a large part of me wanted to go; but by then I was living full-time so I didn't know how that would go over; and I really didn't want to run into my father which I figured was a distinct possibility.  However; I did want to go so I finally broached the gender change with the two of them.  They both took it wonderfully which meant so much since at the time since they were the first "family" I had told - in fact at the time less than 10 people knew.

Recently as I mentioned above, they celebrated their 35th wedding anniversary - my uncle was throwing a surprise party for my aunt and he invited us.  I immediately decided I wanted to go and thankfully my wife happened to have that day off (her schedule rotates so it was a fluke that she was off).  However, as the date came upon me, I was really torn - I wanted to go; but the same concerns as the Christmas get together came up for me - would there be "issues" with me showing up as "Madison"?  Would my father be there (or for that matter, my brother and his family, or even my sister and hers?  I was torn up until a couple of hours before we had to leave - I finally decided that I had committed to going and my uncle and aunt do mean enough to me that regardless of how it went for me I wanted to be there.  Below is a photo of me as we were leaving:

Suffice it to say, we went and stayed for perhaps 2 hours and had a very nice time.  My uncle and aunt couldn't have been nicer and more supportive.  Especially my uncle; sitting here thinking back to that evening, I'm actually starting to cry thinking about the things he said - they were so sweet and caring.  It's funny it was always a running joke that I looked far more like him than my own father and after that evening I really wished he were my father.  I also wanted to take the time to give a special mention to the wife of one of my cousin's (their second son's wife) - she went out of her way to come and introduce herself to us (we really didn't know much of anybody there) and spent a good 10-15 minutes chatting with us.  It really meant a lot and made me feel much more comfortable there.  As a side note, their daughter is just adorable, it really made me pine for the days that my own daughter was young. :)  The effort she made really offset the mild disappointment that neither my aunt (the one I mentioned above that is about my age) nor any other of the few people we did know didn't make any effort to even say hello.  Obviously I could've pushed the issue on that; but I don't want to put anyone in an uncomfortable situation so I had decided that I wouldn't.  I don't regret that decision, and while in hindsight that was mildly disappointing, the way my uncle, aunt, and "cousin-in-law" (is that the term?) were made the whole night worth while.

I do hope that going forward they invite us around as I'd definitely love to spend more time around them - I can't make up for lost time; but I would cherish any time going forward.

I suppose this has also gone on long enough - I find that I'm overly verbose; but I can't seem to help that.  Tomorrow, we'll get into friends and their reactions.  Thanks for reading.