Candlelight Salad

When I came out to my Mother, it wasn't pretty.

A synopsis of the opera: My nosy Mother forced me out by opening a personal letter sent to my parents' house instead of directly to me. After her tears stopped, she said that it was worse than when my brother died of cancer at age 14. She said that it was worse than if I had died. She begged me to go to a prostitute, since I had never been with a woman. My mother the pimp generously added, "I'll pay."

I'll pay. Indeed.

Thanks, but no thanks, Mother (she was always "Mother", never "Mom"). Lots of support there for me dealing with coming out in the early 1980's, staying healthy during the AIDS epidemic (and I'm still healthy).

In retrospect, it would have been best for me to have made a clean break, but I never did. A good son doesn't abandon his mother. She died of lung cancer 6 years later. Chain smoking has a cost.

Until she died, for Thanksgiving and Christmas, I would still go home, smiling, talking about the weather, my studies at school, my new job. Anything other than what was really important to me. Heaven forfend.

Mostly it was all fodder so that she could brag about me to her friends. PhD at Cornell! In less than 4 years! Now assistant professor at Wharton! Being gay was just, oh, one tiny little chink in her perfect son.

On most of these holidays, for the big meal, in addition to my Dad and Mother, we usually invited my parents' sweet friend May, recently widowed, and my almost-certainly-gay-but-closeted uncle Bill. At one of those Thanksgivings or Christmases, in either 1983 or 1984, my mother prepared a special appetizer that I have never seen before or since.

Candlelight Salad (1 serving)

1. On a small plate, place a large lettuce leaf.
2. On the lettuce, place a ring of canned pineapple.
   
3. Peel one banana and cut it in half.
4. Place the blunt end of the cut banana in the center of the pineapple ring, forming a candlestick.
5. Use a toothpick to attach a maraschino cherry to the tip of the banana, forming the flame.
6. For candle wax, dribble some mayonnaise or white salad dressing down the side of the banana.
7. Serve chilled.
   

What was my homophobic mother thinking? Yes, just the thing for your holiday table, ladies, banana phalluses with mayonnaise ejaculate oozing from the tip! Perfect for your gay sons and brothers this Thanksgiving!

Seriously, what was she thinking? At the time, I thought she was sending an olive branch in the form of a banana, trying to make light of her way over-the-top reaction to my sexuality. Candlelight salad definitely is spit-up-your-milk funny. What a "cool" Mother!

Now I believe, though, that the gesture was basically hostile, but with a smiling face, sort of like the church lady from Saturday Night Live. Maybe it was an attempt to use humor to laugh me out of "the gay"? See? Liking male parts is so silly. It's just a shaft with mayonnaise.

Even if candlelight salad was an olive branch, it did not bring about real peace. Before she died, she told me how much she loved me and I told her I loved her. Then she told me how much she hated my being gay. And she repeated what she said when I was dumped by my first real boyfriend, "you need professional help."

If she was willing to literally try anything to "save" her son (would you like a blond or brunette hooker, sweetie?), candlelight salad was just another attempt, albeit ridiculous, to flank the enemy. I think my mother viewed herself as a lioness protecting her cub, but her roars had the opposite effect. Instead of helping, they hurt. In essence, I was the enemy.

Yes, I'm still bitter, but, so to speak, "it is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness."

Rest in peace, Mother.

Perhaps some of you reading this story might believe that I "cooked" it all up (sorry, bad joke). You require proof. So be it. After my Dad recently died, our family friend May, now nearly blind, as sweet as always, sent me a picture of my Dad. That's May seated in front of him. On the table is one serving of candlelight salad.



Here's a picture of my Mother and Dad together. My sister says this picture always creeped her out.

For Thanksgiving this year, to exorcise the ghost of my Mother, I made Candlelight Salad for my friends. Here's a video of the ceremony.