mom had no idea what a person could be tormented with. She wanted to be supportive of Chris, but she couldn’t shake the nagging concern that he wasn’t right, that all this stuff about transsexualism was wrong.
“Oh, I’ve seen this one before,” Mom said, and Claire looked up as she switched the channel from Law & Order to Law & Order: SVU . Pretty much either of them could turn on the TV at any time and there would be some Law & Order show on. Mom could go for months sitting on the couch every evening watching crime shows, and then suddenly she’d decide she was ready to date again and be out almost every night of the week socializing with the women from work and trying to meet a decent man. Claire’s money was on that happening in April this year.
Although the crime shows always followed the same pattern, that felt more comforting than boring. The contents of the stories were sensational enough that Claire found she could always watch one, so she settled back on the couch, glad to have something to take her mind off Chris.
Twenty minutes into the episode, one of the suspects was revealed to be a pre-operative transsexual. A bolt of electricity jagged through Claire. She looked upward and asked God silently, Are you hinting? Seemingly random coincidences like this were usually the divine trying to get her attention. There would be some message for her either in this show or the one right after it.
Of course the story was overblown, with the character having accidentally killed a man to protect her secret and then being sent to men’s prison where she was severely beaten. At the end of the episode, she was shown being wheeled into the emergency room, bloodied and covered in bruises.
What was God trying to tell her? That there were enough people in the world who wanted to beat up Chris that she didn’t need to be one of them? Or that the path he’d chosen was a dangerous one and he shouldn’t take it?
As the credits rolled, she picked up her glass of water and took a long drink, and when she looked up again the image on the screen made her jump so hard she spilled half the water in her lap. The face speaking into the camera had no nose and only part of a mouth and the eyes were surrounded by what looked like a mass of melted skin fused into place. Claire’s breath froze in her throat.
“I’m sorry, honey,” her mom said. “I didn’t mean to scare you I just wanted to show you this while it was on. It’s amazing. This man was terribly burned as a kid, and now he makes films to help families of burn victims.”
Claire stared at the man’s ruined face as he spoke. He had a deep voice that didn’t fit his hairless features. He was talking about how hard it was for his siblings to deal with the aftereffects of the fire in their home that had scarred him, and how he wanted to help kids with these kinds of burns just feel like normal kids. The longer he talked, the more Claire could see the person he was, the kind soul, rather than the terrifying face.
This was an imperfect world, one in which children could be burned and hurt, or even born into a body that was wrong for them. In this man’s case his own tragedy became his life’s work. Hardship was a way in which people could really connect with each other and could show their greatness. Maybe Chris would turn out to be like this man, someone who taught others how to deal with hard situations with grace and compassion. Or maybe his journey would take him somewhere else, but as she wouldn’t blame this man for his scars, she wasn’t going to blame Chris just because she felt afraid about transsexualism .
And that was the basis of it. Her reaction to the burned man’s face showed her this clearly. She had been startled, and while her startled reaction to Chris’s news had been slower, it was similar. A piece of her solid world fell away when he said he was a woman. The belief that men were men and women were women was a foundational part of her
“Oh, I’ve seen this one before,” Mom said, and Claire looked up as she switched the channel from Law & Order to Law & Order: SVU . Pretty much either of them could turn on the TV at any time and there would be some Law & Order show on. Mom could go for months sitting on the couch every evening watching crime shows, and then suddenly she’d decide she was ready to date again and be out almost every night of the week socializing with the women from work and trying to meet a decent man. Claire’s money was on that happening in April this year.
Although the crime shows always followed the same pattern, that felt more comforting than boring. The contents of the stories were sensational enough that Claire found she could always watch one, so she settled back on the couch, glad to have something to take her mind off Chris.
Twenty minutes into the episode, one of the suspects was revealed to be a pre-operative transsexual. A bolt of electricity jagged through Claire. She looked upward and asked God silently, Are you hinting? Seemingly random coincidences like this were usually the divine trying to get her attention. There would be some message for her either in this show or the one right after it.
Of course the story was overblown, with the character having accidentally killed a man to protect her secret and then being sent to men’s prison where she was severely beaten. At the end of the episode, she was shown being wheeled into the emergency room, bloodied and covered in bruises.
What was God trying to tell her? That there were enough people in the world who wanted to beat up Chris that she didn’t need to be one of them? Or that the path he’d chosen was a dangerous one and he shouldn’t take it?
As the credits rolled, she picked up her glass of water and took a long drink, and when she looked up again the image on the screen made her jump so hard she spilled half the water in her lap. The face speaking into the camera had no nose and only part of a mouth and the eyes were surrounded by what looked like a mass of melted skin fused into place. Claire’s breath froze in her throat.
“I’m sorry, honey,” her mom said. “I didn’t mean to scare you I just wanted to show you this while it was on. It’s amazing. This man was terribly burned as a kid, and now he makes films to help families of burn victims.”
Claire stared at the man’s ruined face as he spoke. He had a deep voice that didn’t fit his hairless features. He was talking about how hard it was for his siblings to deal with the aftereffects of the fire in their home that had scarred him, and how he wanted to help kids with these kinds of burns just feel like normal kids. The longer he talked, the more Claire could see the person he was, the kind soul, rather than the terrifying face.
This was an imperfect world, one in which children could be burned and hurt, or even born into a body that was wrong for them. In this man’s case his own tragedy became his life’s work. Hardship was a way in which people could really connect with each other and could show their greatness. Maybe Chris would turn out to be like this man, someone who taught others how to deal with hard situations with grace and compassion. Or maybe his journey would take him somewhere else, but as she wouldn’t blame this man for his scars, she wasn’t going to blame Chris just because she felt afraid about transsexualism .
And that was the basis of it. Her reaction to the burned man’s face showed her this clearly. She had been startled, and while her startled reaction to Chris’s news had been slower, it was similar. A piece of her solid world fell away when he said he was a woman. The belief that men were men and women were women was a foundational part of her
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