There were records of many similar experiences where faith had been rewarded by divine intercession. Surely, loved ones will reveal themselves if there is an unfinished piece of their lives.
You ask for something in faith, knowing that whatever happens will be God’s will. They teach you that God answers your prayers in one of three ways: yes, no, or wait. And you are supposed to have the spiritual awareness to know which it is. Well, in her case, Mary hadn’t the slightest idea.
“I know Bobby didn’t fit here from the day one, so why did you send him to us to begin with?” she demanded.
Why did you allow him to end up hating himself? You knew what had to be done for Bobby, for anyone who’s hanging onto a rope with no knot on the end. You could have given Bobby something or someone to hang onto, but you didn’t, and you don’t for a lot of people. For a lot of people you do, and they live happily ever after. How do you make these awesome decisions? You didn’t want Bobby to live happily…so why send someone to this earth to be miserable?
Give us something we can live with, Lord, and pass on to others whose life will never be the same because of a loved one’s death, especially when loved ones are so young.
Ever since we-discovered he was gay, it’s like his life was over, and I didn’t help make it better…. So, Lord, you’re the only one with the answers to Bobby’s life, so I would appreciate your input on this whole matter especially since there are a lot of Bobbys and Janes stumbling around down here…. What’s the message Bobby left? I could say, Well, this life is just temporary anyway and they’re better off with you, Lord. But that belief does not mend broken hearts or ease the loneliness. Is time going to make me stop hurting Lord or will you! How could you let Bobby do this! I’m really selfish. Forget it, who am I, nobody!
Christmas 1984. The Lord’s birthday, and the second Christmas without Bobby. The family celebrated with determined gaiety, avoiding any allusions to the past. Mary cooked a turkey. They exchanged gifts. Mary found herself musing about the Christ child. God had sent him to liberate man from sin, the greatest mission in the history of the world, and even he at times lost sight of why he was here. How could mere mortals with one-zillionth the amount of insight ever understand why we are placed here and why we die?
But God is about justice, she thought. Where was the justice in Bobby’s death? Or the deaths of other gay kids, for that matter. For the first time, her consciousness turned to the notion of a ministry for self-despising gay children:
“Dear Lord,” she wrote in her book a few days later,
I listen to KEAR and according to your Word, Bobby is in hell, or at least waiting his turn. I know better, Lord, but what about the kids that believe they are going there because they are gay?
I did not decide on hazel eyes for myself. Bobby did not decide he would be gay…. If you say in your Word, it’s evil and wicked to have no arms, and a child is born with no arms, what is the child to think? When he or she finds he or she is going to hell for something they have had no control over, it can put a person under maximum stress, and feeling like the scum of the earth.
You already know this, but the church here is sending innocent people to hell by the droves, or [driving them] to drugs, alcohol, sex, or in Bobby’s case, suicide. What can I do to undo my ignorance? I did it all wrong with Bobby, Lord, you know it and I know it!
She had made a major leap, probably without conscious recognition. If being gay is something one has no control over, like eye color, then to brand it a sin is unconscionable. Yet brand it a sin God did. It is there in the Bible. The Bible is God’s word. So Bobby — and she — were tokens in some malevolent and unwinnable board game, tokens whose moves were predestined to end in disaster. She had done it all wrong, but what would have been right?
Mary obsessed over this puzzle into the mild California winter. On February 8, Bob Griffith turned fifty-one. Mary gave him an afghan she had crocheted. Things had gotten better between them as Mary had retrained her sights on the cosmos. Joy gave her dad a pair of tennis shoes. Nancy gave him a shirt, and Ed contributed peanut brittle and socks. It was a lovely day, but Mary felt exhausted and drained. She felt that she was losing both patience and hope. At what may have been her lowest point, she sat down at her notebook that evening in a fit of frustration and anger. “Lord,” she wrote,
I’m still waiting for assurance beyond a doubt that all is well with our son! It’s been 16 months!..Doesn’t Bobby ever think about us anymore? I feel it’s bad manners to ignore people who love and miss you…. We can communicate with you, so why not everyone else that’s there with you? I don’t think that it’s very loving of you. I thought you were a loving Father. I’m not so sure anymore. I can’t help it Lord, your method of communicating is just lousy!
I don’t think any of you really give a hoot about us left behind! So, why should I care about you, and you, too, Bobby, you got what you wanted so the hell with the rest of us…. Lord I can’t believe you and Bobby have left all of us out in the cold, deserted. I feel like I’ve been had all these years…. It’s real B.S. and I’m sick of this one-sided deal.
It was a frustrated, last-ditch appeal. The next day she pleaded for a sign so that she could
get on with life, and stop all this begging. I would do the same for my children if they ask me. I would not shut them off forever from a brother or sister they missed, or any relative. So, I will not write anymore.
And she didn’t, ever again, in the manner of that pleading, haranguing colloquy with God. She had crossed the Rubicon. She had had a glimpse of some new and frightening reality, one in which she could depend neither on the Bible nor on her faith to sustain her any longer. Jesus had said, “The kingdom of God is within you.” She would have to find the answer in herself.
SIX Coming Out
1979–1982
Bobby was choking on his secret. He needed desperately to confide in someone. The diary was not enough. It helped, but he longed to unburden himself to another human, someone who could help him sort out the powder keg of feelings imploding within. But who? He couldn’t tell his parents, certainly not his mother. He had no friend he trusted enough. Joy? Ed?
He turned to Ed, setting off a chain of events that might have made him wish he had kept his secret to himself and his diary.
Ed Griffith turned seventeen on a rainy day in late April 1979. He was a junior in high school, an accomplished athlete with dreams of becoming a professional baseball player. Ed was a strapping, muscular young man, with sandy hair and a square, chiseled chin. He was a straight shooter free of guile or subterfuge. He believed deeply in the Gospel and the teachings of his church. For the longest time as a child he related being a Christian to being a soldier. He loved war movies, toy soldiers, playing army. Yet behind his macho aspect there was a caring, nonjudgmental person.
Perhaps it was those traits that led Bobby to choose his brother as the person to whom he would unburden himself one warm spring afternoon in May. The two lounged near the blooming apricot tree in the family’s backyard. Bobby, a month away from turning sixteen, seemed very nervous. Finally, he said, “There is something awful I have to tell you. You are going to really hate me and never want to talk to me again.”