Love, Ellen: A Mother/Daughter Journey (30 page)

Why is it so hard to accept diversity?
Or, more accurately, why is it so hard for some people to accept diversity? God bless those among us with a live-and-let-live attitude. Bless those enlightened souls who realize that we don’t all come out of one mold or one cookie cutter, who acknowledge that their fellow human beings come in all shapes, sizes, and varieties and accept this as a matter of fact without trying to change others to fit their own particular shape, size, or variety. Why can’t we all be accepting? I think the reason is all too obvious. We aren’t born with prejudice, hate, or discrimination. “You have to be carefully taught.”

How can you ask your child tough questions?
For many of these questions, there’s no one way or one answer. So much depends on the age of your son or daughter when this discussion comes up. With an adult child, straightforward questions seem appropriate. One mother had met her son’s partner as a “friend” and had grown to know and like him. When her son and his “friend” got a one-bedroom apartment, she began to wonder about the friendship. She said her son had always insisted on having his own bedroom. She asked, “Son, is this more than a friendship?” and he honestly replied, “Yes, mother.” His secret and his hiding were over, and now he and his partner are embraced by the family.

One of the wonderful students who welcomed me at Colorado State University when I spoke there recalled that she came out to her mother on July 19, 1994, at 4
P.M
. (I wish my memory were that precise.) “In fact,” she said, “my mother told me I was gay. We were sitting at the dining room table and talking about a friend of mine, and mom said, ‘She’s gay, isn’t she?’ I said, ‘I don’t know—I guess so.’ And mom said, ‘You are too, aren’t you?’ I didn’t know what to say and she said, ‘It’s OK.’ I started crying and she said, ‘I said it’s OK.’ I said, ‘I know, but it’s such a big deal—I’ve been worrying about telling you for a year.’ ”

If you begin to have questions in your own mind when your child is a young teen you may want to help the child explore his or her feelings. Many times, parents see all the signs but don’t say anything. Years later, when the son or daughter finally works up the courage to be honest, the parents say, “Oh, we knew that.” How much better and how much more helpful it would be for parents to broach the subject when children are younger and are going through the difficult process of discovering who they are and learning to accept themselves. That’s a lonely, difficult journey for our gay sons and daughters. Which brings up another good question …

Why do we need gay clubs, or gay-straight alliances, in high schools?
These clubs are wonderful starting points for ending this pitiful form of bigotry. The gay clubs give our gay adolescents a safe place to meet and—in a friendly setting—talk out their worries and concerns with friends going through the same trials. It’s important for them to know they’re not alone.

Gay-straight alliances are an even better bridge to acceptance. My hat is off to the straight kids like the group at Harvard-Westlake who are mature and intelligent enough to reach out a hand in support of their gay classmates. It’s sad to report that often they stand head and shoulders above their local school boards, which try to stop the establishment of these positive groups in their schools. More fear and ignorance to be overcome!

A young woman who leads a gay and lesbian teen group in Washington, D.C., told me that when some members have mothers who aren’t supportive, they say, “I need a Betty.” How flattering—I’m a commodity!

These terrific clubs sprouting up around the country are literally saving lives. Some experts in denial have challenged the statistics about suicide and depression among gay teenagers, claiming that gays are no more at risk of violence than other teenagers. They’re wrong, and the reason is painfully obvious. Look at the message gay teenagers have gotten: “What you’re feeling is wrong, unnatural, abnormal, sinful, abominable, an aberration.”

Is it possible to have a healthy dialogue between people who disagree?
As an incurable optimist, I’d say yes. And the old saying “You can disagree without being disagreeable” might be a good starting place. Also, respect helps tremendously—self-respect and respect for others and their beliefs.

The qualities needed to accept diversity are the same qualities needed for a healthy dialogue about differences of any kind—race, religion, orientation, ideology, or whatever we can imagine that divides us. On this issue, Carl Jung makes a point worth repeating, “Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”

How can all of us build a bridge to reach more heterosexuals who don’t have gay or lesbian family members?
The key to building a bridge to acceptance by heterosexuals is coming out. As people begin to realize that acquaintances, coworkers, service people, and professionals they already know and like happen to be gay or lesbian, their ignorance and fear will vanish, as it should.

The best cure for homophobia is getting to know a gay person. If you suffer from this “curable” disease, make the effort to go out and expand your horizons.

S
OME OF THE
questions I’m asked are rather personal. After a speech at a university, one student asked how many marriage proposals I’d received over the Internet. None, I answered, at least to my knowledge! At another speaking engagement I was asked if I would consider remarrying and, if so, what kind of a mate I would consider ideal.

My answer was, “I’ll have to think about that and get back to you.” After thinking about it and acknowledging that “ideal” is by definition elusive, I came up with a few characteristics for a suitable candidate. First, he would have to be well-educated—self-educated or through traditional avenues. Broad-minded, well-read, interested in many things—art, theater, history, astronomy, travel. A nice appearance, good taste in clothes, healthy, active, a good sense of humor. It wouldn’t hurt if he was a wonderful cook. Of course he should be an oenophile, or at least know what that means! A sailboat would be nice, as would a house on the ocean. Other than all that, he can just be an average guy.

Having said all that, I agree with Katharine Hepburn. A few years ago, when Barbara Walters asked her if she had any interest in a new relationship with a man, Ms. Hepburn replied, “Well, at my age I’m not going to attract the strongest lion in the jungle, so why bother?” My sentiments exactly.

Some of the personal questions I’ve been asked, like those that follow, are a bit more serious.

Do you consider yourself religious?
Yes, but not in the sense of following a structured religion—and certainly not a denomination that proscribes your every thought and idea. I appreciate the Bible, and I pray the prayers in Psalms, The Lord’s Prayer and the Beatitudes and so many of the beautiful teachings of Jesus. I talk about this often with Ellen and Anne, and like them, I try, more and more, to live up to my highest sense of right. And we thank God for each day and for all His blessings.

Has your new role given you a new perspective about your own life?
A big, definite
yes.
It has been and continues to be life-changing, challenging, and rewarding in the best possible way. It has given my life, my days, a clear direction and purpose such as I have never known before. I have learned and grown from this powerful, intense experience as a parent, as a woman, and as an individual concerned with all human rights. My “antennae” have been fine-tuned as I become more aware of injustice wherever and however it may manifest itself.

I’ve discovered that I have a strong point of view and can engage in debate and not be thrown by the few negative comments I’ve gotten here and there. This, along with the love that I’ve felt everywhere I go, has created a sense of empowerment new to me. I am experiencing a truism about life. When we are given greater challenges, we rise to the occasion.

As Everymom, do you think your voice of common sense and reason is being heard more readily by those who wouldn’t otherwise listen?
It seems to be—and there are moms and dads like me all across this country, active in their local P-FLAG chapters, speaking at schools and civic clubs, successfully getting out the same message, that our gay sons and daughters need to be treated fairly and equally.

I also think that because Ellen and I show how much we have gained in our mother-daughter relationship, other kids and parents may be noticing what they could be missing. I heard a story about a man who attended the HRC national dinner and sat right behind Ellen, Anne, and me. After hearing my speech and then Ellen’s, he walked right out and called his mother and came out to her. She was fine with it.

What have you learned that you would most like to share with other parents of gays and lesbians?
Above all, I’ve learned that there’s nothing so important and so wanted as a parent’s love. I can’t even begin to describe the sadness I see in the eyes of men and women who tell me that their parents have rejected them. I would like these parents to know that their sons and daughters are some of the finest people I’ve met. It’s never too late to examine your heart and welcome your child back into the family. An old Turkish proverb puts it well: “No matter how far you have gone on the wrong road, turn back.”

EPILOGUE

It’s All About Love

L
OS
A
NGELES
, 1998

M
AY
20
TH
, 1998. W
ELL,
it’s my birthday, and I’ve been celebrating all week long. The high point is here at the Ivy with my three favorite people in the whole world—Vance, Ellen, and Anne, who are treating me to dinner before we dash off to a screening of Anne’s new movie,
Return to Paradise.

With its Louisiana-style cuisine and its pleasant “nouveau southern” decor, the Ivy has a homey feeling for us New Orleanians. It’s always a good spot for special occasions.

Over dinner, Anne makes an announcement. “Mom,” she begins, “you know the
Six Days Seven Nights
premiere is in two weeks?”

“In New York,” Ellen jumps in a bit glumly, “I can’t go.”

“Why not?” I ask with concern.

El and Anne explain. Ellen has just started filming
Ed TV,
directed by Ron Howard. There’s no way, she says, that she can get time off from her shooting schedule.

Before I become too sad for the two of them, Anne continues, “So I wanted to know, would you and Vance come with me as my escorts? I mean, you’re my family and it would mean a lot to have you there with me.”

Vance and I exchange surprised, excited looks and then tell Anne: “We’d be honored.”

We talk about plans, including the possibility of flying there with her in a private jet. Of course, I realize that more and more celebrities enjoy this perk when they’re working. That is, I say, if they don’t already have their own private jet.

(Listen to me—once starstruck, now an authority.)

Well, this will be a first. I’m having more and more firsts at this late date. These are not bad years at all.

We chat about other projects in the works. El is in talks to star opposite Kate Capshaw in
Love Letter,
a Steven Spielberg production. Then there’s Anne’s next movie, a remake of
Psycho
in which she’s slated to play the Janet Leigh role.

Vance says, “Is it true they’re rewriting that part a little? Instead of getting stabbed, I heard that you just get punched in the stomach.”

Ellen and I crack up. Anne looks somewhat puzzled—she is not quite used to Vance’s sense of humor. Later, she’s quicker on the uptake when a reference to the movie
Dead Man Walking
prompts Vance to say, “I heard they’re making a sequel. They’re going to call it
Sick Man Jogging.”

This time, we all laugh and groan in unison.

Becoming more serious, Vance asks El and Anne about the volunteer work they’ve been doing, helping gay and lesbian young people, many of whom have gone through rejection, abuse, and homelessness. Ellen and Anne meet with a group once a week to direct a workshop in creativity and building self-esteem, and to send a simple message of love, to reinforce in these young men and women the idea that they are worthy and have a lot to give.

I beam at my three kids, so thankful to be here, celebrating not just this birthday but the rich feast of experiences with which we are being blessed. I flash back to my last birthday, another high point following Ellen’s history-making show. Many other events from this incredible event-filled year come to mind—so many emotional highs, and some lows too.

P
ROBABLY THE TOUGHEST
time for me came at the end of last summer. On August 19, 1997, a few weeks after being named Spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign’s National Coming Out Project, I flew to Texas, as did my sister Helen, for an impromptu visit with Audrey, who had just a few weeks before been diagnosed with a rare, inoperable form of cancer. This was devastating news. Up until her diagnosis, she had led an extremely active, healthy life—in her church, in her community, traveling with her husband Bob, and often bringing along one or more of their eight grandsons.

Her illness rapidly took its toll. I had to hide my shock at seeing her. Helen said I did a good job. As debilitated as Audrey was, her ever-present smile and laugh were still there. We spent as many hours together as she felt strong enough to manage, the three of us sitting in the sunroom overlooking the bay, reminiscing about everything from the inconsequential to the momentous.

Eight months earlier, Audrey had given Helen and me each a copy of the book,
Sisters,
full of photographs and essays about sisterhood. She signed mine, “To a wonderful little sister—from the one ‘forever in the middle.’ Love, Audrey.”

As we sat together I thought how connected we were, yet how different our lives had been.

My oldest sister Helen was just as she always was—kind, thoughtful, serious, and studious from the start. Helen finished LSU with a double major in speech and Spanish. When her three sons were young she commuted from Pass Christian to the University of Southern Mississippi at Hattiesburg and got her master’s degree in Spanish and French. She taught both languages for years at St. Stanislaus, a Catholic boarding school for boys on the Gulf Coast.

In the course of her teaching, she discovered the art of weaving and soon had her own studio with quite a business going—making jackets, shawls, and placemats; taking custom orders; and teaching weaving. When she retired from St. Stanislaus, she became even busier full-time, easing up only recently so that she could devote more time to tutoring at the local elementary school. Helen is also an accomplished writer. I love her poetry.

A truly good, giving person, Helen struggled for years with her first husband’s addiction to alcohol. He was a brilliant engineer and a good person but hopelessly enslaved to drink. It destroyed him and their marriage. Helen was alone for a number of years and then married René, a longtime friend who was more than twenty years her senior. They had three very happy years together until they were parted by his death. Their age difference was not at all significant. Why should it have been? After all, it’s all about love.

Audrey—the outgoing, effervescent one, throughout the years always with a smile on her face, always ready to laugh. Audrey and my brother-in-law, Bob Maeser, were married fifty-one years. She met him when she was at LSU and the Army sent him there. Bob was rather serious, an engineering student who would later finish at Northwestern in Evanston, Illinois. A famous story in our family was how Bob told Audrey when they met, “I don’t care much for dancing.”

“I don’t care for it so much myself,” she said.

The very next day the campus newspaper ran a column of “Bests” in which Audrey Pfeffer was named best jitterbug dancer on campus. Oops. Bob enjoyed telling that story for a long time.

I once told someone that all three of us worked but Audrey didn’t have a “real job.” That isn’t quite true. She may not have worked from nine to five, but she did publicity for the Baytown, Texas, library; gave many book reviews to various groups; wrote for the local paper; and was active in the Texas Press Women’s Association. Aside from that, she and Bob were both involved in the Baytown Little Theatre, directing plays—Audrey even wrote some. They were also extremely active in the Episcopal church, and Audrey directed plays that she wrote based on Bible stories. Along the way, she became interested in quilting, joined a bee, and made many beautiful quilts.

As my sisters and I talked about all our activities, I said, “I guess we don’t sit around, us Pfeffer girls.”

Audrey said, laughingly, “I can just hear Mother now; ‘Busy hands are happy hands.’ “

Audrey had finished two panels of a quilt with a “four seasons” theme—winter and spring. One panel, spring, now hangs above my bed.

We had moments of great sadness, although these three days could not have been more perfect. As is so often the pattern in our family, we didn’t talk about the fact that this was probably our one last visit together.

Audrey was in obvious pain and discomfort and slept a lot, but she was with us every waking moment. In these moments, we three remembered all kinds of things—silly things and tender, endearing things. We talked about our children—now and when they were babies. Audrey was so proud of me and the work I was embarking on.

Even though she was so ill, friends stopped in every day to visit. And their Episcopal priest visited one day and said a prayer that was so touching it just about undid me.

As I write this, I miss her so much. I can still see her, just a shadow of her former self, but still concerned with everyone else’s well-being and comfort. I can only hope that when my time comes, I can be as brave and gracious as she was.

As I write about my sisters, I realize what wonderful role models they were. I’m not sure I’ve always lived up to their high standards, but more and more I’m trying.

Audrey died on September 6, 1997, two weeks after I visited. When Helen called to tell me, I was watching the funeral of Princess Diana. Loss seemed to blanket the world.

I flew back to Baytown for Audrey’s funeral. As her priest gave a eulogy in a church that was filled to overflowing, I thought of Audrey’s interest in angels and how, in the last few years, she had talked about wanting to write a book about them. She didn’t get around to doing that—but now she is one.

S
ITTING AT THE
Ivy on my birthday, I silently recall how I returned from the funeral just in time to attend the Emmy Awards and watch Ellen (and the rest of the team) receive her Emmy for Best Writing for the coming out episode. From the lowest lows to the highest highs—a real roller-coaster ride for me. And there were in-betweens too, like the bittersweetness I felt attending the last days of filming on the set of
Ellen
two months before.

The show hadn’t officially been canceled yet, but all signs were pointing to it. I remember thinking about it with concern one afternoon in a grocery store; when I got to the checkout stand, the cashier said, “I hope they don’t cancel Ellen’s show. She is the nearest thing to Lucille Ball that we have.” Of course, I couldn’t have agreed more. It seemed that in all the hoopla of controversy this was something a lot of network and studio executives were overlooking. It was gratifying, for that reason, when so many entertainment greats took part in the last episode, which was, as Ellen called it, a “mockumentary” of her career and the history of TV. Included in this star-studded cast were Glenn Close, Diahann Carroll, Bea Arthur, Cindy Crawford, Tim Conway, Jada Pinkett Smith, Helen Hunt, Christine Lahti, Richard Benjamin, Ted Danson, Mary Steenburgen, Julianna Margulies, Woody Harrelson, and Linda Ellerbee as the interviewer.

Because it was to be an hourlong format of vignettes, the show was rehearsed and shot on different days. I stopped by on a few occasions and could feel how stressful this time was for Ellen. Clearly, the very last day of shooting was emotionally draining.

Fittingly, perhaps, the last scene of the last day was with two cast regulars—Joely Fisher and Jeremy Piven. It was a send-up of Lucy and Ethel’s famous wine-making scene. Clea Lewis and Dave Higgins had already shot their funny bits for the show. After the last take, El, in a costume as a pregnant peasant woman, spoke to the cast and crew. She began simply, thanking them for their wonderful work and support. Very soon, though, she was crying to break her heart—and so were most people on the set. She just went on through her tears—apologizing for the times she had rushed out on Friday nights without thanking the crew for all their good work, thanking them for continuing to work and being supportive of the show whether or not they agreed with her position, hoping that somehow, somewhere, they would all work together again. It was without doubt one of the most difficult things she has ever done, and my heart broke for her.

The producers had planned a lunch for everyone, but El thought she couldn’t pull herself together enough to attend. I left the set with her to go up to her dressing room, leaving through the same door that for the last four seasons she had used to enter the set, bounding through it exuberantly before running out to greet the audience. This time, she was going through it the opposite way, exiting stage right. Her sadness in those moments and the ones that followed was more profound than I can say.

And yet, none of this could detract from all that had been accomplished—the changes that opened doors for vast numbers of people, people who are struggling with issues brought out on the episodes and people whose minds are open and who aren’t afraid to look at what our gay family members face every day of their lives.

In Howard Rosenberg’s rave review in the
Los Angeles Times
of this last episode, he really hit the nail on the head by saying that Ellen’s basic ordinariness is what threatened antigay bigots, who seem to feel that gays should be portrayed only in stereotypical extremes.

He’s right; Ellen isn’t threatening to anybody. Truly, she disarms bigoted opposition with her goodness and her honesty, being as likable and normal as anyone can be. And, as we saw on our trip to London in April, she is doing that not just in our country but all over the world.

This trip was another high—compliments of BBC’s Channel 4. In conjunction with the coming out episode, which it was airing in England for the first time, Channel 4 had made a documentary about the filming of the historic show and had flown Ellen, Anne, and me to London to be part of three days of festivities. Brief though this was, it was a great introduction and whetted my appetite to return and stay longer.

We were treated royally, with me feeling very much like the Queen Mother as we attended official activities that included a press conference at the BBC, a dinner party overlooking the Thames, and a huge celebration that was televised for later viewing.

As a matter of fact, we were showered with attention and love everywhere we went in London. We strolled around areas such as Soho and Covent Garden and the expensive stores in the high-end shopping districts—so the twins, as we call them, could indulge in one of their favorite pastimes. I was amazed at how many autographs they signed. They still managed to acquire lots of beautiful new clothes. Neither one even looked at a price tag. With my Depression-era background, I did, only to get dizzy. Ellen said, “Why bother looking at prices? You know you’re spending a lot of money when they say, ‘Would you like something to drink?’ “