Shoebox

It's 5 years exactly since everyone went to the polls and voted on marriage equality in Ireland. The memories that have popped up from various social medias seem misguided. Cheerful. For me, memories of that time show the extreme stress and anguish we all went through. It is difficult to digest. I'd so recently lost my mam, so recently fallen for the little brat I ended up marrying.

I remember when it was first announced. The 22nd of May. I imagined how one of the those two twos in that twenty two could be flipped... STAY WITH ME - Getting very VISUAL HERE... See, if flipped, the centre of those two twos would turn into a heart, I was hoping this was a sign. Stupid childish signs I was looking for. Like wishing on a pebble in a pond. I kept looking for signs.

Unfortunately I saw many signs. Posters campaigning against my love. Against the idea of people like me having a child. I was a threat to the idea of the family. At least I was told that in the "balanced" debates. The Yes posters were nice, colourful, positive, but not emotive like the creepy 'No' ones. All the emotion came from me. From the knots in my stomach. From the terror of rejection. Because it was about so much more than legal marriage. It was about being embraced by the religious country I'd grown up in.

I remember as a kid being at mass. Trying to listen to the words. I just didn't get it. I didn't understand. And I really tried to think it through. I promise you, I did. But all the pledges and confessions, rituals and rosaries, homilies and novenas. They were beyond me. I know it's brought comfort and peace to so many, but it's also brought turmoil, shame and anguish. It feels as thought my country were all under the spell of some super cult. And I was a heathen, a non believer.

My family are very religious. Two nuns and a priest from the already small group that are my aunties and uncles. (My dad only has one brother, who is a priest! My mam three sisters, two nuns) My own mam, when she split from my Dad, stopped taking communion. Some societal rule I guess? Was there some decree? I'd already switched off from it at that stage. Some decree where she must feel shame for ending a relationship? 

My uncle was the pride of our grandparents, a priest for the Opus Dei. They are dodge. They were excommunicated from the Roman Catholic church. Not that that means anything to me. You might know them from those Tom Hanks arty scavenger hunt movies. They are also the ones who funded the 'Mothers and Father's matter' campaign. It was an active campaign at the time, against me. Well against my private non-religious love. And at the horrifying idea of me becoming a parent. That's how I'd be more familiar with them. Now, I don't want to be a parent. Perfectly happy cultivating my food baby. (Then working it off through my Mom's into Fitness workouts). But I do pride myself in being a kind person. I really do try and be as kind as I can. And I think I'd be a sound mam to a little person if I chose that route.

From where I saw it, even as a kid, I watched an organisation who were supposed to promote comfort and kindness. But they kept misinterpreting it. Instead, they were regulating, moulding and shaming. From the stories I'd been forced to listen to about Jesus all through school, he seemed sound. Not someone who would shame my mam for making a decision that was best for her at that time. Or that thought I was just wrong for thinking women are hot, you know? But, Jesus! Women are hot? AMIRITE.

Anyway, it was quite the journey once May 22nd 2015 had been announced.

My mam had died only 18 months before and I'd never 'come out' to her. I'm a coward at the best of times. Ask Wife. Try bringing me to a party with no one I know, or asking me to ask a stranger for directions. I WILL NOT. In fact, I'll avoid awkward conversations professionally if you want? I'd hire me for that.

But, I digress. She was my favourite was my mam. Everyone loved her. You would have loved her. She was brilliant and kind and funny and intelligent and adventurous and small. She would hug you and fit just under your chin. She would write lists of advice for me if I had an issue. Fix me. 

I knew she would have voted Yes for me. She, of course, absolutely knew ABOUT MY INCLINATION long before me. Apparently she used to say to her sisters that my best friend was my 'beard'. He wasn't even my beard, he's just a great person to bring to a party to be fair. Talks to people so I don't have to. Till I've had five glasses of wine and I'm following you on instagram in the bathroom, of course. But suddenly, out of the most horrifying, painful, thin air, her 'Yes' had evaporated. She was cremated, and they put her in this little tiny cremation box. It was like a coffin for a pair of shoes. I don't know what you'd call it. I don't really want to know. I hate thinking of her enormous gorgeous personality being in there. But now I had a very distinct mission. I was going to wrangle every single yes I possibly could out of everyone. Cowardice could take a back seat.

Of course in all this I'd forgotten again about how sensitive and delicate I can be. I'd completely forgotten about it for years before that too, actually. Until a neighbour was driving me to hospital to visit my mam. I remember her saying; "You were always very sensitive." when a tear popped out as I was driving to my dying mother. I mean, I feel like that's a fair reaction to your mother dying, but sure now, who am I to be emoting?! But that phrase, zapped me straight back to being a child. All these adults talking about how sensitive I was. I'd forgotten people thought that of me. I guess it's not something you really say to an adult. And though I'm still in shock that I'm an adult, I am one.

So I forged on. I campaigned, going to doors, asking people to vote for me, looking them in the eye as they questioned it. Listened on as a manager in work talked about his discomfort at the idea of 'those people' having children. (I came out to him too! Fun!) Had doors slammed in my face as people shouted at me. And I'd weep. Just a little. Softly. On my way home. I wrote letters and came out to all my family. I actually got a few yeses from that. They were painstaking letters I wrote. To awkward people I didn't want to tell, like my dad, and my step dad, and my lovely nun auntie. But at that stage I'd abandoned my cowardice, I was going to turn my lost moms one Yes into ten new ones.

On this day, I went to vote, then I had to act like a normal person for the day. As if I wasn't waiting for an entire country to decide if I was worthy of their time. I went out to Finglas that night, to the missus. To her mams house. To a place where I'd been embraced and kept safe since my own mom was gone. Although, me and Wife would not really embrace publicly in Finglas. Though we would be affectionate in bars and in town, we weren't really affectionate out there. We always still have to be a bit careful. Even when we had our very first kiss in Whelans, some guy asked to get involved. They always do if we're in a straight bar. It's boring.

Anyway, we plodded along with our evening. Then for the life of me, I could not sleep. I kept thinking WHAT IF. Although the sentiment amongst the 'A-Gays' was that Yes would win, I was worried. I knew all my pebbles in ponds, my crafty symbols out of nothing meant just what they were, nothing. I mean I'd spent most of those wishes as a child on a boyfriend. And look how that turned out. So I tossed and I turned. Wife (then GF) wibbled her way through the night as usual, being a Snoozan Surandan. I finally drifted off about 6.30am, a new day already dawning. 15 minutes later I was woken. A landslide, they said.

We went to Tesco to get champagne for breakfast. The big huge enormous one in Finglas. We were so happy. We held each other. Shared a tiny kiss. I looked ahead and saw a man queuing at the cashier. He had a baby strapped to his chest. A trolley full. And he was smiling at us. We were embraced in so many ways in that moment.

One of the most significant memories for me in the loss of my mother was her burial. In the wild hills of Ballycroy, Co. Mayo, where she grew up. They buried her tiny shoebox on this astonishing hill. It looks out over a lake. It had been suitably raining on our drive from Dublin that day. As we entered Ballycroy, we went through this picturesque avenue of overhanging trees. We emerged the other side. To glorious sun.

The wind was strong though. So strong that when her tiny shoe coffin was being lowered into the ground I looked away. As I did, the wind lifted my tears straight off my face. A little miracle. And at the bottom of that astonishing hill. Waiting by her little Toyota Starlet called Sharon, was my future wife, ready to take me home.

Maybe it's more disparate illogical symbols I'm misinterpreting. But if those signs are good and kind and embrace me, I'll take them.

Thanks again to everyone who voted with us.