When my grandfather died, I could not speak. His service was at an old church, a tiny ramshackle thing, dust on the stained-glass windows and pews. My mother dug her fingers into my arm, demanding I say something to the congregation. I stood before them, his elderly neighbors, the friends he had acquired in this small town. All that came from my mouth was air. Whatever trite nonsense I managed quickly dropped like stones from my lips. My mother, realizing her mistake, led me away, somewhere I could cry alone. I was unable to provide a memorial for my grandfather. We wound up being too similar to eulogize each other.
Tonight, a day after the election, I step outside. The wind is shaking the trees, the air frigid with the chill of mid-autumn. I feel in the distance something is coming. The dorm I'm staying in has rainbow flags stuck to the windows. As the students exit, they hang their heads low, smiling at each other in a cowardly way. I step down the ancient stairs, past a cockroach I killed for a lesbian who lives in the dorm. I wander outwards, into a world where things seem uncertain. I do not know if this dorm will exist in the next five years.
My grandfather was gay, which was obvious to me, but not so obvious to everyone else. A man who had lived through World War II as a cook in the army, he was too gentle to wield a weapon. What he was able to do was bake. He would sink his veiny old hands into yellow dough, kneading it for pies. Before we left his home every Christmas, he would give my mother a pound of frozen pie dough. After he died, we never had pie again. At first, I thought my mother didn't know the recipe, but when I grew up, I learned the truth. That pie dough came with a cost, and the cost was it couldn't be recreated.
When I came out to my mother, I had briefly wished my grandfather was still alive. After sending her an email announcing my transition, I drove deep into the mountains. I pulled over, standing overlooking a guard railing at the valley below. In his lifetime, my grandfather never told anyone he was gay. We found out afterward, discovering a collection of love letters to a man and photos of them together. Would my grandfather have supported me being transgender and gay? I have no idea. Perhaps, because he loved me. Perhaps not, because he did not love himself.
The night of the election I sat on the bed in my dorm mates' room. I'm surrounded by people ten years younger than me, in a silence of disbelief. A young gay man named Aaron sits on the floor, his face scrunched in anguish.
"Last time he was elected I was in elementary school, so I didn't care," he says, running a hand through his striped hair, dyed blonde and black.
"Last time he was elected I had a mental breakdown," I respond, letting out a chuckle. I remember that day at twenty years old, sticking my head under the faucet of my bathtub. The icy water flowed over my face, disguising my tears. At that time, I truly thought things were over for me. I went to school the next day with thick eyeliner on like battle paint. I decided to form some type of plan for survival with my queer friends. And yet for the next four years, I spent my time trying to feed myself, with no time for political rebellion. The presidency passed like a shadow over my life.
While I sit in the dining hall of my college, I think of Doug, my old piano teacher. He was a cheerful bald man, gay in a way that wasn't obvious. He rarely brought it up, perhaps because he worked with children. When he came to our home, he would sit with me for an hour at the piano, instructing me. He must have sensed I had no real passion for piano, but he did his best to teach me all the while.
"You have such a gentle touch, I don't want to ruin it," he would say to me, while I played Erik Satie.
Doug wound up developing a brain tumor, a serious one, malignant in his skull. After this, he slowly lost his ability to function. I remember him meeting my mother and me at a gay cafe, one with a pride flag stuck to the window. He wandered around, seeming to have no idea where he was, his personality degraded by his muddled cognition. When he eventually entered a nursing home, only my mother came to visit him. He had no close family, no partner, no friends. My mother read him poetry in the garden every week until he died.
Now, I can listen to his songs on Spotify. Like a ghost stretching across time, I hear him play My Funny Valentine. Very slowly, beautifully. Whenever his songs come up on shuffle I pause, taking time to listen to them. I have long forgotten how to play piano, but I remember Doug praising my gentle touch. A touch I likely inherited from my grandfather, that he inherited from someone long before him. I sometimes wonder what Doug would have thought of me coming out, but it's impossible to know because he's dead.
When I return to my room from the dining hall, I can still hear the wind rattling the windows. I take off my jacket and make myself a cup of tea, leaning back in my desk chair. There is a transgender flag pin on my bookshelf. Tomorrow, I will wear it while riding the train home to meet my mother. The window outside is dark because the time has changed. My grandfather and Doug stand behind me, translucent.
"You have to move forward, gently," they whisper. And the cold wind rattles my window, threatening to bring the whole building down. I smile to myself, knowing I will survive.