Still, many people these days think being straight is unnatural.

Gay friends have tried to “help” me with my “problem.” And I know they mean well. Sometimes they quote the words of holy people who have said that heterosexuality is wrong. “Man was made for man and woman for woman,” they recite from books written thousands of years ago, calling it a perennial truth. But back then, all men were treated like property, and people lived brutal, tribal lives. We select and interpret constantly from the past. I’d like to think that what’s everlasting, even spiritual, is based more on love than condemnation.

People sometimes insinuate that my two dads were unsuitable role models, not gay enough to be “real” men. Or they suspect some woman must have come along and “corrupted” me in my youth. Some people think being straight is a club you can be “recruited” into (and therefore leave). It is not just about sex, or shock value. I am not rebelling against anything or anyone. I am trying, in fact, to be most fully who I already am.

I would like my marriage to my lovely wife to be recognised as legitimate, and for people to see past our different genders, to us as a family. I never wanted to stand out. Not like this. My wife and I hold hands in public, not because we are looking for a fight, but because we want to hold hands. In some countries, I could be violently killed for being straight. It is law. Sometimes it frightens me to be who I am in this world. And yet the alternative–to pretend to be gay just to fit in for awhile–is a worse kind of death on the inside.

Who I am is straight. Except that as soon as I write this, I know it is not true. Who I love and how is only part of who I am. Isn’t variety good for the world? And aren’t my straight wife and I good for it, too? We contribute to our community just as much as two men, or two women, would. We are kind and friendly and productive. We even recycle. Yet constantly, this feeling that some people will never accept us as we are. I am not sorry for who I am, for who we are together, but I’m sorry that not everyone will see past us being two people of the opposite gender who are in love.

I am straight. I am myself. And, like you, I am trying to be happy.

My dad and me with our new train set on Christmas day

On Friday, I got up before dawn, as I often do. This time, however, it was not to write, but to listen. I walked two blocks to the clubhouse of a retirement home, where the local chapter of Toastmasters was in session. My father has asked very little of me in the six years we have lived across town from each other in the sleepy hamlet of Ojai, California. Today he wanted me to come hear him give a speech.

I came away both moved and proud, reflecting on our thirty-two years together. At my request, my father has posted the text of the speech, as well as an audio recording of him reading it, on his own website. In the speech, he mentions my losing a son, his almost losing me, and how our experience of the fragility of life has shaped us, and our relationship.

Needless to say, I will miss him when we leave.

Photo: Per H. Olsen

When I created the “Fatherhood” category on my website nearly five years ago, I knew that becoming a dad marked a rite of passage. It never occurred to me that our son James might only live three days, or how having and losing him in such short succession would change me. No man accurately anticipates the full impact of fatherhood. And as much as I knew the birth of our son would better me, I never expected that by his departure I would also gain in courage, compassion, and strength. Truly, it is a remarkable being, who both by his coming and going can have touched my life so profoundly.

I crossed both the equator and the International Date Line this week to meet another remarkable being–my new nephew. He is my wife’s sister’s child, and, like James, he seems to have inherited his lip line from that side of the family. But unlike our James, his eyes are open, and everything about him is inquisitive and alive. It feels both precious and surprisingly natural to spend time with him–hoisting him up to get a better look at the tropical fish at the aquarium, feeding him spoonfuls of mush, and pushing him through the rainy streets in his waterproof pram in search of great fish and chips.

And so, I embrace a new rite of passage, into unclehood. It has come not without its emotional challenges. This morning, I found myself fuming at an iPod relentlessly holding the day’s photos captive. And I realized, after a few deep breaths, that it wasn’t the recalcitrant contraption as much as the fact that, when we return, photos are all we will have for awhile. Still, I am doing my best to enjoy each moment, letting my paternal-turned-avuncular instincts guide me, and and my infant nephew’s zen-like adherence to the present moment remind me to be fully here–whether examining a leaf or a Lego block together, or taking time by myself in a beach-side cafe to write and reflect, as I am now.

We watched a BBC program last night about the Cuckoo–the bird that tricks much smaller birds into raising its own monstrous young. Watching the tiny reed birds shovel bug after bug into the insatiable infant cuckoo’s mouth, my first instincts were sympathy. The Cuckoo is rightly called a parasite, because it shifts the resource-intensive burden of parenthood onto a different species. And yet, it occurs to me, that no effort of caring is wasted–in nature or society. By the reed birds’ exhausting efforts, the Cuckoos grow strong, and fill the springtime air with their distinctive call.

Parenthood is ultimately temporary. The impulse to contribute and serve finds new forms over time. And, though the Cuckoo is an extreme, and strange example, it shows that there are many ways in which future generations can and will be served. The ultimate Parent–call it God, Nature, or Goodwill–works through us by simple and necessary acts. In my own journey to understand how best to serve posterity, I adopt this mantle of unclehood, not only as new demarcation on my family tree, but an ongoing commitment to education, assistance, and caring–for children big and small. This realization and re-commitment, not to mention time spent richly with family and friends, has already been worth every cramped hour spent in the airplane’s economy seat.

As soon as Val and I got married, we started referring to ourselves as a family. After the death of our infant son, my understanding of what marriage and family means changed dramatically. The commitment we made in our wedding ceremony–to love one another unconditionally, as best we can–was held to the fire. Grieving our hopes and dreams as parents tested the definition of “family” as a unit of support. Certainly, we were stronger together than apart–but some days we found ourselves both simply unable to give any more. It was in these times that the greater family–including relatives and friends–buoyed us up. Our commitment to love each other, and to support each other in learning and growing in the midst of adversity, became a new, refined definition of what it means to be married, and to be a family.

Shortly after Val and I got married, my best man met his man. Even as our lives ran in parallel when we were single, I also see both he and his partner now demonstrating this new meaning of marriage and family–supporting one another in learning, and growing, and becoming better human beings in the midst of adversity and prejudice. They baby-proofed their home prior to the adoption agency’s inspection the way some budding lawyers study for the bar exam–extensively, meticulously, because so much is riding on the result. They have been waiting for their child for some time now. Lucky the child who gets these two great, eager dads.

I would love to see them legally married. Not because it would deepen their commitment, or somehow legitimize their relationship, but because it would support a definition of marriage and family that is predicated on striving toward unconditional love. Anywhere this is found, there is a true family. Anywhere this is practiced wholeheartedly, it forms a bond thicker than blood. Because what makes life meaningful, what makes it all matter, is love. And love, like life itself, does not fit neat categories. It does not match our expectations and ideals. Because it is about so much more than gender, or genetics. It is about what makes us essentially human, and gives us the courage to endure.

Marriage is the sanctification of this commitment to love. A family is a unit of support that has made this same commitment to each member, whether two people or twelve. The success of these units in supporting each member to learn, and grow, and become better despite life’s challenges, is the measure by which the health of our society can be gauged. But first, this opportunity must be extended freely and without prejudice, in acknowledgment of its importance, and in acknowledgment of the potential of each one of us to better ourselves through loving one another past our differences and challenges–as family, in the truest sense of that word.