The death of Rush Limbaugh has brought up an unexpected feeling in me – grief. No, not for him, but for my father, or rather – who my father should have been, instead of who he is and has become.
As a child, my dad led the adult Sunday School class, the choir, and later on became a lay leader in the youth group. On Sunday mornings, he would usually cook breakfast for our family – usually pancakes with food coloring or an array of Southern breakfast foods like bacon, sausage, eggs, biscuits, and gravy.
During the week, he listened to talk radio. One of the voices I most remember was Rush Limbaugh, even watching the televised version of his show during the Clinton Era. I don’t remember much about the show then except what I can access through my child mind – the harshness and up and down motion with Rush’s voice, the urgency with which he spoke, as if everything was at stake, the sarcasm and jokes against democrats and minorities and a special hatred of Hillary Clinton. Perhaps most vividly, I recall the image of a cartoon Janet Reno, the first woman to serve as US Attorney General, as a rod on top of a government building, lightning striking her and lighting her up as she screamed.
I want to be clear now – There is no redemption in this story, no coming around. Only a gross disappointment and negligence of truth and goodness as I grew up and found my own way outside of the hateful brand of conservatism I was taught and into seeing all of my neighbors as worthy of my respect and honor then being labeled a “snowflake liberal” and “selfish bitch” by some of the relatives whom my childhood revolved around.
The grief that fills my heart today revolves around what I have come to learn about being a human, a partner, and most specifically – a parent of little humans. I have learned as a therapist that the messages we are taught in childhood and adolescence can culminate in echoes throughout our adulthood that guide our actions and inform our views of ourselves and the world. I have learned as a daughter that this is true and that as a mother, I am working not to repeat those same messages to my children. I am learning what it means to say I’m sorry and I don’t have all the answers. I am learning what it means to teach my children empathy and respect for people who are different than they are.
As a queer mother, I am learning what it means to advocate for ourselves and others like us. I am learning the importance of boundaries and just how vital found family is and how much it fucking hurts not to be able to share space with those in our found family right now.
What I hope that I can learn feels closer to my heart and much more painful to mention, though I know I can’t bear it alone. And just maybe, I’m not alone.
I hope I can learn that I am me. I look like me. I sound like me. I think like me.
What I desperately mean is – I am not my father’s daughter. I look in the mirror, and I seek out the features that recall my grandmother and not him. I am afraid to cut my hair short, even when I want to, because I am keenly aware of the strong family resemblances to him and another relative who I wish to distance myself from as much as possible. I delete pictures of myself where my smile is too wide, seeing the smile of one who wounded me, unable to escape the phenotypical nature of genetics.
There remains the problem that hate begat hate, and that particular hate singed my family, the family I created with my partner.
Perhaps the only redemption to this tragedy is the redemption I must work to bring about by not carrying on in this twisted legacy, by raising kids who lead with love, by sending out new messages into the world that we can and should be kind. That Black lives matter. That LGBTQ+ folks like us are worthy of respect and rights. That our BIPOC, immigrant, and Islamic neighbors deserve kindness and love and safety. That we can effect change for good.
But for now, I’m sitting in this grief today, searching the mirror for my eyes. Mine. Green, with golden brown flecks – my own. And no one else’s.