This One Is For You, Uncle Robin

Today was the big day here in Maine. Today is voting day. It wasn't a big election of course but the issues on the ballot are very important to many Mainer's and tensions have been high for a long time, especially around question 1. The question asked if voters wanted to appeal the recent law that allows same sex couples to marry in the state of Maine and allow religious groups to refuse to perform a marriage between a same-sex couples. My family and I of course voted No. We are strong proponents of the idea that marriage is about the pursuit of happiness, a right that our founding father's spelled out in the constitution as being unalienable to humans. Not to mention a close relative who was gay.

Growing up I had this wonderful uncle, Uncle Robin. He has been a big influence on my life. He grew up in a home that was very much against differences of any kind. My Grammy Johnson despite being a really good grandmother to me was not one to believe in tolerance. My mother says she used to wish she could date a black man and take him home with her just because she knew how much it would irritate my grandmother. Despite my grandmother though my Uncle knew from a very young age that he liked men. And despite everything else he found acceptance. My mom didn't care that he was gay, he was her brother and they were very close. They grew up together, played together, laughed together. His sexual preference meant nothing. Maybe that is why he fell so in love with me as a child.

My Uncle hated children, just hated them. He was never upset by the fact that he couldn't have kids cause he didn't like them. But then I was born. My mom describes a scene to me where my Uncle was out watering my grandmother's flowers and I wanted him to use my little tiny, tiny green watering can to do it. Now, most adults who hate children would have refused outright or they would have found some way to get around having to do that. Not my Uncle Robin. He took the little watering can and spent all day watering those flowers with it, with me trailing along behind him. He never complained about it either.

Unfortunately, I only got a short time with him. The beautiful, funny, comfortable with himself man that was my Uncle got AIDS and died. I was very young at the time. But I can still remember going to the hospital to see him and being frightened. I didn't understand what could possible have happened to the man I knew.

Today at the polls, as I stood in front of the ballot all those memories of tiny watering cans, of my Uncle's humor, the little fragments of his voice I remember and the image of him in the hospital came back to me. I filled the ballot out with tears starting in my eyes because all I could think about was how proud of me he would be and of how much he deserved the right to be married while he was alive.

I called my mom after I left. She agreed with me that he would be very proud of me and she said "You were the thing he loved best in the whole world." I hope that where ever he is now he got to see me voting. I hope he knows I was thinking of him. And that this one was done in his memory and out of love for him.