(-- "Our Son's Story"... CONTINUED --)

Then came the unsettling part. For some unknown reason, she started telling her friends that Adam was gay. Here is a 12 year old girl, clueless about homosexuality, spreading a rumor. This was years before Adam came to grips with his own sexuality so she was just being malicious. She enlisted all those in her sphere of influence, especially those in her youth group at church, to help make Adam's life a living hell. She was very successful.

By the time Patti and I had any idea of this, the damage had already been done.

From that time on, the kids began calling Adam "gay" and "fag". If the others did not flatly refuse to allow Adam to sit at their lunch table, they would all simply get up and move to another table when he sat down. The bus ride to and from school shortly became infected with the same rhetoric and no one would allow him to sit with them. To stop this pain, Patti became his personal taxi service; dropping him off and picking him up.

This stopped the humiliation on the bus but we couldn't help feeling as though they had won. We were insane with anger at the cruelty those kids showed our son. I wanted to go on that bus and crack some heads.

Through all of this public pain and humiliation, Adam was constantly wounded and battered but he was never broken. I wonder how many of his classmates could go through that endurance test and come through it like Adam did.

Middle school was a living hell for all of us and we couldn't wait for it to be over. Our hope was that high school would provide a clean start with the students becoming more mature and less cruel. We must have been the most naive parents in the world.

High school started out with such promise. Adam came home after the first week of school and said that he was interested in a certain girl. He told us how she was obviously interested him as well. He made his move and they agreed to meet at the Friday night football game. Things were looking up!

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