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

"What is it about the late night hours that allows the soul to speak openly and maybe even say things that do not normally come out so easily? Friday night was a really good night all together. Jeff and I went to the bookstore and stocked up for a while. I found a book called Straight Parents/Gay Children. It fell off the shelf for me. Literally! It is a wonderful book. We came back and started reading it to each other. In it we found words that spoke our hearts. When you have a situation like having a gay child, there are very few ways to express how you feel, so when you read a book that says how you feel and how you have felt, you just can't get enough. Sometimes we had to just stop reading and cry."

Jeff: During our life, we have been blessed with knowing many wonderful, spiritual people. One such person was "Ma" Barton. She was an elderly woman, a minister's wife that taught our Sunday school class. She loved children and made it her ministry to teach young adults on the importance of family and being good parents.

She taught us that once your children reach the teenage years and beyond, they tend to conceal many of their true feelings about how they are dealing with life. She went on to say that if we would talk to them late in the evening, when they came home from an evening out, something magical would seem to happen to them.

If you were there and available for them, the impenetrable wall to their feelings would fall. They would tell you more about themselves than at any other time of the day.

Ma Barton was right. We have found more family togetherness in the wee hours of the night than we can tell.

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