When I was young, I thought "church folk" were loving and caring people. I believed that they were accepting of all people, regardless of their personal faith, nationality or financial status. I had tremendous respect for the men and women of my church, and I grew up thinking that they had the upper-hand on what was good and right. .
When I was in my early teens, my cousin from Minnesota, Charles, came to visit my mom and I. It's an understatement to say that I was excited to see him again, because it had been years since we'd been together and spending time with Charles was always a lot of fun. .
When he arrived and walked through the front door, he came in wearing a huge smile and his trademark big, brown, happy eyes. But I also noticed how much Charles has changed since the last time I'd seen him. He hadn't grown much - he was very short for a man - yet, his overall appearance took me by surprise. He wore fitted, skinny legged blue jeans, a pink crew neck sweater, and was carrying a purse; the one that my mother had recently mailed as a gift to his mother. .
Was this really my cousin, Charles? I couldn't believe my eyes, but I greeted him with a hug and my heart was welcoming. I rationalized that he was the same person who I'd have so much fun with years ago, and that what he wore didn't matter. We hugged and immediately had some laughs. We began to talk about all the fun things we were going to do while he was visiting us. I said, "Charles, what do you want to do this week? You know we're gonna have a lot of fun like always." "First, we've got to go hit up some parties. Then you know we got to go see granny and Lil David," he replied. As we began to converse about how our week was going to go, I noticed how the "girlishness" of his voice; high-pitched and lilting. I began to wonder Charles was gay. .
Although, Charles was a very different person than the one I remembered, we continued to talk and chill as we had done on other visits.
