Why do I keep going to PFLAG meetings?
Exactly one day after my daughter made the oblique announcement to me that seemed to be saying she was a lesbian, I looked up "gay" in the phone book, found PFLAG and called. The following week I was at my first meeting, and knew I had to join.

At that meeting I related some of that important conversation my daughter and I had had. I spoke of my worry that I had let her down in my response, and my fear that her life from here on would be erratic, rootless and difficult.

The other parents, without any attempt to sound like psychologists, enlightened and encouraged me. They relieved my guilt. And--most important--the lesbians and gays told me, in open discussion and one-to-one during the break, that many of their experiences paralleled my daughter's: going through career and social upsets while "coming out to themselves." And they reassured me that I had not let her down.

I was given several very helpful pamphlets, but I knew they were not to substitute for the human contact I was to have. They were to help me frame further questions and reinforce all I was learning.

But gratitude for the help I received more than ten years ago--and the wish to help other parents as I was helped--is only part of why I keep coming to meetings. Another big reason is that my lesbian daughter and I live many miles apart. The gays and lesbians who come to PFLAG, whom I've come to know and consider friends, provide me with continuing insights that helps me understand my daughter although I can't be with her very much.

Some of my daughter's lesbian friends have told me that their parents refused to have anything to do with them after they came out. If any of the gays and lesbians who come to our meetings are in that position, perhaps I fill a need for them.

I wish PFLAG weren't thought of by some people as a bunch of accepting parents sitting around congratulating themselves. I wish parents who need our meetings and haven't admitted that to themselves would give it a try. I wish I could tell them how un-awkward and immediately comfortable they would feel. I'd like to give them my personal welcome.