Born again — Dead again

[Trigger warnings: death; loss of loved one; grief.] 

This weekend I was reminded very painfully of how life and death are the two sides of the same coin. 

Two weeks ago in Chicago, on my 44th birthday, I was born again as my chosen name and affirmed gender were registered at the Italian Consulate — and the ultimate proof of this came in the mail last Friday and sits among my documents now: my new Italian passport. But this same document, this same renewal, this same rebirth, is also a reminder of death. The reminder of my father’s death. The concrete reminder of his death, the tangible proof that he will never know the real me — concrete because I now hold in my hands the ultimate document of recognition from “his” country. 

Italy recognized my chosen name and affirmed gender. My father didn’t. My father never will. My father will never even know. 

Grief tore through me and ravaged my soul & body again this weekend. The pain nearly unbearable. But it’s not only the terrible pain of this loss: it’s also the additional pain from the lack of acknowledgement or recognition from my mother. 

Not only does my mother refuse to see or acknowledge the early, ever-present signs of my gender-identity. Not only does she insult me by thinking that I was “brainwashed into being trans”. Not only does she blame me for not being present when my father was ill & dying. On top of all this, she also acts and talks like she’s the only one who’s lost a loved one, as if she were the only one experiencing grief, the only one suffering from my father’s death. In my mother’s eyes I am not only denied the reality of my gender-identity — i.e. the right to be myself: I am also denied the reality of my pain — the pain that comes from a father who was basically absent or disapproving for the last three decades of my life; the pain that comes from having lost my father over and over; the pain from the difficulties of my gender-journey; the pain from knowing that my father will never know me. 

This pain is devastating. 

And my new Italian passport, while being a wonderful achievement and something for me to cherish & celebrate in its own right, is also a terrible, tangible reminder of all this pain.