I had a sad day this past weekend. I don’t know why. Maybe it was the fact that I just gave up coffee and I was bereft of its mood-enhancing abilities. Or maybe my life has just been so full of happiness lately that I was owed some sadness. It doesn’t matter.

But as I often do at such times, I thought of my mother. And I thought of how she was the one person in my life, the one person in the world, who ever truly loved me unconditionally. Don’t get me wrong  – the rest of my family loves me. I don’t doubt that. But my mother loved in a way that was threaded through with acceptance. With the idea that I love you for everything that you are and everything that you can be and despite all the things inside yourself that you might consider flaws or weaknesses. It was a love that said – you can be yourself, and I will always be there for you.

Only she’s no longer there. And that pretty much sucks.

It’s a tough realization. To know that the safety net is gone. To know that when you’re scared and lonely, when the world turns its face away, that there’s nowhere to go. No safe, warm embrace to take shelter in. It makes the world more cold and lonely.

Then I was reading about the series of suicides lately by LGBT teens (Raymond Chase, Tyler Clementi, Asher Brown, Billy Lucas, and Seth Walsh) who have been facing persecution and intolerance and it just pushed me over the edge. I can’t claim to know what it’s like to grow up gay in an intolerant climate. I can’t really imagine what it feels like to face that kind of hatred and lack of acceptance at every turn. I can only claim to know what it’s like to feel different, to feel alone and misunderstood and like something of a Changeling left behind in a child’s place. And if that is just the tiniest fraction of what these kids are feeling then that crushes my heart into tiny pieces. I want them all to have someone like my mother who will love and accept them for who they are. I want them all to have communities that will stand up against all aspects of homophobia. I’m heartened to see LGBT adults like Dan Savage and Ellen Degeneres reaching out to these kids and trying to explain that things will get better. I hope it reaches people. I hope it helps to bring some light into dark places.

When I was a freshman at university, living on an all-male floor in a dorm, there was this one kid, Jim, who came out during the year. As far as I know he wasn’t tormented, but he was certainly treated differently. And the other guys would talk about him behind his back. I never did. But I will always despise myself for not defending him. For not speaking up. I saw him a few years later at a pride parade in NY and he seemed happy and doing well and we talked for a bit and I was glad. But I will always remember him and how I basically failed in being the kind of person I want to be.

Doing nothing is not enough. Doing nothing right now is leading to kids dying. Doing nothing means leaving people alone to suffer while the world tears at them from all sides. I don’t know what it is that I can do right now, but I want to do something. I need to do something.

So I will. Why don’t you join me?