Anyhow, eventually my mother met a new man. They met at the factory where they both worked. Charles E. Simpson was his name. Charlie or Dobbs, as he was nicknamed, was one of those stand up men a women is truly blessed to have come into their lives. They married and life was good for a while. Charlie didn't care that I was another man's son. He treated me as his own. We were close. My biological father was no where to be found. He never sent a card, a present and certainly never any child support. All of that never mattered to Charlie, my Dad. He just was proud to have me as a son. A few years later my little sister came along, Wendy Lynn.
When I started school my mother decided to keep with her whole contrived story of being a vestal virgin and my having a different last name that was different from hers wasn't going to make her story believable. So my Mother did what any liar would do. She simply changed my last name. This was the 1970's and I am sure it was easy. I became known as Lucien Loren Simpson, or Loren Simpson as my mother refused to utter the name Lucien. That my friends is how this saga all began.
Earlier this year my drivers license was getting ready to expire. I dreaded going to Motor Vehicles and standing in line forever and getting another one of those ugly DMV pictures. When my number was finally called I went up to the window with my birth certificate (in the name of Lucien Loren Scott), my Social Security card (in the name of Lucien Loren Simpson) and my drivers licence. The clerk looked at all 3 forms of ID and asked the same old question I had heard my entire life. "Why is your birth certificate and Social Security card different?" I explained that my mother had changed my name and somehow gotten my social security number with the last name of Simpson. The clerk then called over a supervisor and they both had very confused looks. The supervisor explained with all the new laws that had been enacted since the 9/11 attacks. State issued ID's and driver's licenses had to be "verified." Basically, this meant that everything had to match and be verifiable. I was stunned.
This hit me like a ton of bricks. I could no longer drive, take a plane, a train or leave the country. I was in fact, unable to prove my citizenship. I felt like a non-person. I went home. Dejected, angry and worried. I know the laws in Virginia/D.C. region require a person to produce state issued ID upon request from a police officer and failure do to so can result in being arrested until you can prove your identity. So now the scared feeling set in.
Being a para-legal by trade, I knew a simple name change is easy. The problem I had was that I had actually never really existed under my birth name. I had gone to school, college and worked under my now illegal name. So I actually had nothing from my birth name other than my birth certificate.
Last month I went down to the Probate Office at our local town hall. I knew if I spoke with the Probate Judge's assistants I would find out what I was actually up against. I was told to bring down 2 forms of ID, $150.00 and my long form birth certificate. That was all I would need.
Today I did all just that. I filled out the requested forms, paid my fee and went before the Probate Judge. I was scared and feeling alone but was bound, set and determined to get this matter dealt with before the end of the year. The Judge asked a few questions and I answered and then he stamped my application and it was done. Lucien L. Scott was no more. I would now and forever be known as Lucien L. Simpson. The clerk handed me a couple of papers and explained what I would have to show the DMV to prove my name change. I thanked every one and was about to leave when the Judge stepped over to me and said, "I knew your Dad, we went to school together, how is he?" I told the judge that we lost my Dad 11 years ago to a massive heart attack. The Judge said he was sorry and that my Dad always spoke highly of me when they would go golfing. I think I teared up when he said that. We shook hands and I left.
As i walked home I know I had a smile on my face. The relief was apparent in the quickness of my step. I had a name. The name I always had but now it really was my name. It was the name of the only man I ever truly trusted and respected. When I got home and sat down on my bed I started to cry. The house was quiet and the tears just flowed. Dad and I had a rocky road. I blamed him for all the physical abuse I had endured from my mother. I blamed him for not stopping it. I had blamed him for not stopping the sexual abuse I suffered. Dad and I warred well into my 30's. It wasn't an easy relationship to say the least.
Somewhere in my mid 30's I moved to Virginia. Dad and Mom would come down every year for a visit. One year Dad and I had an explosive fight. It all started over my Mother. He didn't like the way I was talking to her. Dad and I exchanged ugly words for what seems hours. Of course Mom enjoyed the whole event. She always loved to pit one against the other when it came to us. I don't know how it happened but that night I ended up in his arms asking what I ever did to him to make him not love me?
This was the only time I ever saw that man cry. He looked at me and said he didn't hate me, that he indeed loved me and was always so proud of me. When I asked why he allowed to happen what did, he said he didn't know how to stop any of it. He said he too had been molested as a young boy by a family member. He begged for my forgiveness. We just cried together. It was the single most important moment of my life as a man, a boy and a person.
I, of course, accepted and gave him the forgiveness. We healed that night. Two men, a father and his son. All the years of resentment, anger and misunderstandings faded away. We started to get to know each other as people, as men. I finally had the father I always wanted and I hope he felt like he had the son he always wanted. We talked weekly. There were even time when he and a couple of his golf buddies would come down to play golf at some of the great public golf courses we have in Virginia Beach. Just good times and great memories.
Of course Mother would always be trying to drive the old wedge between us but we never allowed it. We enjoyed each other. I would take him to hooters to see some "Boobies" and he tried to get to know the gay world, like watching Queer As Folk with me. I still laugh as I watched him squirm all over that couch when two men kissed. What an act of love huh? Our time as friends, as parent and child was short. Dad died of a massive heart attack on September 28, 2001.
So as I sat on my bed all of these thoughts were going around and around in my head. I hoped that Dad was looking down and smiling. I miss his "you've done good kid, real good, I am proud of you." The tears have yet to stop. I don't know why this is so affecting me. Maybe because I wish I had done this while he was alive? Maybe because I am a Simpson now? Maybe just because I miss his big arm around me? I don't know. Maybe I am just an emotional gay man? Who knows?
So, at the end of it all, a name is not really just a name. Its the feelings and history that comes with it. I am proud to be the last Simpson to carry on the name. I understand I very well may be the last male to use it in this family but I will, as Illana Angel, of Keeping The Faith Blog, says, be keeping the faith because who knows what the future brings.
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