The Cup

by Tery Maine

 

I think that the biggest transformation in my life in the past 8 years has not been my change of gender. The biggest change has been from a socially isolated person with virtually no friends to a person who has several people in my life who are significant to me.

One of these people is Tracy. We have grown very close over the past six years. In fact, we have adopted each other as sisters. I met Tracy at a church picnic. I was standing in line behind her. She started up a conversation with me. Tracy is the type of person who can elicit the life story out of a person on the other end of the phone who is a wrong number. Anyway, I was talking with her and these kids kept coming up to her. Finally, I counted six of them. Well, within a few short years they all became part of my family.

One day, shortly after my surgery, I was over at her house. She gave me a gift. It was more special than she could have known.

 

Cindy carefully set the cup on her desk in a prominent position. It wasn’t antique china or Wedgewood, but to Cindy it was more precious than anything else on the desk. It was a gift from a friend. Strange, Cindy thought, for most people "a gift from a friend" would be an ordinary, common label applied to much they found around the home. To Cindy it was quite remarkable indeed. Only within the last two years could she say it about anything she received as an adult. She had gifts from family, from business associates and students, but no gifts from friends. Of course, Cindy thought smiling a wry smile, you don’t get gifts from friends when you have no friends.

But now she set on her desk a cup imprinted with her name and a poem, a very special gift from a very special friend. Cindy got acquainted with Traci at a Labor Day picnic last year. It was just after she shed her male attire and her male identity to begin living full-time as a woman. Cindy was determined to live in her female role and not have any more people than necessary know about her transgendered situation.

Cindy’s friendship grew with Traci through chats at church and over the phone. Traci was one of those people she sort of "fit" with although she and Traci had completely different backgrounds and personalities. Traci had obviously not "read" Cindy, and Cindy enjoyed the woman-to-woman relationship that grew between them. although there were touchy times like when Traci asked Cindy if she was going to the women’s group meeting which Cindy’s arrangements with the pastor and board precluded. And, of course, there were the inevitable discussions of relationships and the "So why aren’t you married yet?" Question. Cindy wondered again "How can I answer that question truthfully, yet safely? What do I say, ‘Well, I just got too busy’? It worked up till now, but how much longer before someone asked for more detail? And then do I say, "Well, as a man who had a female identity I didn’t want to get involved in a relationship which would just disintegrate if I ever changed sex."?

But those questions hadn’t gone past the point where a little tap dancing hadn’t worked. But the most troublesome questions were yet to come. Thinking about those questions and turning the cup around on the desk, the gift seemed all that much more remarkable.

It was Mid-June when Cindy went to church for the last time physiologically as a male. It was beginning to get hot outside. Cindy thought it would be good to be leaving central California for the northern part of the state and eventually for Oregon. Still she would miss the people in the Valley especially her friends Traci and Shelly both of whom required cards and letters. A requirement that Cindy found wonderful. Never before in her life had anyone cared or even noticed when she was gone from church unless a Sunday school class went untaught or someone else had to distribute posters for the Christian concert or someone needed a scripture reference and Cindy wasn’t there to teach, post or research.

In mentioning why she would be gone or 6 weeks she simply said she had to have an operation in a "delicate area." That worked—before the operation.

When Cindy arrived at her parents’ home after being in Portland for three weeks, a huge box of mail (mostly bills) was waiting for her forwarded from Fresno. Among the letters was one from Traci. Cindy held the letter in her hand and felt a tearful smile

crease her face. Traci had actually taken the time to write a letter. Considering that the woman had five children at home (six if you include her husband), the investment in time to write a six page letter is remarkable enough. That she should write one to ME, thought Cindy, is even more remarkable. The letter contained news of the church, mutual friends and Traci’s family that had sort of adopted Cindy as one of their own.

Then on the third page come a couple of paragraphs that stopped Cindy in her tracks.

"The pastor spoke Sunday on how man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart," the letter read, " and how we should love people no matter who they are or what they are. I don’t think I ever had any trouble with that. Not even the time that my childhood friend Carl became Carla. " She went on to tell about how Carl moved away and then came back 18 months later following sex-reassignment surgery as Carla. "Some people didn’t accept him after that," she said, "I guess they thought it would rub off or something. You know how stupid people are. But it didn’t matter to me. The only problem was that Carla was prettier than me."

"Traci are you trying to tell me something," Cindy muttered as she read the letter.

"I think she knows," Cindy’s mother commented when they were talking later.

"It may just be coincidence," Cindy replied without much confidence. "But even if it isn’t, what can I do about it? What should I do about it? Should I disclose my situation to her? Should I try to keep it a secret? Should I ignore the comment in the letter?"

Filling the cup with water from the drinking fountain in the hall, Cindy thought it significant that one of the options she did not consider was trying to avoid Traci. Just two years ago, that would have been the first consideration. But so much had happened in that time that running away from problems seemed a bit useless.

The question of what to do disturbed Cindy’s sleep for a few nights until finally she said, "Lord, I don’t know how to handle this. You take care of it." After which, she fell asleep peacefully.

Cindy arrived back in her apartment about two weeks later tired but feeling remarkably well considering the trauma her body had gone through less than a month earlier.

"It’s good to be home," she said, then checked herself. It was the first time she had really thought of Fresno as home. "I guess there are a lot of changes that come with surgery which have nothing to do with genitals," she thought collapsing on the couch. The next day Cindy called Traci. As the conversation progressed, the subject of Carl / Carla came up again.

"I wanted to ask Carla so many questions," Traci said. "It must have been pretty tough on him growing up that way."

"It was," said Cindy wondering if she sounded just a little too knowledgeable. "I worked with a number of transsexuals during my counseling internship. In fact, it sort of became a specialty."

From there a discussion of transsexualism ensued which assured Cindy that Traci knew nothing of her situation. Cindy was at once relieved and disappointed. She was relieved that she didn’t have to worry about being discovered and taking the risk of rejection. She was disappointed, though, in that it would have been good to have a close friend who also knew about her situation and provide support. Cindy had some friends of that nature, but they all lived out of town. It would be nice to have someone to just "hang" with as her students said.

Besides, the conversations and relationship between the two of them had reached such a depth that Cindy required all of her communication skills to talk about her life without lying or being overly vague. It might be easier to tell, but no matter how many times you disclose, it’s always hard.

A couple of days later Cindy and Traci were talking on the phone when the subject of Cindy’s surgery came up. Cindy pulled out her taps and began to dance around the subject again giving vague answers like, "I’m still a little sore but getting better." Then, out of the blue, Traci said, "I wonder about Carla’s surgery. Do you know if that is very painful?"

Do I ever, thought Cindy before she shifted into teaching mode and gave a rundown on the process of the surgery, recovery time, amounts of pain and post-operative maintenance. The description was thorough. Perhaps, a little too thorough, thought Cindy.

"So, how are you doing with your operation," Traci said making a natural, albeit too appropriate, transition. "By the way, what did you say you had done? I hope that whatever you had cut out you didn’t save and put in a jar of formaldehyde. I had a friend who did that with her gall stones. Then she would show them to people who came by to visit."

Cindy, being a somewhat visual person, instantly formed an appropriate image of everything that had been taken out or even reconstructed floating upright in a jar of formaldehyde. This started her laughing.

Traci continued, "Well, I guess you could display it on the mantle." More laughter. "Or give it as a gift to a friend." Cindy thought of an FTM friend and fell off the couch onto the floor laughing, finding it hard to catch her breath.

Traci now laughing along said, "So, just what was this operation you had?"

Still laughing, though becoming increasingly nervous, Cindy said, "Guess." Cindy knew that by this time Traci had figured this out. Or perhaps she had hoped so.

"I don’t know. It wasn’t a C-Section, you weren’t pregnant when you left. Gall bladder... I don’t know. " Catching her breath, Cindy said carefully. "Transsexuals are only about 1 in 10,000 within a population. It is unlikely in ones lifetime they will ever randomly meet just one person who has had sex reassignment surgery. You have met two."

"Two?"

"Yes, Carla and................"

"Who else? Oh. No. You aren’t......." Then she began to laugh hysterically and Cindy joined in for about five minutes of nonstop laughing. Looking at the cup Cindy thought it had to be the craziest disclosure she had ever made.

Questions were asked and answered. Support was offered and gratefully accepted. And the conversation drifted naturally into another topic. Cindy and Traci continued to talk almost daily and grew even closer. Sure, sometimes the conversation dealt with the gender issues, but often enough it was just chit chat—small talk, the glue which cements friendships bonding people together through shared experiences which then become common experiences.

About a week following the disclosure, Cindy answered the phone. It was Traci . "Hello. When are you going to school today?" "I have a 1:00 class. So I’ll leave around noon."

"Well, swing by here on your way to class. I’ve got something for you."

Traci had taken upon herself the Herculean task of decorating and feminizing Cindy’s rather stark, impersonal apartment. Well, Cindy mused, When you don’t really have a personality or one you have to hide, your apartment lacks personality as well. The fact that Cindy had just begun to care about how her living quarters looked was part of a growing sense of permanence in life which she had just noticed since surgery. Cindy assumed that Traci had another silk flower arrangement that she had made. Cindy loved the ones she had already been given. They seemed—well—they seemed appropriate.

Traci didn’t have a silk flower arrangement. When Cindy arrived at Traci’s place, Cindy was forced into a chair and instructed to close her eyes and hold out her hands. Cindy obeyed. Into her hands fell The Cup.

"This is for your office," Traci said. "You’re going back to his school, sitting in his office, taking over his job, even using his computer. You need something of yours in this office to help you make it yours."

Tears brimmed up afresh in Cindy’s eyes remembering those words. Traci had hit a nerve. There had been some uneasiness. There weren’t any problems with students or colleagues. Nevertheless, something just didn’t fit. She had not yet taken ownership of the job as Cindy. Carl’s presence did still haunt the office. This cup was symbolic of all that had changed since she had last been in this office. A name change, a gender change and a change in her level of connectedness to other people.

A gift from a friend who was herself a gift from God. The next day Cindy and Traci went out to lunch together. Traci had wanted to see what Cindy had looked like before the "facelift" (a private code for SRS when Traci’s children were around). So, Cindy showed Traci an old family portrait with Carl standing behind his parents wearing a forced grin, an ill-fitting suit, a tie which didn’t match either his shirt or his jacket, and a prevailing sadness in his eyes.

Traci took one look at the picture and said, "You made the right choice. " As Cindy sat down the cup and gathered up her things for class she muttered, "That I did, Tracy. That I did."

  

  

  

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