Hometown Pride: How a Quaint, Courageous Festival Healed My Heart
A Pride and healing report from small-town Missouri
I am in my hometown, not a place I come to often. But here I am, riding the high of a great iced coffee and a Pride festival — neither of which I ever thought I would get from this town.
I’m from Potosi, Missouri (pop. 2,662), situated about 70 miles southwest of, and about 20 years behind, Saint Louis. The area was once a thriving mining community, pulling iron and tiff from the earth. Currently, the main street is lined with a mix of abandoned storefronts and small businesses. There are a LOT of churches.
I grew up here in a blended family of three half brothers and three half sisters. My oldest brother, Robbie, was gay. For most of the last five years of his life, ever since he came out, he was estranged from our father and, by extension, from me. He died from AIDS in 1987 when I was 13, before I could really get to know him.
In the shadow of AIDS and Robbie’s death, witnessing the unbearable sadness and grief that it caused my family, I decided at first not to be gay.
I suffered in silence all the way through school, dating a girl in high school. After graduation, we left Potosi for a conservative Christian college in Joplin, MO. And from there…
