Free Secrets Of A Gay Marine Porn Star by Rich Merritt Page B

whom she could teach how to style her hair. So when Momma became pregnant again—they didn’t have sonograms then—they didn’t know for sure it would be a girl. However, we all had reasons why we thought it was going to be a girl. My mom was the same age that her mother was when she gave birth to her so it was just natural that it would be a girl. So said the logic of a nine-year-old.
    Momma carried the baby full term but it died just before or during delivery. They named the dead infant Elizabeth. We had a funeral for Elizabeth and buried her in a little casket at the cemetery. Momma and Daddy had their own names and dates of birth affixed to the same grave plot. There was a blank spot for the other dates.
    We all felt an incredible sense of loss. This was something the whole family had been looking forward to. After the baby was stillborn, especially when it was a girl, it was all that much more of God twisting the dagger and thrusting it into their hearts. It was devastating. She had been God’s little gift to us and He took her away and we didn’t understand why. She was going to make our family complete. I know in my mind I was planning all the things I was going to do with her over the years. I was going to be her big brother. I was going to take her to her piano recitals. Just encourage her. All the things I hadn’t done with Jimmy.
    I had hoped that a new member in the family would help relieve some of the feelings of loneliness I had. These feelings had grown more intense as I had moved up in grade school, because I still hadn’t been able to make friends. Jimmy and I had such different interests and completely incongruent personalities that I’m not sure either of us had begun to feel the mythic “brotherly connection” that people talk about. I read books; Jimmy tinkered with motors for the go-cart and minibikes. I wasn’t a complete sissy—I still enjoyed riding these things, I was just clueless about how they worked.
    Many nights before I would drift off to sleep, I would ask God to give me one really close friend. A boy who liked to do the same things I did—watch movies like The Sound of Music and West Side Story and read the same books—not play ball or fight. I’d also pray for magic powers like Samantha on Bewitched. That way, if God forgot to give me anything I wanted, I could just get it on my own.
    A baby sister would have relieved those lonely feelings. By the time she started school, I would have my driver’s license and could take her to school and walk her inside and introduce her to the same teachers I had had nine years earlier. I would let her in on all the secrets that no one told you about at first but that you had to waste so much time figuring out. Things like why a candy bar that a sign said costs thirty cents would really cost thirty-two cents. Stuff like that. Jimmy never listened to me and I began to think he really didn’t like me all that much; Elizabeth would have clung to every word I said and she would have adored me.
    It’s a traumatic event in any woman’s life to carry a baby to full term and then lose it. Momma cried a lot and, for once, there was nothing I could do to take the pain away. That crushed me. The death crushed me and then her anguish crushed me again. Our relationship had been about me making her happy before Elizabeth’s death; after that I wanted more than anything to make up for the loss.
    One of the things that came out early in the therapy I would undergo years later was, “Where was your dad at this time? Why isn’t your mom getting this support and encouragement from your dad?” I don’t know. I never thought that she wasn’t getting emotional assistance from him, but looking back she wasn’t. At least not that I could see. By emotional assistance I mean, ordinarily a man and wife fill each other’s needs and my dad never met my mother’s emotional needs. Or maybe she just had too many for any one person to meet. I should know; my