BACCALAUREAT
ANGLAIS LV2 - SERIE S - SESSION 2009

Oral du deuxième groupe

TEXT 5

LETTER TO MAMA

| |Dear Mama, |
| | |
| |I'm sorry it's taken me so long to write. Every time I try to write to you and Papa I realize I'm not saying the things that are in my heart. That would be OK, |
| |if I loved you any less than I do, but you are still my parents and I am still your child. I have friends who think I'm foolish to write this letter. I hope |
| |they're wrong. I hope their doubts are based on parents who loved and trusted them less than mine do. [ ... ] |
|5 |I wouldn't have written, I guess, if you hadn't told me about your involvement in the Save Our Children campaign. That, more than anything, made it clear that |
| |my responsibility was to tell you the truth, that your own child, is homosexual. [ ... ] |
| |I'm sorry, Mama. Not for what I am, but for how you must feel at this moment. I know what that feeling is for I felt it for most of my life. Revulsion, shame, |
| |disbelief - rejection through fear of something I knew, even as a child was as basic to my nature as the color of my eyes. |
| |No, Mama, I wasn't "recruited." No seasoned homosexual ever served as my mentor. But you know what? I wish someone had. I wish someone older than me and wiser |
|10 |than the people in Orlando had taken me aside and said, "You're all right, kid. You can grow up to be a doctor or a teacher just like anyone else. You’re not |
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