A Little Thing Called Life

by Linda Thompson

  Or perhaps I invited myself.

  I also invited my girlfriend, Wendy Burch, who was living with me at that time. She dressed up as Wonder Woman. I was an old-school Playboy Bunny with pink ears, a little white bunny tail, and fishnet hose. I knocked on the door of Brody’s condo in my outfit.

  “Brody, is this too risqué?” I asked him.

  “Mom, where the hell do you think you’re going?” he said. “You’re going to the Playboy Mansion. Those girls will be naked. You’re like Mother Teresa dressed like that.”

  “I am?” I said. “This is modest?”

  “Yeah, when we get there, you’ll see,” he said. “You’re dressed very modestly. It’s okay. You look like a mom.”

  “Oh, thank you,” I said. I think?

  Brody wore a tux and a rubber mask of one of the presidents like the characters in the movie Point Break. We all went together, and sure enough, when we walked in, I noticed there were about fifteen girls in body paint. Of course, being the curiosity seeker I am, I had to get right up there and look at their bodies. Wait, that looks like a bra and panties, and a little garter belt and hose, I thought, looking closer. But that’s just paint.

  But of course, being the resident mom, I couldn’t stop worrying about them.

  “Honey, are you cold?” I asked one of the girls. “Aren’t you freezing? Can I get you a sweater? Are there blankets here for you?”

  They were laughing at me because here I was, dressed like a vintage bunny, and I was being the total mom on duty that night. Well, let’s just say it had been a long time since I’d met my husband, and the father of my boys, at the Playboy Mansion.

  All this was a fun distraction because even though I had zero regrets that divorce had been the right choice, it was still very much a struggle. I wasn’t so much worried about our divorce settlement—my bigger concern had to do with rebuilding myself emotionally. And as far as I could tell, the first step was to figure out how I’d gotten here when I’d fully intended to enter into a loving, respectful partnership that would last “until death do us part,” as we said in our vows.

  As I looked back over the years, I realized that the kind of emotional sabotage I’d experienced in my marriage was insidious. It starts off small—an insult here, a slight there—and you almost don’t notice it. When you do, you make excuses because you’re in love. But the problem grows, and it grows. And before you know it, you’ve become acclimated to the discord, and so you’ve begun to think it’s normal.

  On top of that, when you love someone, you make excuses for them, and you can’t help but love them anyway. That’s okay, I think, at least up to a point. But when you start loving yourself less, losing your self-respect, finding yourself hurt and angry too much of the time, you must eventually acknowledge that destructive behavior has been chipping away little chinks of your personal armor on a daily basis. When that realization hits you between the eyes, it’s time to make your exit and save yourself. Once I took this healing step, I was able to love David again and wish him well. Only it was from a distance now.

  Making peace with my divorce meant moving on to a new stage of my growth. I had to learn to be alone, because I’d always had a boyfriend or partner, since I was a teenager. But I do believe the real gift, and the point, of life, really, is that in every relationship and every situation, we receive an opportunity to grow. Sometimes you’ve got to really dig, and ask yourself: How am I going to grow from this? Because it just pruned the heck out of me. As Khalil Gibran wrote, “Even though love is for your growth, it’s also for your pruning.”

  I am now reminded every day of life and love and what it teaches us as we make our way through this maze of existence. Rebirth, renewal, and the promise of the continuity of life itself can reshape every human soul. I’ve taken up the rather painful practice of pruning my lovely rosebushes every year at the Knest, and as a result of cutting them down to “bare root” they’ve always come back fuller, healthier, and more vibrantly beautiful than before.

  “Blessed”

  In each heart

  There’s a space for love

  So many faces there

  Yet it’s never full enough

  In each life

  People come and go

  Some you never touch

  And some you’ll always know

  In this world of everchanging winds

  On yourself you must depend

  No matter how life may test you

  You’ll have love inside your heart

  To bless you

  Blessed …

  Blessed from the moment you first breathe

  Your heart’s the key to every need

  You’ll ever face

  It’s life you will embrace

  Full of love …

  You are blessed

  Just look around

  The sky show’s always free

  And the clouds are dancing there

  For the stars, for you and for me

  Blessed …

  Blessed when you first open your eyes

  You’re past the pain … into the light

  Of every day

  You’ll always find your way

  Follow love …

  You are blessed

  If you reach inside—down to your soul

  There’s a special gift that’s yours alone

  Oh, there isn’t anyone who is quite like you

  No one to do what you do best

  Blessed …

  Blessed just because you are alive

  And every test you will survive

  Because you’re strong

  With love you can’t go wrong

  Sing your song …

  You are blessed

  LYRIC: LINDA THOMPSON

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Caitlyn Coming Out

  Life really does come full circle, even if it often takes many years for us to see how events that once troubled us will eventually play out in the most positive way imaginable. Maybe I am kind of a Pollyanna, and it’s all right if it is sometimes to my own detriment. I’d simply rather view my world through rose-colored glasses than through pessimism. I guess it would be fair to say I create my own happy reality. I begin each day with my affirmations of gratitude and good health, and I pray for those I love, sometimes for those I don’t, and for our world to be a kinder place in which to live for all living beings.

  After the television show Keeping Up with the Kardashians had been on the air for several years, Bruce approached the boys about appearing on the show with him and their stepfamily. This was not the first time Bruce had talked to the boys about the show, in fact he’d asked Brody to be on the show back when it first began.

  Around The Princes of Malibu time frame, Brody met Kristin Cavallari and Lauren Conrad, who were on the hit MTV reality show The Hills when he was out at the popular clubs in Hollywood. They got to be friends, and the girls thought he should be featured on the show, too. So the producers started filming him and incorporating him into the story line. He quickly became the resident heartthrob, and a regular on the show from 2007 to 2010.

  Because of Brody’s popularity on The Hills, he had actually been enlisted by Bruce to appear in the first episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians to heighten the show’s exposure. The show was the one where the script called for him to pretend to be babysitting his little sisters, Kendall and Kylie. When Brody agreed to help his father’s new family show, little did he know the empire he was helping to establish.

  When Bruce reapproached Brandon and Brody years later about joining the show, they had some trepidation about the undertaking, but they both agreed to appear occasionally. I think their primary motivation in saying yes was the hope that they’d at least get to know their dad a little better, even if it was with cameras around and in the context of that show.

  They were grown men, and it was their decision, but that didn’t stop me from having my own reservations as well. The truth is, even though the popu
lar conception seems to be that the Kardashians and Jenners were raised as one big united family, they really never were. Our families were very separate. There was no malice or hostility, as far as I was concerned, just distinctly different upbringings, to say the least, and very limited contact for all those formative years and beyond.

  After Bruce’s years of disregard, I was very protective of my sons, and I didn’t want to see them hurt again. But as I witnessed them begin to form the first underpinnings of a relationship with Bruce in that season, I was relieved for them.

  I had tried to talk to Brandon once about Bruce’s gender dysphoria, when Brandon was in his early twenties, but it was clear he wasn’t quite ready to grasp what I was telling him. I dropped the subject before I said anything that might have made him uncomfortable around his father and left it alone for the time being. Now they were older, and I was almost ready to discuss the situation with them, but I wanted to find just the right opportunity, and I was still searching my heart for just the right words. In the meantime, I had other caregiving duties that were occupying my time and my heart.

  When I moved back to the Knest from Villa Casablanca in 2007, I also relocated my daddy, who was in his late eighties at the time. Caring for my father in my home with me until the end of his life was one of the greatest privileges and most important decisions I ever made. I am fortunate that I was able to provide for him in this way as his caregiver, along with the angel of a woman, Lillian Rodriguez, who has worked for me for more than twenty-two years. My daddy always referred to Lillian as his angel, and she was unfailing in her love and patience while caring for him. I was always happy to be on duty with him, too, as he had once devoted himself so lovingly to my care.

  “Did you ever think you’d be changing my diapers?” he asked me ruefully one day.

  “You did it for me,” I said. “And I’m happy to do it for you.”

  I’ve always admired Asian cultures for how they respect their elders and keep them at home, caring for them there until the end. Here in the West, we live in such a disposable society, with our disposable batteries, disposable diapers, disposable everything. It seems that far too often, when something or someone outlives its usefulness, they are thrown away. Daddy shared his faith in God with me. And I got to witness his belief in the intrinsic goodness of humankind, accountability, and the quiet introspection and evolution of his heart and soul over those last years with him.

  Daddy and I always talked about his living to be one hundred, and that was his goal. Every week a lovely woman, Hind, would come to my house and give him a massage, manicure, and pedicure. One September day, two days after my niece Jennifer and her new husband, Sebastian, had been married at my home, Hind had just finished giving my father a massage when I walked into his room to check on him.

  “I was just about to come out to the gym and get you, because your dad is not responsive to me,” Hind said.

  Daddy, who was about to turn ninety, had slipped into a coma, so I rushed to call the paramedics. I followed the ambulance when they took him to the hospital. I had the great privilege of being with my father when he passed. I told him over and over how much I loved him, as he slowly and quietly slipped away. I was a daddy’s girl up until the end, and I still am, as he lives on in my heart.

  One perfect Southern California day in 2012, my then twenty-nine-year-old son, Brody, unexpectedly asked me if I would like to take a cruise on his newly purchased, thirty-five-foot Cabo boat to Catalina to spend the night. He had named his boat the Charlie White in honor of a wonderful professional fisherman we had gotten to know and be friends with in British Columbia. I was thrilled at the prospect of being on Brody’s boat with only him, no distractions, and the opportunity to actually have meaningful conversations with him.

  I had never told Brody or Brandon about their father’s gender dysphoria, or the real reason Bruce and I divorced many years ago. Brody and Bruce never had a close relationship. As I have mentioned before, Bruce was hardly in the picture at all while Brody was growing up. So I decided that this would be the perfect opportunity to reveal the truth.

  We were cruising along the beautiful blue Pacific with dolphins dancing all around the boat, leaping out of the water as they played and frolicked.

  “Brody, there’s something I’d like to tell you about your father,” I said. “I tell you now, because it is my hope that with this knowledge you may find it easier to understand, and even forgive him, for some of his shortcomings as a parent.”

  Brody looked at me quizzically.

  “What the hell are you talking about, Mom?” he asked, in his usual straightforward way.

  I paused to try to formulate just the right words to help him understand.

  “Well, your dad has something called gender dysphoria,” I tentatively said. “Which means he feels he is actually a woman and has been trapped inside the wrong body for all his life.”

  Brody looked at me as if I were an alien.

  “What the fuck?” he said.

  “Well, you see, that’s the real reason we divorced,” I continued, breathlessly letting out a truth so long kept inside me. “Because your daddy came to me one day when you were about eighteen months old and told me that he wanted to begin the transition and become a woman. We went to therapy for six months, but the therapist told me that his condition was not something that would go away, and that twenty-five percent of all transgenders commit suicide. I was devastated, but my heart went out to him then, and still goes out to him today, because fate dealt him such an unfair blow. But I didn’t bargain to be married to a woman, and he was determined to begin his transition. So I didn’t see any other choice but to divorce him. Bruce feels that he is truly a woman and that nature made a terrible mistake by putting his spirit in man’s body.”

  Brody looked at me with his eyes wide open.

  “What the fuck?” he again exclaimed.

  Well, that went well, I thought to myself.

  “Does Brandon know about this, Mom?” Brody asked.

  “No, honey, he does not,” I said. “I have never talked to Brandon about this, so please don’t say anything to him until we get back to the mainland. Then you and I will sit down with Brandon, and as a family, we will discuss it, okay?”

  “Okay, sure, yeah,” Brody said. “I won’t talk to him until then.”

  We continued on to Catalina, discussing more about transgender issues in general, and Bruce in particular. I told Brody that Bruce had begun hormone treatments and had gone through the painful process of electrolysis on his face, neck, and chest, and had feminizing surgeries all those years ago.

  “Mom, that explains so much,” Brody said. “You remember when Brandon and I were little boys, and we went to visit dad, and we came home and said, ‘Mommy, Daddy has boobs’? Now I know why. Think about that, Mom. I was just a little kid, and I could tell something was different about him.”

  Brody stared out at the ocean for a bit before continuing to speak.

  “I’m really glad you didn’t tell me when I might have been too young to understand,” he said. “And knowing this information now does help me to understand Bruce better, and to feel better about why he was such an absentee father. I guess he was really struggling. I feel really bad for him. The poor guy must have struggled, and I just hope he can find happiness.”

  Brody and I continued on to Catalina, conversing, enjoying nature and each other, and I felt as close to Brody as I have ever felt. He handled the shocking information I imparted to him with such grace, intelligence, empathy, forgiveness, and understanding. I was very proud of my son that day.

  We spent the night on Brody’s boat, and the next morning headed back to the mainland. When we arrived back at my house, Brandon was in the kitchen waiting for us.

  “Mom, Brody told me about Dad,” Brandon blurted out as we walked in the kitchen door. “Man, that’s trippy!”

  “Hey, Brody, you weren’t supposed to tell Brandon like that,” I said. “You were suppo
sed to wait until we came back, then sit down as a family, and discuss this together.”

  “Mom, are you kidding me?” Brody said with an incredulous look on his face. “Brandon’s my brother! You should have known I couldn’t wait to tell him.”

  I truly believe the knowledge of Bruce’s gender dysphoria helped to assuage some of the boys’ pain and confusion about why their father had been missing in previous years. Brandon and Brody now had a deeper understanding of their father and the condition that was out of anyone’s control, upon which to blame what could have been the biggest reason for Bruce’s dysfunction paternally. They handled this newfound knowledge with aplomb, sensitivity, acceptance, and love. They have never wavered.

  As a mother, I always felt an acute sense of responsibility to measure my words, and to love and respect my sons unconditionally, and do my best to raise my two little boys into fine young men. Many years ago, when I first discovered that Bruce was really Caitlyn, I determined I would have to make a valiant effort to instill in my sons an openness, a broad scope of acceptance, and a deep understanding of differences not only of race, gender, and religion, but of all variations in the human condition. I wanted to prepare them for the knowledge they would no doubt someday have to absorb about their dad, so they could come to terms with it in a healthy way.

  Brandon and Brody seem to have forgiven Bruce’s absence in their lives while they were growing up. That does not mean they can ever get those lost years back or that damage was not done. They have exhibited nothing but acceptance, understanding, support, and love for Bruce’s transition into Caitlyn. I am extremely proud of the remarkable young men they are. And if I played any part in their graceful reception of their father, I truly consider it one of the greatest accomplishments of my life.

  After I made my revelation to the boys about Bruce, life continued as normal for a time. Neither of them spoke to their father about what I’d told them, and they continued to make a tentative foray into building a healthier father-son dynamic with him. I can’t tell you what a tremendous relief this was for me, having so long carried my anxiety about what would happen when they found out Bruce’s truth. It was as if I could finally stretch myself out in the warmth of the sun, after having lived in the shadow of my fear for so many years.