Experiencing Transition Of A Loved One

A story I try to share for insights for someone struggling or grieving a transgender friend or family member who is transitioning or transitioned, is a story from the movie The Shawshank Redemption.  An innocent man, Andy, is falsely convicted for the murder of his wife and her lover. Since his state has no death penalty, he is given two consecutive life sentences and sent to the notoriously harsh Shawshank prison. While there he befriends an inmate, Red, and the movie follows the time at Shawshank and also their friendship.  Andy’s part is played by Tim Robbins and Red’s part is played by Morgan Freeman.  For those who have not seen it before, I recommend you do before reading further (I will minimize spoilers to the extent I can, but it’s not fully possible to discuss this and do so), and to appreciate the full analogy.   It is a moving about a harsh prison experience, so watch it filtered for content/language if that bothers you, or unfiltered if it does not.   Either way, I have found the story has strong parallels for understanding not only the transgender experience on trans people, but also to some degree for those who love them and whom they love as well as the experience and challenges they all face.

At a certain point in the movie, Red loses Andy and goes through reflection and grieving.  Here are his words on his experience:

“Those of us who knew him best talk about him often. I swear, the stuff he pulled. It always makes you laugh.”

“Sometimes it makes me sad, though, Andy being gone. I have to remind myself that some birds aren’t meant to be caged, that’s all. Their feathers are just too bright… and when they fly away, the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up does rejoice… but still, the place you live in is that much more drab and empty that they’re gone. I guess I just miss my friend.”

Never have I read a more beautiful description of loving someone and wanting happiness for their life, yet also grieving and mourning losing them at the same time.

As you consider the story, you may eventually realize that for a time Andy had a choice of whether to stay or go; An excruciatingly painful, tormented, conflicted, risky, deadly, and difficult choice.  Those kinds of difficult experiences and choices that could break a person’s spirit, will to live, or even humanity are explored in a few different ways in the movie, and will leave you to ponder and compare outcomes.  You may even realize that Andy probably did stay for a time even when he could have gone already.  He appears to have tried his best to stay because he cared and wanted to be with the friends who meant so much to him to create good in the world there and for them in ways he could.  Eventually though, it becomes too much even for him to stay.  He, like others in the story, is confronted with a decision of mortality many trans people unavoidably have had to stare straight in the face – and must confront his will to live and what it will mean.  “Get busy living, or get busy dying”.

We learn earlier about another inmate, Brooks, who after 40 years received parole but had become so institutionalized to prison life that he could not make it on the outside.  Eventually Brooks takes his own life when he is unable to fir within or cope with expectations and demands of him by the world that surrounds him.  Brooks, Andy, and even Red eventually all have to confront this decision in the story, and the outcomes stand in stark contrast.

At one point facing the worst, Andy asks Red if he thinks he (Red) will ever get out of there.  As they talk Andy shares his dreams, and prods Red to consider his own fears and dreams if they could ever both get out:

Andy: Do you think you’ll ever get out of here?

Red: Me? … Yeah. One day, when I got a long white beard and two or three marbles rolling around upstairs, they’ll let me out.

Andy: Tell you where I’d go. Zihuatanejo.

Red: Zi…what?

Andy: Zihuatanejo. It’s in Mexico. A little place on the Pacific. You know what the Mexicans say about the Pacific?

Red: No.

Andy: They say it has no memory.  That’s where I wanna live the rest of my life. Warm place with no memory. Open up a little hotel, right on the beach. Buy some worthless old boat.  Fix it up new.  Take my guests out charter fishing.

Red: Zihuatanejo?

Andy: You know, a place like that, I’d could use a man who knows how to get things.

Red: I don’t think I could make it on the outside Andy. I mean, I’ve been in here most of my life. I’m an institutional man now. Just like Brooks was.

Andy: Well, you underestimate yourself.

Red: I don’t think so…   I mean, in here I’m the guy who can get things for ya, sure. But, outside all you need is the yellow pages.  Hell, I wouldn’t even know where to begin.  Pacific Ocean? Sh..yeah. Probably scare me to death something that big.

Andy:  Not me.  …

Andy goes on as if dreaming; sad for being wrongfully imprisoned and also sorry  for whatever mistakes he has done in his life and tried as best he can to pay for.  He tells Red that he doesn’t think the dream of the hotel and the boat is too much to ask for.  I would suggest that Zihuatanejo is a metaphor for the life dream that trans people’s hearts cry out for.  And I think Shawshank is a metaphor for the prison they find their true selves trapped in by nothing more than virtue of being born into the societal gender prison they find their true inner self trapped and hiding in.  The conversation continues:

Red: I don’t think you oughta be doin this to yourself Andy. These are just shitty pipe dreams. I mean Mexico is way the hell down there, and you’re in here! And that’s the way it is!

Andy: Yeah.  Right.  That’s the way it is!  It’s down there, and I’m in here.  I guess it comes down to a simple choice, really?  Get busy livin, or get busy dyin.

Red:   What the hell does that mean?

Andy rises and walks away. Red lunges to his feet!

Red: Andy?

Andy:  (turns back):  Red, if you ever get out of here, do me a favor. There’s this big hayfield up near Buxton. You know where Buxton is?

Andy explains to Red how to find it.  We and Red begin to realize that Andy is talking oddly, like someone who does not believe they will be around much longer and is passing on what few possessions they have to benefit someone that survives them.

Andy:  Promise me, Red. If you ever get  out, find that spot. In the base of that wall you’ll find a rock that has no earthly business in a Maine hayfield. A piece of black volcanic glass. You’ll find something buried under it I want you to have.

Red:  What? What’s buried there?

Andy:  You’ll just have to pry up that rock and see.

Andy turns and walks away.

Red becomes rightly fearful as things are so painful in Andy’s life at that point, that Andy will kill himself.  Red learns just before lockup that Andy asked for and was given a 6 foot length of rope as a favor from a well-intending and trusting friend who simply and foolishly overlooked the danger.  One of his other friends assures him “Andy’d never do that. Never.”  But then he and others all look to Red who is not so sure and responds sad and aware of harsh reality that “Every man’s got a breaking point”.    Red knows Andy will be faced  – Alone –  with the choice to end his own life readily available to him in his cell that night.

What happens next is probably the most striking, emotional, and for some, stunningly incomprehensible part of the movie.  But it is not at all incomprehensible to a trans person who has had to ponder the grave and serious pain, struggle, and difficulty that the realities of such a metaphorical choice translate to in their own life.  Andy’s mind state, fears, actions, struggle, and overwhelming emotions and resolve to see his actions through is immediately recognizable to a trans person who has faced or still considers facing the difficulty of his decision.  Do not jump to any preset judgement or conclusions if you have not seen the movie.  You will have to watch this part for yourself.

After Red loses Andy, he reflects beautifully but hurting like I mentioned earlier about how “Sometimes I have to remind myself that some birds aren’t meant to be caged…”  He misses his friend.  Red’s soliloquy is perhaps the most touching part of the movie in many ways.  Red goes on to reflect further about his own fears and working through the emotions of missing his friend and a longing for peace and fear he will never resolve the situation:

“But there are times I curse him for the dreams he left behind… dreams where I am lost in a warm place with no memory. An ocean so big it strikes me dumb. Waves so quiet they strike me deaf. Sunshine so bright it strikes me blind. It is a place that is blue beyond reason. Bluer than can possibly exist. Bluer than my mind can possibly grasp. I am terrified. There is no way home.”

We and Red eventually recall Andy’s last conversation with him.  A conversation where Andy tried to pass on to Red one last gift to explore.  Metaphorically we can see see this as  a last hope of some way to somehow reach out to to his friend to help him remember or meaningfully connect with him.  When red eventually is released from prison some time later as an old man, we see him make an effort to reconnect with the Andy from his memories.

I want to specifically point out that it must have taken Red some real courage, and investment and effort to seek the place out and to search for and find it.  After making this nontrivial effort, Red does find the place, and gets a message Andy somehow arranged to have waiting for him there.  Andy alludes to the now more fully understood concept of “Zihuatanejo” again.  Having seen Andy’s own actions all too well to show the difficult path it took him to reach this concept of “Zihuatanejo”, Red now too finds himself faced with fear to even consider Andy’s proposition to follow the same path that Andy did.  The message arranged to reach Red is as follows:

“Dear Red. If you’re reading this, you’ve gotten out. And if you’ve come this far, maybe you’re willing to come a little further. You remember the name of the town, don’t you? I could use a good man to help me get my project on wheels. I’ll keep an eye out for you and the chessboard ready. Remember, Red. Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies. I will be hoping that this letter finds you, and finds you well.  Your friend, Andy.”

?????

By now we have already found Red is conflicted in life outside prison and how to move on or cope with his unexpected situation.  I would suggest Red’s confusion, desires for things to make sense again, and conflict is much like that of someone who feels they have lost a trans person who undergoes transition.  It is a new world for the person who did not transition.  One he struggles to understand and fit in with.  Nothing that match the expectations that his former society (prison in his case) had institutionally imprinted on him or prepared him to know how to handle.  Red is afraid, and finds himself confronted as much or perhaps even more as a person losing a trans friend might be confronted with a serious choice about whether and how to continue his own life.  Similarly, a conflicted friend of a trans person might be fearful of how to continue or metaphorically how to attempt to connect or have courage to reengage with their trans friend now through this scary new concept of “Zihuatanejo”.   Above and beyond his fear of the pursuing the concept of Zihuatanejo, Red finds as part of it that he too has reached a point in his own life where he must face same decision of whether to end his own life that Andy and Brooks had faced too.  Perhaps that is just how much it takes some people to understand what a trans person has had to go through with their own thoughts and decisions.

Red: Terrible thing, to live in fear.  Brooks Hatlen knew it. Knew it all too well. All I want is to be back where things make sense. Where I won’t have to be afraid all the time.

Red glances up at the ceiling beam of his apartment, the same one Brooks had where brooks parting words were “Brooks Hatlen was here.”

Not surprisingly Red is scared.  He is unsure if he can bring himself to do what Andy did.  As the surviving friend left behind, Red is now faced with his own set of internal conflicting questions similar in some ways to Andy’s as he fearfully decides that he too will follow suit in pursuing Andy’s concept of “Zihuatanejo”.  They may fear like Red that what they seek to find in their friend is not the same as what they remembered, and that things can never be the same.  A friend of a person who is now trans, might also someday face the reality of just how short their own life is, or how short their trans friends may be, and how little time we are all given here.  Perhaps it takes that kind of realization to overcome the fear of reengaging to reach out and connect with that trans friend who seems so different in ways that also seem so foreign.

As Red finds his courage to commit and face the seemingly impossible border and terrifying fears he must cross to reach out to reconnect throught that concept of “Zihuatanejo”, Red gives his own parting and final words to us as he faces his fears too:

“I find I am so excited I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it is the excitement only a free man can feel, a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain… I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend and shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope.”

Do not prejudge, if you did not watch the movie.  Anyone who watches this movie, even those who presume otherwise at first, will realize that its message is about hope.  Indisputably.  Hope for all of us.  There is so much more to this movie as a metaphor that a trans person can directly relate to.  But here I am trying to focus on the parts that may be healing or helpful for a friend who is struggling or to heal or build anew their relationship.  It can feel scary.  Terrifying even to try.  It requires a real commitment and courage and desire to reach out.  Some past friends of people transitioning or transitioned as trans will not be able to give it.  Some may not be able to at first, but will eventually with time and more realization, courage, and hope.  For other past friends of a transitioning or now transitioned trans person, it really requires a realization of your and their own mortality and that of others and how little time we have in this life.  For all past friends, it requires meaningful effort to  reach out to and engage with that person who is now trans.  Real effort.  Not half-hearted effort.  Not effort to try and make them impossibly and irrationally go back to a life of pain in prison; that won’t happen.  But I suspect you, like Red, will find that in their metaphorical pursuit of their “Zihuatanejo” concept, in their choice to get busy living or get busy dying, your trans friend will also try to leave in their departing path whatever way they can to reach out to and connect with any of their past friends who eventually find the courage to face the fears it takes to try to connect in a different way and a different context with them as a trans person in whatever meaningful way is still possible.  Why?  Because they love you.  They always did.  They know you may need a little or a lot of time to grieve and consider what you will do.  They know as you do or may, that life does not give infinite time.  They have saved room in their hearts for you even if it cannot be like it was before, even if you and they have differences, even if some of them will not be able to makes sense like it used to while other things are part of the same person you always knew.   They know why they must be where they now are.  The grief and loss reaches them too.  They miss you.  They too grieve losing you.  They, just like you, miss their friend.  They still love you.  They hope too.

 

My experience is that the pacific IS as blue as it has been in my dreams.  And yes.  I hope.