We both came out to our parents soon after we started dating. Three months after our first kiss, Ryan flew to Oregon to visit family for Christmas. He had just turned twenty and still hadn’t revealed his secret to anyone back home, but he had met someone special and wanted to share the excitement with his parents. After days of anxiously waiting for the right moment to tell them, it finally presented itself: they were sitting quietly in the family room, reading after dinner. He paced outside the door rehearsing the words he had practiced a hundred times in his head. After one last deep breath, he walked in and took a seat on the couch.
“I have something to tell you.”
They both looked up from their newspapers and said nothing, waiting for what was coming next.
“I met someone at school this semester.”
Silence. His heart was racing.
“…and his name is Adam.”
His mom just smiled. “We’ve always known, we were just waiting for you to tell us.”
The entire family was supportive from day one—even Ryan’s grandmother, a devout Catholic in her 80’s, loved and accepted Adam like a grandson, greeting him every time with huge hugs and home-cooked tortilla con papas. We both feel fortunate to come from such loving and accepting homes, but for many people, this is not the case. So in honor of National Pride Month, we created a rainbow recipe to spread awareness about a campaign that is helping LGBT kids around the country.