Thirty Years Between Us

As a child, Chick McClure was close to their father, Chas. They fished together. They went sledding. They played baseball. Then Chick's parents divorced when Chick was fourteen. Chas moved away for his work in the Navy. Distance entered the relationship. Then years entered it. They spoke occasionally. But father and child slowly became people who no longer really knew one another. Thirty years passed. During those years, Chick came to understand and live openly as transgender. And there was another fear. Chas was politically conservative and religious. Would he accept who Chick had become? Sometimes loneliness is not having nobody. Sometimes the person you want is still alive, still somewhere in the world, but there is an enormous distance between you that neither of you knows how to cross. Eventually Chick decided to try. Chas responded by inviting Chick on a two-week road trip through the American Southwest. At the hotel, just before seeing their father again after so much time, Chick looked into a mirror. Then they met. There was a moment of uncertainty. And then recognition. They hugged. They drove. They talked. They looked at the landscape. They joked about searching for the best chicken-fried steak. And slowly, thirty years of distance began to become something else. Chick could finally be honest about who they were. Chas could respond as a father rather than as the person Chick had feared he might be. At the end of the trip, Chick felt something painful too. Regret. There had been so much lost time. Neither of them could reclaim those decades. But they could decide what to do with whatever time remained. Loneliness sometimes ends dramatically. More often, somebody simply makes the first call. Is there someone you miss even though they are still alive? This is an editorial retelling of a documented account. Original storytellers: T. Chick McClure and Chas McClure. Source: StoryCorps, originally aired 14 August 2020.