LETTER: Many Heartfelt 'Thank Yous' For Danvers Mini-Rainbow Event

David Mills is the Select Board Liason to the Human Rights and Inclusion Committee:

DANVERS, MA — My reflection on Sunday's event — produced by the Danvers Human Rights and Inclusion Committee — on the lawn of the Peabody Institute library where I was taught to use the Dewey decimal system 70 years ago:

Helpless and alone, and haunted with the terror of being different, sick, and excluded. That was the major theme song for me growing up in Danvers with the unwanted curse of same-sex attraction.

Danvers, like every other town and city, was incapable of providing a safe and nurturing place for me to grow as a healthy adolescent and young adult. I was taught to hate myself and I ached to mature into a traditional heterosexual husband, father and grandfather.

The scar tissue is still embedded in my soul, but little by little I have been able to come to terms with my truth and more and more I am surrounded by people who not only care but do, truly, understand.

Our HRIC mini rainbow celebration Sunday was an unexpected giant step forward for me. Never in my wildest dreams would I hope for or expect anything like rainbow Sunday on the lawn of the Peabody Institute library, at the edge of the Mill Pond where I learned to fish more than 70 years ago.

A simple "thank you" feels grossly insufficient, so I shall repeat it over and over and over again.

To the committee, volunteers and the variety of supporters — thank you, thank you, thank you.