How do you react when your son tells you he is in transition to become a woman?

My reaction was to crack a joke. I had just driven for two hours from my home in a small rural town to the city to pick him up and bring him down for a visit.

Having my handsome, wonderful son, Sammy, say to me that he wanted to be a girl was a statement which sent a chill through me, how do you respond to such a thing?

At the time we were driving on the highway traveling at 110km/hour (68/miles/hr.), and the only thing which came out of my mouth was, "That's a great thing to tell me when we are traveling at 110 km/hr down the highway."

We both laughed at the obscurity of the moment, we had often shared a laugh but this time it was different. I tried hard to hide my disappointment from him, but I knew he felt it.

How could he not? From that moment on both our lives, and the lives of the rest of our family, would be changed forever. In ways hard to image, and too sad to want to even consider, but now you have to, there it is in front of you.

You have nowhere to go, unless you crash that huge hunk of steel into the nearest light standard, you have to support your child or you walk away.

You sit there unable to escape, listening while he tells you how this all came to be, listening while you think to yourself how will his father take this, does his brother know?

How are you to explain it to others? For twenty years you've told everyone you have two sons, how do you suddenly explain having a daughter? Perhaps from a previous marriage, perhaps an infant put up for adoption has found you.

Yes, those are all possible answers. But where has your son gone, let's explain that one. Moved overseas, kind of young for that, maybe died, yes, but what about funeral arrangements?

You could say, "He was cremated, no service".

It is amazing what your mind will throw out at you when you're in a state of shock even while driving down the highway at death defying speeds and you think, "There is something I should be doing right now, what is it"?

Driving!

Is this the end of the tale? No it isn't even the beginning!

The beginning is some twenty years earlier when my wonderful child came into the world. The day when I told myself I would do everything in my power to protect this tiny bundle from all the hardships the world would throw at him.

Like every new parent we were confident in our abilities to do just that; we were parents of the modern age and were well aware of all the complications that could arise in our little champ's life.

He was born healthy and he would live happy; we would accept and love him no matter what. In the beginning we couldn't have imagined anything that would challenge our love for our child.

We were wrong---the years ahead would challenge our patience, our ideas on parenting, our sanity and our views of ourselves as accepting, loving parents.

Sammy's announcement was the beginning of a hard road that would bring things back from the past.

I wasn't totally surprised by his announcement; I knew something wasn't right with my son for some time.

It seemed from the moment he was born; his life was to be a struggle. They say a mother knows things, can feel things about their child that others can't detect.

From the moment he was born I had a feeling deep inside of me that seemed to warn me of things to come but as a new mother I didn't see it as anything more than nerves.

Sometimes the fear of what I felt made me push the feelings to the back of my mind. As the years passed and the feelings grew stronger I started to pay more attention to them; I could no longer deny them.

At the moment when Sammy told me that he was in transition; I suddenly realized that all those fears and feelings were pointing to this.

There were many signs over the years that something was coming. Things I thought were minor incident at the time suddenly made sense. And suddenly I saw them as the stepping stones to where I now found myself.

Life to this point wasn't easy for Sammy on so many levels; he had endured many hurdles that any parent would kill to prevent. The struggles and the tears of the last twenty years had torn a huge hole in my heart as I failed to protect him. And now this!

If he had said he was gay I would not have been surprised; since he was a young child our friends kept hinting to us that he was gay. To be honest it had crossed my mind a time or two; but I really didn't care if he was as I had several friends when I was younger who were gay – I loved them.

I would have been concerned for him as I saw firsthand the discrimination my friends suffered and I wasn't looking forward to my child having to endure that.

When Sammy was younger he loved the color pink, the show "Sailor Moon" was one of his favorites.

In his teenage years he loved to wear costumes depicting characters from his books; but since it was something that all his friends were doing as well I pushed it to the back of my mind as nothing to worry about.

Even though he often preferred to dress as the female characters and wear wigs; of which he had several, I tried to think of it as nothing to worry about.

However those feelings of something being wrong were never far from my mind.

I was right and this sudden announcement from Sammy although I was temporarily shocked and I tried to laugh it off; I knew we all were in for a rough ride.

This wasn't going to be easy on anyone especially Sammy and I feared for how he would be treated. I feared someone would hurt him in ways I didn't want my mind to consider.

He was my baby and he and I had developed a wonderful relationship over the years. I didn't want to suddenly become the parent who wasn't supportive.

Yet, I couldn't stop thinking about how this was going to affect me; that is terrible I know but my fight or flight instinct kicked in. No one would want to face this if they had a choice and I am no different.

A strong part of me wanted to protect my child and still another part of me wanted to protect myself.

I knew that the worst was to come and there was only one thing to do; and that was to not let my child down.

* * *

My book is about the upheaval and emotional turmoil that started on that day and continues to this; each day is still a struggle for my child and for us as a family.

I want to show how that day took us on an extraordinary journey that tested our patience and our love for our child.

The struggle each day to keep on track and be able to give to my child what he needed while still being able to get what our family needed. The two are not always the same, but the one whose needs are the most desperate seem to win out.

How do you come to terms with the loss of a child and the sudden introduction of someone who you do not know but you are expected to love and support?

The book tells how as a family we each tried to make the best out of this new situation; to come to terms...