09/25/2026
My father Kerby Roy Lauderdale died last week. He was 87.
My dad was a spectacular and complicated man. Everyone in my family is a hero, but my mother — Linda Sue Mikesell Lauderdale — is the most heroic. She stood by him as he came fully out of the closet as a gay man in 1980 ... in rural Indiana. While many relatives and family friends and people in the church and the community around us deserted ship, my mother did not abandon him. She did not judge him. And though she was certainly devastated, and I’m sure at times furious, I never heard her say anything negative about my father. She was never vindictive. Revenge is not in her vocabulary. And she remained my father’s best friend for his entire life.
My mother showed — and continues to show — all of us how to unconditionally love, how to forgive, how to give grace.
She is, as Sylvia Plath writes in “Three Women,”
a wall and a roof protecting ...
a sky and a hill of good.
In 1980, my mother and my father sat me and siblings down and told us they were getting a divorce. And they told us why. I was 10, my brothers were 7 and 8, my sister was 5. My parents were honest with us in real time throughout our lives.
We moved as a family to Portland, Oregon in 1982 in search of more liberal pastures. My parents both bought homes in Irvington for $48,000, and we grew up here and lived hard and fast.
After a cavalcade of boyfriends, my mother got her just desserts and met the amazing (and STRAIGHT) Ken Myers on Yahoo personals. They were married in 2000 by my father (a Church of the Brethren minister), and for the last 25 years, they have [had] a beautiful life together, traveling and building homes around the world with Habitat for Humanity, becoming leaders in their communities, quietly making the worlds they touch better. They are rock solid .... confident, strong, resilient, endlessly empathetic, entirely sincere, smart as hell, full of laughter ... and always kind. They are shining examples of what is possible. They are who I aspire to be.
In 2012, my mother and Ken moved to Holladay Park Plaza — the retirement home of activists, artists, rebels, dreamers, thinkers — in Portland, Oregon. Three years later my father joined them. As my father declined into dementia, Ken and my mother were with him almost every day. Everyone in our immediate family was with my father the day he died. There will be a gathering to celebrate him … probably in November.
There’s a lot to say about my dad, but for now, here’s a link to an incredible film all about my father … made by the activist, artist, educator and filmmaker David Weissman and brilliantly edited by Michiel Thomas. This film is beautiful, riveting, honest, unapologetic, daring and true to my father.
The spirit of my band Pink Martini is directly inspired by the truths of my mother and my father. In this time of national and global upheaval, this film is especially relevant. I hope you will watch this and share it with your families and your communities.
Love,
Thomas Mack Lauderdale
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64DRbFRqT7U
