06/07/2026
TALES OF MISS MAYFLOWER: A PREQUEL
Here are some photos of Miss Mayflower at KC Pridefest 2026!! She looks forward to this every year. The first time she did some "free Mom Hugs" was sort of accidental while attending Pride with her Pan daughter, Tatani###. It brought her to tears how many people, not just young people, seemed desperate for her hugs.
"There were two boys that really made my heart almost burst," she told her dear friend Georgia that afternoon over gin and tonic, which had been so refreshing after the heat of the day.
"The first was a young blond kid. "I saw him watching me over the shoulder of this girl I was hugging. After I was done with her friends and they wandered off, I motioned to him. You look like you could use a hug."
"'Reall?" he asks me? And I'm like, 'Of course boy! Get over here?' And Georgia? He was crying! I couldn't believe it. He told me his mom told him he had to give up being a 'fag' or leave because he disgraced her in front of his whole town. And he said he tried to give it up but he couldn't."
"That's really sad, Mayflower," Georgia said.
"Imagine doing something like that? I didn't make any sense. I told him he ever needed anything and just head over to Loose Park and knock on the door at the stone house with all the rose bushes out in front."
"Mayflower!" Georgia exclaimed. "That's crazy! You don't know what he's up to!"
"I knew it was okay when I hugged him tight, heart to heart. I could feel it through our chests."
Georgia nodded. Took a sip of her gin and tonic. Pausd. "Well I can't deny the feelings you get. That's the truth."
"Then the second was this young man, nothing much more than a boy really, wearing a gray hoodie. It was a little while later. I was sitting eating my sandwich that I bought at one of the vendors. I was surprised how big it was. And he was sitting down at the other end of the table and see him eyeing the other half of my sandwich. 'You hungry boy I asked?'"
"Oh Georgia, you should have seen his face. 'Yes'um,' He says, so I told her to get butt on down to me and I pushed it over to him. He looked at me for a minute, I don't know, like you thought it was a trap or something. And I know that, and he fell on that thing like he had eaten in days. And then he said, he looked around him, and he said, he said "I can't believe this place. I knew they were Gay Pride events. But I never thought I'd see one. I knew I would never be able to get.... A friend of mine to come with me. That's for sure. But I'm here. But I'm alone..'"
"You're not alone. You're never alone. Trust me."
"'My stepdad ran me off with a gun,' the boy said. A gun!"
"You're just trying to make me cry, Mayflower," Georgia said wiping at her eyes.
"Then he asked me if he can get one of those hugs and I totally be sure could. Boy did we hug. I thought I had that blonde boy hard. But this was even more. Really really more."
"Now you didn't go and offer that second boy place to come did you?"
"Nope. But I wish I had. A gun Georgia! A gun!"
They sat there in silence for a while finishing up their gin and tonics.
"I did go and find the drag queens, though. I just love me some drag queens. Hugged them fierce too. They told me to come back this evening and get up on stage with them! But I'm leaving that up to them. I don't think they have a slot for somebody singing instead of lip syncing."
Again, they said in silence for a while. Then Georgia said, "How the hell can people NOT love their children? It goes against Nature...."
"...and God, the Eternal and Majestic Parent of the Universe!" declared Mayflower.
More silence. Then....
"Oh hell," said Georgia. "Tell me there's enough for a second round of those G and Ts!"
Miss Mayflower laughed and wiped away tears. "You know there is." And up she jumped.
After that, things got a little better
But as she climbed into bed that night, sleep evaded her. She kept staring up at the ceiling and thinking of so many things, but especially how parents could turn away their children.
"If only there was something I could do," she whispered.
At last sleep overtook her.
And there she began to dream. Dream about her big huge empty house....
