Why do words fail me....

     I find myself in an odd circumstance today, I am as a writer at a loss of words to begin to describe to you my readers and followers (if I have any left after months of no posting) what I'm really feeling today. If you have followed this blog any length of time you all know by now how hard of a time I have with the month of December since the death of my partner Ron Rooy in 2002. This year marks ten years that he has been gone and today marks the the day of the anniversary we entered hospice care.

     From the time we entered hospice care until he died was only ten days.  The days ending December 21, 2002 and forever altering who I am at my core.  First let me say I would have never have been able to keep him at home, and let him die at home without help.  First his daughter Christina who was there for part of it, despite having very small children at the time, Frank D'Angelo, Ken Walrath, Annette Tabar, my mother, Brian Fabo and of course the nurses and staff of Western Reserve Hospice.  It is amazing you never forget the small details.

     They say that with time, that the wounds of death become less, well that my friends is a HUGE lie!  It does not become less it becomes different and in some ways, and especially for me it is becoming more painful as the years pass.

      This year marks ten years since Ron died and, we were together four months short of ten years---so in reality he has been dead as long as we were together.  How do I sit here at my laptop and begin to describe to you what that feels like.

     I am forgetting what he smelled like when he first got of the shower as he stood at the bathroom mirror naked and shaving.  I am forgetting the feel of his hand in mine, the touch of and feel of him in bed next to me as we slept.  I am forgetting the taste of his lips on mine in the morning when we first woke.  I am forgetting what his voice sounded like when he told me he loved me.  The pain of this happening in in a word--- brutal!

     But in all honesty I can not ever forget how I felt when I was with him.  I can not forget how easy he was to talk to, to spend time with or how easily he could make me laugh.  The feel of his hands on me when he made love to me--- those sweet, tender passionate moments sitting in bed on Sunday mornings with the paper and breakfast in bed as we just shared our lives, our hopes, our dreams, our secrets.  I can not forget that he more than anyone made me value the life I have.

     To lose someone like that, not just a lover, or a husband but also your best friend does something to you, it dramatically changes you forever and realizing that this last February we would had been together twenty years was very painful.  I sit here this morning in tears knowing I would still be with him today if I just had the chance.  That even today, ten years later I love him more than ever and I always will. 

     But he only lives in memory.  Am I as the widower the only one who feels the way I do?  Am I the only one who feels that part of my very being is buried with him?  I think a lot about him and what he would have to say about my life and what it is today.  Would he be proud of me?  What advice would he give me?

     I have to admit that I pray to him all the time, my own patron saint--- my own connection to the divine--- I just wish as he said "You will feel me when the wind blows against the back of your neck"---  I need the wind to blow to guide me, lead me and direct my feet to the path I should take.  I need to know that he is proud of what I am becoming, and of what I want to do.

     It sad in so many ways that in many regards I have distanced myself from the life I had, and it has been a huge mistake.... but maybe life does go on, we change, we grow, we adapt and I am not longer the thirty-six year-old man whose partner had died.  I am now his widower, the keeper of his life, his legacy and I am so very very grateful that i have been blessed with that enormous responsibility.

December 11th- Anniversary

As many of you, who have been reading this blog a long time---- know that today is the anniversary day my previous partner, Ron, went into Hospice Care after 16 1/2 yrs of living with AIDS he just could not recover. 

Eleven short days later on December 21, 2002 he was dead. 

Somehow that day has now become NINE painful years later.  It is hard sitting here talking about this, all this time later but what very few GET is how this one single event still plays itself out in everyday life.

There isn't a day that goes by without my thinking about him in someway shape for form.  What would he be doing, what would he be saying, what would he be thinking?  Would we still be involved battling AIDS as much as we were?  I do know  one thing we would still be together, no doubt about it.

I miss him more than ever, the way his smile used to fill a room, the way you could hear him laughing in a theatre full of people, the way he felt in bed next to me.  The things he used to do, used to say and well simply just exist.  I think that is the hardest part of all of it, in all of this time later I have nearly forgoten all of those things, it is like I am losing him all over again.

I know some would say I shouldn't be dwelling on it, I should get over it, I should move on, I "have this great life"--well I say don't judge a book by its cover!  Like Forrest Gump "That's all I have to say" about that part of it.

I was in our old neigborhood , this last week; to have my quarterly blood-work and the house is till empty, the owner has apparently abandoned it and moved back to Belguim.  The windows and doors are all boarded up and---I stood on our old porch longing to go in just one more time.  Longing to be in the dining room where he died, leaving me for ever...the pain has not gotten any easier.  Tears flooded my eyes as I remembered standing in the street barefoot, in my jammies watching them load the gurney into the hearse, the windhowling and snow screaming in the wind.

This year has been very hard with mother having 4 mini-strokes in a matter of five months.  It left her a shell of a woman, barely able to walk, blind in one eye and a conversation window of about 5 sentences per visit.  My mother was the one that told me Ron had died, as I --after 11 days of 4 hours of sleep--fell asleep.

There is just still so much pain, and no one to talk too about it. When does the hurt go away, when can you move on? I have said it before in other posts about this time of the year that more or less Christmas has become a time of the year I dread.  I am beginning to wonder if I am alone in that feeling?

November 27, 1978--- 32 years ago today Harvey MIlk Assassinated

 

At 11 a.m. on a beautiful Monday morning, on November 27, 1978,  San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk were shot and killed in cold blood by disgruntled former Supervisor Dan White.”

San Francisco ground to a halt. Many offices and businesses closed. People wept openly in the streets. Strangers hugged each other, trying to offer comfort. But there was no comfort.

That was 32 years ago, and there is still no comfort today.

But Harvey Milk left us a legacy. He profoundly influenced gay and lesbian politics, and was a champion of human rights. Milk once said, “…you’ve got to keep electing gay people…to know there is better hope for tomorrow. Not only for gays, but for blacks, Asians, the disabled, our senior citizens and us. Without hope, we give up. I know you cannot live on hope alone, but without it life is not worth living. You and you and you have got to see that the promise does not fade.”

Harvey’s martyrdom is a painful reminder of the length and difficulty of the journey to freedom.

Harvey Milk a true LGBT hero and legend. His actions and words must never be forgotten. To this day we must listen to them, learn from them and follow them.
This is Harvey’s legacy to us.

You see there is a major difference–and it remains a vital difference–between a friend and a gay person, a friend in office and a gay person in office. Gay people have been slandered nationwide. We’ve been tarred and we’ve been brushed with the picture of pornography. In Dade County, we were accused of child molestation. It’s not enough anymore just to have friends represent us. No matter how good that friend may be.
The black community made up its mind to that a long time ago. That the myths against blacks can only be dispelled by electing black leaders, so the black community could be judged by the leaders and not by the myths or black criminals. The Spanish community must not be judged by Latin criminals or myths. The Asian community must not be judged by Asian criminals or myths. The Italian community should not be judged by the mafia myths. And the time has come when the gay community must not be judged by our criminals and myths.

Like every other group, we must be judged by our leaders and by those who are themselves gay, those who are visible. For invisible, we remain in limbo–a myth, a person with no parents, no brothers, no sisters, no friends who are straight, no important positions in employment. A tenth of a nation supposedly composed of stereotypes and would-be seducers of children–and no offense meant to the stereotypes. But today, the black community is not judged by its friends, but by its black legislators and leaders. And we must give people the chance to judge us by our leaders and legislators. A gay person in office can set a tone, can command respect not only from the larger community, but from the young people in our own community who need both examples and hope.
The first gay people we elect must be strong. They must not be content to sit in the back of the bus. They must not be content to accept pablum. They must be above wheeling and dealing. They must be–for the good of all of us–independent, unbought. The anger and the frustrations that some of us feel is because we are misunderstood, and friends can’t feel that anger and frustration. They can sense it in us, but they can’t feel it. Because a friend has never gone through what is known as coming out. I will never forget what it was like coming out and having nobody to look up toward. I remember the lack of hope–and our friends can’t fulfill that.

I can’t forget the looks on faces of people who’ve lost hope. Be they gay, be they seniors, be they black looking for an almost-impossible job, be they Latins trying to explain their problems and aspirations in a tongue that’s foreign to them. I personally will never forget that people are more important than buildings. I use the word “I” because I’m proud. I stand here tonight in front of my gay sisters, brothers and friends because I’m proud of you. I think it’s time that we have many legislators who are gay and proud of that fact and do not have to remain in the closet. I think that a gay person, up-front, will not walk away from a responsibility and be afraid of being tossed out of office. After Dade County, I walked among the angry and the frustrated night after night and I looked at their faces. And in San Francisco, three days before Gay Pride Day, a person was killed just because he was gay. And that night, I walked among the sad and the frustrated at City Hall in San Francisco and later that night as they lit candles on Castro Street and stood in silence, reaching out for some symbolic thing that would give them hope. These were strong people, people whose faces I knew from the shop, the streets, meetings and people who I never saw before but I knew. They were strong, but even they needed hope.

And the young gay people in the Altoona, Pennsylvanias and the Richmond, Minnesotas who are coming out and hear Anita Bryant on television and her story. The only thing they have to look forward to is hope. And you have to give them hope. Hope for a better world, hope for a better tomorrow, hope for a better place to come to if the pressures at home are too great. Hope that all will be all right. Without hope, not only gays, but the blacks, the seniors, the handicapped, the us’es, the us’es will give up. And if you help elect to the central committee and more offices, more gay people, that gives a green light to all who feel disenfranchised, a green light to move forward. It means hope to a nation that has given up, because if a gay person makes it, the doors are open to everyone.
So if there is a message I have to give, it is that if I’ve found one overriding thing about my personal election, it’s the fact that if a gay person can be elected, it’s a green light. And you and you and you, you have to give people hope.

A Difficult Post for a Difficult and Awkward Night

This is going to be the most difficult post that I have done in this blog to date.  It deals with so many different issues that have permeated my entire life, I am not even sure if I could accurately capture everything I want to try to say or need to say so the weight of these circumstances are conveyed accurately.

July 31st came and went in my personal life quietly enough, that date is my parents wedding anniversary.  I know you are already wondering how on earth this becomes my most difficult post.  Well my parents have married for 45 years and quiet frankly they never should have never been married that long in the first place.

I am sure somewhere along the way they really loved each other, even cared deeply for each other.  From what I remember of that period of most of my childhood is the mental, emotional and verbal abuse that my father used all of us, but primarily on my mother.  The majority of my childhood and early adult life I feared my father more than anything else, the real monster in the closet.  There were points where my mother temporarily left my father and we were placed in a "safe place" only to go back into that environment.  She has always felt she never had any way out.  She felt she couldn't support us on her own, and we will never know for sure if she could or not.  That process repeated itself over and over at least four times.

Earlier today my mother called wanting to get together for dinner to "celebrate" their anniversary so we said yes, what else was I suppose to do?  Most of me sat there vividly remembering that painful past, that seems like just like yesterday.  I wonder has the dynamic changed, now that my parents are older and in very ill health.  I wonder if my mother has forgiven him?  I wonder if my mother regrets staying all these years?  I wonder does the past ever cross either of their minds?  I wonder does any of it matter now to either of them?

Its hard trying sitting on your emotions while eating supper.  Its hard finding an anniversary card that isn't all romance, flowers and rainbows.  Well I did both things, I sat smiling, making small talk one more time and now I sit and blog about it, emotionally a wreck.  Maybe, I will revisit these ideas and this post in a few days and go more into emotionally what all of this means to me.

Until then I am so glad I am so glad we had this time together.