Uniting, Not Silencing...

It was a gay club.

It was an American club.

It was a human club.

These are not competing statements; or, rather, they should not be.  They are each true and they each carry weight that needs to be acknowledged and respected.

First, and perhaps foremost, the events in Orlando hold special significance to an often persecuted group – a community that often struggles with acceptance from the world around them, including their families and friends.  It was a direct attack on a group of people who – despite recent legal advancements and social acceptance – struggle every single day to feel safe and accepted.  A group that cannot show affection for a loved one in public for fear of becoming a target.  A group that loses so many of its members to violence and to suicide.  Victims of bullies and hate-mongers, conservatives and busy-bodies, people who use their God as a reason to judge and degrade.  This group has a claim on the violence that erupted in Orlando and they have a right to cry out in anguish and fear and anger.  In a sacred place where they should have been safe to be themselves, safe and comfortable and secure in their own skin, free to love and be loved, they were gunned down.  So yes, they will raise their fists and plant their rainbow flags and demand answers.  That is their right, because it is THEIR club.

But that same event in Orlando holds special significance to Americans.  It is the worst mass shooting to take place on American soil.  I do not say that lightly, because although I acknowledge the atrocity of Wounded Knee (which I have seen connected to Orlando as a correction), that moment in history was a whole other ugly and violent beast.  It did not technically happen on United States soil and it was not a lone shooter.   It was something else – something equally horrifying and something that deserves acknowledgement as a chapter in our history of which we should be ashamed and aware.  But this shooting – this moment in Orlando – belongs in a different category.  The category of events where one single American decided that others must die for reasons that are beyond the understanding of good-hearted people.  Those who died were Americans.  They were doing what Americans do – celebrating time away from work, listening to music, dancing, and fellowshipping with others.  They were enjoying a night out on the town, letting go of obligations and responsibilities.  They were spending hard earned money, laughing and dancing and being alive.  And they were gunned down.  Torn from life, torn from those who loved them, robbed of what is promised every American – life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.   And so, yes, I will cry and raise the stars and stripes and plant it next to their rainbow flag.  I will demand answers.  That is my right, because as an American, it is OUR club.

And that same event in Orlando holds special significance to humans around the world in our global community.  The same people who wept for the bombings in Paris will now weep for the shooting in Orlando.  They will shine the lights on their buildings, hold their signs, and pray that we, as a race of beings, can find a way to stop killing each other, stop hating each other, stop blaming everyone else for whatever ails us. 

That same event in Orlando holds significance for Muslims, American and foreign.  It holds significance for the Latino community because of the special event at Pulse that night.  It holds special significance for the first responders and investigators who tried to do their work while blocking out the desperate, unrelenting sounds of cell phones that would never be answered. It holds special significance for those who are still – and always will be – reeling from Sandy Hook, from Virginia Tech, from the theater in Colorado, from the church in South Carolina.  It holds significance for those who will never hear the voices of their loved ones or erase the images of violence and destruction from their minds.  It holds significance for the people of Orlando, who now join the ranks of cities and communities that have seen the blood and tears run in their streets and feel helpless to respond, react, or recover.  It matters to all of us, for a thousand reasons, some of which we cannot voice.

We do not need to take away from one another’s claims to plant our flags with theirs.  We do not need to erase one community when we declare membership in another.  By saying, it’s an AMERICAN club, we should not say it is NOT a gay club.  It is both.  The intent is admirable – to claim the LGBQT+ community as part of US….but we cannot do so in a way that silences the unique struggle that this particular community goes through every single day in a thousand ways, each more painful than the last.  They are our brothers and sisters, but their struggle is one that we can only imagine and while we can unite, we cannot silence even as we try to combat.

It is a significant event for all of these people, for all of these communities, for all of these reasons.  Not one should silence the others.  Not one needs to be or should be forgotten.  They all wish for the same thing – an end to the violence, an end to the hatred, an end to the suffering.  Let our flags fly together and let our voices unite.  Protect the LGBTQ+ community, protect Americans, protect humans.  Protect us all, and let us all be who we are.  Let voices be heard.  Tolerance is not enough - we must listen, respect, accept, and love.  Love.

Black, Yellow, and Deadly

Summer is amazing.  It's full of energy and life in a way that no other season can match.  But there's danger, too.  Oddly, enough, though, the danger of summer was captured for me one October afternoon.  It's one of perhaps three times that I've had what I call a near death experience and it is the one I remember most acutely.

As I said, it was October and I was helping mom clean up the kitchen.  It had been warm and there were still mosquitoes out...I had at least one bite on my ankle.  This would become more interesting as the day wore on.  I threw something away and was pushing the garbage down into the bin when it happened.  Just a tiny prick on my thumb between the first and second knuckle.  I gasped a bit and looked down, only to see him sitting there.  He was black and yellow and somewhere looked angry, sullen, groggy.  It was, after all, October.   I said something to my mom and she was surprised - she had apparently killed him and thrown him away earlier.  It would seem he was more resilient than that.  It was a lesson to be learned.

There was not much fear yet.  I had been stung a long, long time ago and had had a terrible reaction, but it was so long ago that there was some level of buffer.  I had become complacent in those long years.

Within a few moments after the sting, the mosquito bite on my ankle began to spread into a full hive that ran nearly to my knee.  It itched.  I felt other hives begin to form and I mentioned them to mom. She sent me up to take a bath in baking soda to relieve the itch.  I may have taken some Benedryl even then, but I don't remember.  I don't really remember any fear at this point, except perhaps the vague stirrings somewhere deep inside.  Somewhere I couldn't place or even identify.  Not yet.

That changed relatively quickly because as I sat in the bath, I could feel my throat begin to close.  I remember licking my lips as the fear became steadily more insistent and my tongue dragged over lips that were beginning to swell.  Eyes, ears, tongue.  I scrambled out of the tub and called down to my mom in a voice edged with the beginnings of panic.  She told me to take my contacts out and get dressed.  Her thought process was far more rapid than mine; she could see my eyes, the swelling and perhaps the fear, too.  Moms know things.  They sense things.  At least mine did.

Later, I learned that there was a different hospital we could have gone to, one that would have been faster and easier.  Mom took me to the one she knew, though, and for that I can't blame her.  She never liked expressway driving so she took me to Thompson.

I don't really remember the car ride...except I remember coughing.  It was getting harder to breathe and I couldn't focus on anything.  My hands were cold, my arms were laced with blotchy hives...the fear clawing at me in ragged breaths drawn between lips turning blue.  I suspect my mother drove faster than she had ever driven up to then or since.

We arrived at the emergency department and mom half dragged, half carried me inside.  She said two words as they came to us, "wasp sting" and they became a blur.  I was in an exam area with a needle in my arm before my mother saw a stitch of paperwork.  I don't remember much - needles, 2800 mg of Benedryl, a blood pressure of 60 / 40, a doctor telling me that when I came in,I was about 10 minutes from a coma.  From there, death.

These days, I carry two Epi-pens with me.  Adrenaline which will not get me out of harm's way, it will only stave it off until I get to a hospital.  I've been stung by a bee since that day, but it only put me on crutches for a week with an angry infection and stretch marks across my ankle.  That hasn't reduced the vigilance; it just focuses it more tightly on what I call the heavy hitters - wasps and yellow jackets.  You see, that's the thing about allergies to stinging insects...I really have no way of knowing if I am more allergic now or if I've grown out of it as I've gotten older.  The only way to know for sure is to get stung again.  So, I am careful.  I remember the fear.  I try hard to not become complacent again.   I have people who help me with that and while I may act exasperated when I am reminded, I get it.

I'm not sure I have any profound words to change the experience into something larger than what it was.  I know I almost died that day and I know my mother paved the way for me to live and while some details are fuzzy, I will never forget the fear and the slow withdrawal of myself from anything around me.  I don't remember parts of it because parts of me were already letting go.  I can still see my blue-tipped fingers in my mind's eye, still see the hives blotting my wrists in awkward patterns.  I remember enough to know I was lucky and in good hands.

We all have these kinds of memories etched into our minds...they remind us how fragile life is and how amazing it is that we draw breath each day and can run through the flowers and walk along the lake on a beautiful summer day.  Some of us just have to remember to bring our Epi-pens along to guard against death in tiny packages of sullen black and yellow...

Looking Back, Going Forward

There are two truths in my life that may seem to be unrelated, but recently I've come to see how they link together like tributaries that eventually feed the same stream.

The first truth is that I do not want children and am not sure if I ever will. I have determined three reasons for this. The first reason is that I'm too selfish; it may sound harsh, but I can honestly say that I like my life the way it is and I'm unwilling to give that up right now. I know that having children changes everything and I'd rather not bring any into the world unless I know I'm ready to sacrifice life as I know it. I know there are countless rewards in parenthood, but that is not enough to remove this basic obstacle to becoming one. The second reason is that the world is often a horrible place and I'm not sure I want to subject a child to it. I know that's a 'big picture' reason which overlooks the microcosm of the immediate family and the smaller joys that life has to offer, but that does not change the truth of the larger world. The world makes me sad in many ways, and I don't want to give it to a child. We should be doing better for the earth and for all the people in it and until we do, I'm not ready to create another generation. The last reason is that I can't think of a reason why I, personally, should have a child. I know that for many it is an amazing and powerful experience that is filled with infinite joys and beauty, and I am so happy for those who feel this way. I do not blame others for wanting children, it is just that those joys and that beauty is not enough of a seed for me to have one myself. Unlike so many who have children and should not, or have children when they are not yet ready, I have thought long and hard about this and I know that this is the right decision for me, for now. I will leave parenting to those infinitely more suited for it, and I will support and love them and their children and celebrate the moments of joy they share with me. And that will be enough.

The second truth is that my last surviving grandparent passed away last July. Four years prior to my parental grandfather's death, to the day, my grandmother left us. I lost my maternal grandmother many years ago, and my maternal grandfather died before I was born. I've also lost an aunt, my mother's youngest sibling. I do not think I have suffered any greater loss than any other who had to say goodbye to a loved one, but these losses pain me greatly, as they do my whole family. We are close knit and not very large, so every loss leaves a deep hole that can never really be filled. We toast on their birthdays, we shed tears randomly, we hear their voices in our heads, we carry mementos with us and decorate our houses with them. Sometimes, I even fancy I see grandpa disappear around a corner or grandma get swallowed within a crowd of taller people. In short, I will never forget them because they are never really gone, though I will ever mourn their tangible absence from my life.

What ties these truths together is more than just that they are both connected to family and the precious and indescribable bonds that tie a strong family together. There is a small part of my heart that feels wistful and guilty about not having children. My sister has two beautiful sons, so it isn't that, but there's something special about giving one's parents grandchildren and carrying on the family traditions, teaching another generation what it means to be a family. This is especially true in today's world, when it seems that divorce is commonplace and tragedy strikes at every and any moment. This tiny feeling of lingering regret that tugs on my heartstrings is what brings me to my grandparents. As the older generation has slipped away from me, I feel like we are also losing our chance to explore the past that went with and before them. In my grandfather's house were stacks of yellowed newspaper clippings that chronicled the weddings, births, and deaths of generation upon generation stretching behind this family of which I am so proud. It is here that I found the means to give back to them.

This is the kernel of my legacy. Instead of continuing the family tree forward down through the years to come, I am working on building the tree backwards, filling in the branches and the missing links, uncovering the roots that brought us to where we are today. This is my gift to the future of my family, this is what I will pass down. Not the living, beating heart of a child, but the means to look down through the ages at all the branches and deep roots that created the boundless love that my sister and my cousins have surrounded their children with and network of love they will feel from aunts and uncles, grandmothers and grandfathers, great aunts and great uncles, cousins, and siblings. I will carry out this labor of love with attentiveness, with devotion, and with care. It is a gift that some will appreciate more actively than others, but it is represents something that every member of our family benefits from every day of their lives, through every word and act of love that we share.

-T