As I have been sitting here working on Bingo stuff, it occurs to me that I wasn't 100% forthcoming about all the ways in which this past week just sucked big. And that was because I felt that try as hard as I can, I like to make the blog happy and peppy and if negative, at least sarcastic negative, rather than just a downer.
But, in truth, this week two aquaintances passed away and it's unnerved me quite abit. Neither was that old.. both probably late 30s or so. Both people I have had a little teeny history with - nothing romantic or sexual or really that involved. But people who were pieces of my life who are now gone. One from mysterious circumstances (drugs? suicide? implosion of his various health issues? will we ever really know?) and the other from a very not mysterious circumstance - cancer. Both were also unexpected. The one had many many brushes with the law and many many substance problems and although the other had had a history of having cancer, the cancer, they thought, was gone. It not only returned, but returned suddenly cutting a destructive path through him ending his life.
There was a time many years ago when I attended the memorial of a co-worker. I had been working in the mail room of a San Francisco law firm for about a year and a fellow, Steve, a kind mid 30s gay man, crazy handsome, got sick and sicker with AIDS until his body just wore out. Although I didnt know him very well, I did work with him and felt the pull to visit, but the fear left over from seeing my own father die before my very eyes prevented me. When Steve did go and I went to his memorial service, I cried. A lot. I am by nature, a crier anyway. I'll cry at a TV show I've seen a hundred times and I'll cry when I hear amazing music and I'll cry when I think about both the beauty and the cruelty in the world.
But that day I cried and I cried. I cried, sure, for Steve, and also for his partner who now would be without his best friend for the rest of his life.. but I cried too for the missed opportunity to have gotten to know someone who had been sitting at the next desk. I cried so much that the minister thought that I was the boyfriend, not the actual boyfriend! LOL
A few years later, when my best friend Jeff died, I cried for three solid days. I literally never stopped. He had died in an ugly death, ill from AIDS and covered with lesions and bruises. I forced myself to see him because I couldn't not. The image has haunted me ever since (nearly 20 years) and has motivated me on more than one occasion to continue fundraising for worthwhile goals.
Over the more recent years when people pass away that I am aquainted with (Ralph Gernhardt, Marc Berkley, Mr. Marcus, etc) who have made a difference in my life as elder statesmen (I don't know if I would or could go so far as to say that they were 'mentors' although I certainly looked up to many of the men whose lives have crossed mine) I channel my grief into a blog post .. and I tend to let go of it.
This week, being blindsided by two different deaths on two different sides of the country nearly simultaneously, impacted me. And you know what? It should.
I'm scared for the day when it doesn't make an impact and I'm so numb to it that I learn the fact and move on with my day.
And yet I have found a way to lessen the depth of the grief so that I'm not spending days on end mourning. Neither of these guys would want that. They were both very aggressive party hounds (in all the various connotations that that takes) and, although lately I've been wondering if there is a Heaven... if there is, I have no doubt that Spanky and Dominik have already met, compared snarky notes on who's there and having a brilliant time boozing it up, getting the party set up for the rest of us.
I guess as the week rushed on so intensely, I never really had time to feel anything about it... and so here and now I say goodnight to them both and wish them well on their journies. Take care. :)
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