Gradually adjusting to a single life, again. It will take me awhile to adjust to life without John. His spirit drifts from place to place in this house, and in the habits I adopted as his partner. I experience periods of fatigue, wanting to escape, wishing I were elsewhere. Some of this is depression. I am applying the only countermeasures I know, which are to continue with my music and my German, and to delegate other tasks to contractors. The garage roof and the fence are complete, the garage painting is scheduled, and I am paying the neighbor kid to mow the lawn. Most of John's undergarments are in a suitcase in his car awaiting donation to Episcopal Charities. His DVD collection sits in six cartons in the living room awaiting shipping labels, now three days late in arriving. I will spend more time next week sorting his CD collection, then his vinyl. In the meantime, I have other obligations that I must discharge, such as home maintenance and attention to my son's needs. I have a niece whose attorney has not responded to my phone call. I need to fix the scuffs on my car prior to putting it on the market. I don't know how to sell a car, nor how to buy one. Time and energy, each task. I'd rather be basking in the sun in a warm clime. For that, I should be looking for someone to take care of my cat Lili, rather than just boarding her. Another time-consuming task.
I hope that sometime in the near future I cross paths with another engaging soul, that we can forge a relationship that lasts longer than five years. As engaging as John was, his 2008 brain injury caused him - and me - considerable flexibility and mutual enjoyment. O Lord, hear my prayer.
Showing posts with label same-sex marriage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label same-sex marriage. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Friday, September 21, 2012
John didn't make it
When John fell on August 15th, he hit his head, probably on the grandmother clock at the foot of the stairs. The epidural hematoma, aka "brain bleed," was so large that it severely injured John's brain. I don't even want to discuss the details of his injury nor the proposals of his physicians, all of which pointed to a severe loss of the person who was John. But, I believe he understood me when I told him we were invoking his living will, because he appeared to yield and die within 36 hours of arriving at inpatient hospice care. He left us on August 25th. I don't want to discuss that, either. The last two or three hours of his life were calmer, as apnea gradually overtook him. Poor sweet puppy, you left us waay too soon, but perhaps about right for you. I wanted you with me for a longer time.
Now, nearly four weeks later, after a memorial mass, a brief but loving committal service and lots of support from friends and relatives, I'm beginning to recover my own sense of self and responsibilities. My period of bereavement is gradually subsiding. I am engaged in the new projects that John left me. I am asking all John's health care providers for a reduced settlement, so that all may receive something. The garage has been re-roofed. The fence is removed and the north side replaced (not without some flak from the cranky neighbor to the north). I will decide today or tomorrow who gets to paint the garage. I am recording John's DVD, CD and vinyl collections for eventual sale to the highest bidder. One of these days, I will escape from Northwest Indiana to a home somewhere else, like Hyde Park. Or elsewhere, who knows. I am still discussing with God the next phase of my life, but it's much too early in the conversation to disclose details.
Now, nearly four weeks later, after a memorial mass, a brief but loving committal service and lots of support from friends and relatives, I'm beginning to recover my own sense of self and responsibilities. My period of bereavement is gradually subsiding. I am engaged in the new projects that John left me. I am asking all John's health care providers for a reduced settlement, so that all may receive something. The garage has been re-roofed. The fence is removed and the north side replaced (not without some flak from the cranky neighbor to the north). I will decide today or tomorrow who gets to paint the garage. I am recording John's DVD, CD and vinyl collections for eventual sale to the highest bidder. One of these days, I will escape from Northwest Indiana to a home somewhere else, like Hyde Park. Or elsewhere, who knows. I am still discussing with God the next phase of my life, but it's much too early in the conversation to disclose details.
Friday, August 17, 2012
Exhaustion
I'm exhausted. Not sure whether physically or spiritually, but still lacking a lot of energy I associate with living day-to-day. I so wish I could back this week up and start it over, with changes.
On Wednesday afternoon, around 5:10pm, my partner John slipped and fell, head-first, down a half-flight of stairs. I don't know the circumstances--was he headed toward his office, had he a glass of wine, what was he thinking--but the consequences were catastrophic. I was close by, arriving in the kitchen to prepare supper, just around the corner of the stairs. I heard him fall. I saw him seconds later, he was unconscious. Not good.
I called 911, unlocked the front door, then mopped up some water or some colorless liquid on the stairs. First responder was a Munster patrolman. I called to him to come through the kitchen. A minute or two later, paramedics arrived. The patrolman called out to them this time. Two or three minutes after that, a second team of paramedics arrived. The paramedics with the muscle lifted him out of the family room and onto the gurney in the kitchen.
John was no better than semi-conscious throughout. As they strapped him to the board, I collected his meds into a plastic bag. I believe I alerted them to the Coumadin he was taking. John was placed on a gurney and transported to the EMT vehicle, thence to the ER. I followed a few minutes later.
Community Hospital Munster was reasonably prompt in assessing John, considering the institutional structures through which such assessments must travel. He went quickly for a CAT scan and a neuro-surgeon was summoned. He assembled a surgical team and ordered a craniotomy, which began around 9:50pm, roughly forty minutes after he was wheeled out of the ER by the anesthesia team. The neurosurgeon, a 37-year veteran of his profession, did not soften his opinion of John's condition nor his prognosis.
During the interstitial times, I worked to arrange alternate transport for the two baritones I had agreed to carpool to the Peninsula Music Festival in Door County, Wisconsin, on Thursday. One of them made it, the other didn't. We prepared Beethoven's Symphony #9, fourth movement, this summer. Easy come, easy go, I guess
Thus, Wednesday evening and Thursday morning were times of frantic rearrangement. By today, this period became one of derangement, limited of course by the circumstances. By today, the panic had subsided and a mix of depression and anger--covert and overt anger--had covered some of the personal scene. One must note, the intervention of significant social contacts is a significant element in the breakup of these emotional "binges". I have had the opportunity to express my grief, frustration and general angst, thanks to the generosity of close friends. There's no subsitute for close friends, to help one through tough times.
John will recover in God's Good Time. I'll post more, later. I'm exhausted.
On Wednesday afternoon, around 5:10pm, my partner John slipped and fell, head-first, down a half-flight of stairs. I don't know the circumstances--was he headed toward his office, had he a glass of wine, what was he thinking--but the consequences were catastrophic. I was close by, arriving in the kitchen to prepare supper, just around the corner of the stairs. I heard him fall. I saw him seconds later, he was unconscious. Not good.
I called 911, unlocked the front door, then mopped up some water or some colorless liquid on the stairs. First responder was a Munster patrolman. I called to him to come through the kitchen. A minute or two later, paramedics arrived. The patrolman called out to them this time. Two or three minutes after that, a second team of paramedics arrived. The paramedics with the muscle lifted him out of the family room and onto the gurney in the kitchen.
John was no better than semi-conscious throughout. As they strapped him to the board, I collected his meds into a plastic bag. I believe I alerted them to the Coumadin he was taking. John was placed on a gurney and transported to the EMT vehicle, thence to the ER. I followed a few minutes later.
Community Hospital Munster was reasonably prompt in assessing John, considering the institutional structures through which such assessments must travel. He went quickly for a CAT scan and a neuro-surgeon was summoned. He assembled a surgical team and ordered a craniotomy, which began around 9:50pm, roughly forty minutes after he was wheeled out of the ER by the anesthesia team. The neurosurgeon, a 37-year veteran of his profession, did not soften his opinion of John's condition nor his prognosis.
During the interstitial times, I worked to arrange alternate transport for the two baritones I had agreed to carpool to the Peninsula Music Festival in Door County, Wisconsin, on Thursday. One of them made it, the other didn't. We prepared Beethoven's Symphony #9, fourth movement, this summer. Easy come, easy go, I guess
Thus, Wednesday evening and Thursday morning were times of frantic rearrangement. By today, this period became one of derangement, limited of course by the circumstances. By today, the panic had subsided and a mix of depression and anger--covert and overt anger--had covered some of the personal scene. One must note, the intervention of significant social contacts is a significant element in the breakup of these emotional "binges". I have had the opportunity to express my grief, frustration and general angst, thanks to the generosity of close friends. There's no subsitute for close friends, to help one through tough times.
John will recover in God's Good Time. I'll post more, later. I'm exhausted.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
More Roman Idolatry
Whatever happened to the Jesuits? There used to be an intellectual underpinning to pronouncements by RC bishops, some academic justification to their beliefs. For that matter, there used to be an active discussion of current topics inside the Roman Catholic church. One could vigorously disagree with some Bishop's ill-considered sermon or article and retain one's credentials.
No more. The U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops published a statement last week, entitled "Marriage and Religious Freedom". You can find it here. It is not a scholarly document, thus there are no footnotes or other references to support or justify their statements or opinions. Their principal thrust, as I read it, is to claim that Federal or State governments are pressuring poor, innocent religious organizations to "treat same-sex sexual conduct as the moral equivalent of marital sexual conduct," in violation of the religious organizations' First Amendment right to vilify the same. Clearly outrageous, governments imposing rules on the religious. There are two problems with their umbrage, one tactical, the other strategic. I'll discuss the tactical issues first.
According the the First Amendment, there should be an impenetrable wall that keeps a religious organization from getting involved in a governmental one, and vice-versa. How is it that any part of the U.S. Roman church could be pressured by any U.S. government agency, unless there were some connections? Uh-huh, it seems that Catholic Charities has been largely funded by government grants. This means that this lovely piece of business, conducted by one arm or another of the Roman Catholic Church, is largely funded by taxes collected from all citizens. Should you be a gay or lesbian couple seeking to adopt a child, you would be eligible by right of your status as taxpayers but still ineligible by the rules of Catholic Charities. Net, you are paying for rights that are denied you by a government-sponsored agency.
Now, perhaps, we see the problem from the Roman bishops' perspective. They want to continue to feed at the public trough but bridle at the idea of complying with requirements with which all of us who wish to receive public funds must comply. All their pious bullshit regarding the protection of the "true definition" of marriage is just a smokescreen for their refusal, on their own sectarian grounds, to follow the rules. So much for the tactical argument.
Regarding strategic issues, read the open letter again. Show me any reference to a God of love. From the first epistle of John, we know that God is Love, and from Genesis, we know that we are made in the image of God. Where do the bishops acknowledge that all of us are creatures capable of love? Are LGBT persons not capable of expressing God's love as fully as straight folk? By what authority is this opinion expressed?
The bishops' letter does not acknowledge that marriage is a sacrament, an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace. Thus it denies that the will of the Spirit goes where it chooses and conveys God's grace on whomever it wills. By claiming that "marriage in its true definition must be protected for its own sake," the bishops succumb to idolatry. I pray that the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy return to its own root document, the Holy Bible, and humbly acknowledge that God can grant his/her blessing on any union, gay or straight.
Trust me, I have seen enough unions, both gay and straight, to know which are blessed and which not. The Roman Catholic church does no good by declaring one group of Christians "intrinsically disordered," whatever that means. I cannot understand how any member of a celibate order is able to rationally identify what is "ordered" and what is not.
No more. The U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops published a statement last week, entitled "Marriage and Religious Freedom". You can find it here. It is not a scholarly document, thus there are no footnotes or other references to support or justify their statements or opinions. Their principal thrust, as I read it, is to claim that Federal or State governments are pressuring poor, innocent religious organizations to "treat same-sex sexual conduct as the moral equivalent of marital sexual conduct," in violation of the religious organizations' First Amendment right to vilify the same. Clearly outrageous, governments imposing rules on the religious. There are two problems with their umbrage, one tactical, the other strategic. I'll discuss the tactical issues first.
According the the First Amendment, there should be an impenetrable wall that keeps a religious organization from getting involved in a governmental one, and vice-versa. How is it that any part of the U.S. Roman church could be pressured by any U.S. government agency, unless there were some connections? Uh-huh, it seems that Catholic Charities has been largely funded by government grants. This means that this lovely piece of business, conducted by one arm or another of the Roman Catholic Church, is largely funded by taxes collected from all citizens. Should you be a gay or lesbian couple seeking to adopt a child, you would be eligible by right of your status as taxpayers but still ineligible by the rules of Catholic Charities. Net, you are paying for rights that are denied you by a government-sponsored agency.
Now, perhaps, we see the problem from the Roman bishops' perspective. They want to continue to feed at the public trough but bridle at the idea of complying with requirements with which all of us who wish to receive public funds must comply. All their pious bullshit regarding the protection of the "true definition" of marriage is just a smokescreen for their refusal, on their own sectarian grounds, to follow the rules. So much for the tactical argument.
Regarding strategic issues, read the open letter again. Show me any reference to a God of love. From the first epistle of John, we know that God is Love, and from Genesis, we know that we are made in the image of God. Where do the bishops acknowledge that all of us are creatures capable of love? Are LGBT persons not capable of expressing God's love as fully as straight folk? By what authority is this opinion expressed?
The bishops' letter does not acknowledge that marriage is a sacrament, an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace. Thus it denies that the will of the Spirit goes where it chooses and conveys God's grace on whomever it wills. By claiming that "marriage in its true definition must be protected for its own sake," the bishops succumb to idolatry. I pray that the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy return to its own root document, the Holy Bible, and humbly acknowledge that God can grant his/her blessing on any union, gay or straight.
Trust me, I have seen enough unions, both gay and straight, to know which are blessed and which not. The Roman Catholic church does no good by declaring one group of Christians "intrinsically disordered," whatever that means. I cannot understand how any member of a celibate order is able to rationally identify what is "ordered" and what is not.
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