Tag: Death

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Poetry, by Lewis Thompson

When
Death Comes
–by Mary
Oliver (Oct 03, 2006)

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn; 


when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse to
buy me, and snaps the purse shut; 

when death comes
like the measle-pox

when
death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I
want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And
therefore, I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,


and
I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and
each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and
each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When
it’s over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When
it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I
don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I
don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

–Mary
Oliver
© 30 Jun 2014 
About
the Author 
I came to the
beautiful state of Colorado out of my native Kansas by way of Michigan, the
state where I married and I came to the beautiful state of Colorado out of my
native Kansas by way of Michigan, the state where I married and had two
children while working as an engineer for the Ford Motor Company. I was married
to a wonderful woman for 26 happy years and suddenly realized that life was
passing me by. I figured that I should make a change, as our offspring were
basically on their own and I wasn’t getting any younger. Luckily, a very
attractive and personable man just happened to be crossing my path at that
time, so the change-over was both fortuitous and smooth.
Soon after, I
retired and we moved to Denver, my husband’s home town. He passed away after 13
blissful years together in October of 2012. I am left to find a new path to
fulfillment. One possibility is through writing. Thank goodness, the SAGE
Creative Writing Group was there to light the way.
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Where Do We Go from Here?, by Betsy

If you take this to mean where do we go when we die—I don’t
have much to say about that. People have many different beliefs about an afterlife, beliefs which require a leap of faith. 
Although some of the beliefs I have heard of have a certain comforting
appeal to them, I do not actually believe in any of them. I don’t deny that
anything is possible, but I always seem to end up going with what I know to be
a fact. The only thing I know about where we go after death is that I don’t
know.  That I know to be the only truth
that I am currently capable of understanding or of knowing.
Where we go from here, in my view, is a question better
applied to our life here and now as mortal humans.  I like to know where I am going. For example,
after story time today I will get in my car and go to my daughter’s house after
doing a bit of shopping at Sprouts on the way. After that I will go no where
until tomorrow morning when I will go to my closet, put on some tennis clothes
and drive to the Denver Tennis Club and I will have no trouble finding my
court. After tennis I will do certain things most of which I had planned ahead
of time so, let us say, I know where I am going in my own world in so far as I
am in control of it. Now if the weather does not permit, then I will not do
what I just described. So I guess where we go from here often is conditional.
I like to at least have a sense of where my group is going as
well. I believe it is important for citizens and their leaders to know in what
direction their community, state, and country are headed. A good thing to know,
but not always palpable.
There are other factors that make our futures uncertain and
therefore make us feel a bit uneasy. This is an uncomfortable time for our
country, I believe. It must be because so much campaigning is going on we are
all very much aware that our leadership will be changing soon. I must admit, I
am more than uncomfortable about where we would be  going if Mr. Trump is elected, or any of the
Republican radical extremists who are running for president.  Then the question becomes “Where do I go from
here?”  Europe? Canada?  I don’t think so.  Bad leadership is a good reason to stick
around  and fight for what I believe in
and to be sure to vote in upcoming elections, including the local ones. 
I like some structure in my life and so I am a tad
uncomfortable not having a plan for my day—even if that plan is to sit around
and read a book all day long.  I like to
know where I am going both in the short term and the long term. I’ve noticed
that when I don’t know where I’m going—one of those brief lulls in the day when
I have finished something and don’t know what I am doing next—I often find
myself going to the refrigerator and not because I’m hungry.  Now what good does that do?
 I play tennis year
round outdoors. I have to admit I am not comfortable in the winter and bad
weather not knowing from week to week whether we will  be playing or not.  So much for short term planning. I’m not
averse to spontaneity, but generally I like to know where I am going.
I haven’t always known where I was going. There was a period
of time looking back when I was not too sure how to put one foot in front of
the other. Growing up gay certainly added tremendously to the confusion. Our
adult role models help guide us as to where we are headed, but growing up gay
in the 40’s and 50’s there were no lesbian role models—at least not in my life.
Of course there were lesbian women out there, but they could not allow
themselves to be known publicly as Lesbians. 
Once I accepted, and acknowledged to myself that I was a lesbian I had a
lot to learn suddenly about where to go from there. I didn’t even know any
lesbians. Once I started looking, however, I did find some friends who helped
“show me the ropes” so to speak. Soon I had many friends, but also I was part
of a movement. Nothing like being part of a movement to help you find your
identity and your place in society. Mostly ‘though where I went after
acknowledging my sexuality was in the direction of the coming out process. This
in itself has proven to be a journey, 
quite a long one—at times both rough and arduous as well as smooth and
easy along the way.
As I said in the beginning, I know where I am going from here
today and maybe tomorrow I know where I’m going or supposed to go. But thinking
about it I realize that except on a day to day basis, I haven’t known where I
was going.  Especially going into
different phases of life.
When I married my husband, I didn’t have any particular plans
for the future. Only for the short term. 
I don’t remember even planning to be a mother—not until I became
pregnant.    As for a job, I sought a job
in the field of work I wanted, but mostly I took what was available at the
time.
When I retired, I did not know in the long run where I was
going except to say that I would now engage in the things I like to do and
pursue my interests only now in retirement, full time rather than only when I
had a chance.  I didn’t really plan where
I was going. I was going to live life as best I could.  I honestly think most people conduct their
lives this way.
 When and if one does
make the choice as to where to go from here the question arises: “Do I ever
arrive?”  I don’t think we ever know our
destination—just the direction to take, the road to take. And that choice is
determined by our basic character—our morals, the strength of our convictions,
our sense of justice,  our values.
Some have said the
journey is more important than the destination.
The way I see it life is a journey with no ultimate
destination. It’s more of a journey with pit stops where one perhaps chooses a
new direction or a different road from time to time.
In my old age I would like to take the road that keeps me
healthy and happy. But roads often have their barriers and their potholes.  So again for the long term I
don’t know where I go from here. But I do know the direction I want to go.
Beyond that I don’t know what happens after this life, but whatever it is I’m
quite sure it’s good.
© 4 Jan 2016 
About the Author 
 Betsy has been active in
the GLBT community including PFLAG, the Denver Women’s Chorus, OLOC (Old
Lesbians Organizing for Change), and the GLBT Community Center. She has been
retired from the human services field for 20 years. Since her retirement, her major
activities have included tennis, camping, traveling, teaching skiing as a
volunteer instructor with the National Sports Center for the Disabled, reading,
writing, and learning. Betsy came out as a lesbian after 25 years of marriage.
She has a close relationship with her three children and four grandchildren.
Betsy says her greatest and most meaningful enjoyment comes from sharing her
life with her partner of 30 years, Gillian Edwards.

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Death, by Lewis

It is hard to write on a
subject with which one does not have any “lived experience”.  Like most, although having witnessed many
thousands of deaths in the popular media and on television news, I have even
less of an idea as to what death will be like than I have on being the
President of the United States.
I suggested this topic
because it has been on my mind a lot lately, due in no small measure to the
recent death of my husband, Laurin.  Also,
over the past year or so, I have experienced a series of maladies and mishaps
that I can only attribute to a body that is showing signs of breaking down and
rusting away, much like cars used to do. 
(Incidentally, have you noticed how few rusted out clunkers you see on
the streets these days?) 
Every life story has a
finite beginning and a finite end.  It is
the incredible mish-mash in-between that makes our life stories so unique.  I hear every day about lives cut short by one
tragedy or another and I always think how lucky I am to have lived to the
relatively ripe age of 68.  Each day, I
check the obituary pages of the Denver
Post to see how many have died at a lesser age.  It’s a small percentage–perhaps 10-15.  The majority of those are men. 
Though four years younger
than Mom, Dad died 3-1/2 years before her. 
I think he had the advantage, though, in terms of how he died.  He had undergone an upper GI a day or two
before.  The x-ray showed a tumor on his
stomach.  He likely had just received
that news when he went to lunch with some friends and came home.  He was sitting on the toilet, perhaps trying
to rid himself of the viscous prep for the test, when he had a massive stroke
and died on the spot.  Mom heard only one
long groan and it was over.
It was then that my
family first realized the seriousness of Mom’s dementia.  Within six months, she had been diagnosed
with Alzheimer’s Disease and institutionalized. 
For the next three years, her condition continued to decline, while she
wondered the halls of the place where she resided, pushing her walker, not
recognizing family or friends, and cursing at those within earshot.  She did not know that she had survived the
second and last of her children by her first husband.  I did not have the heart to tell her.
Some people die in their
sleep.  Others starve to death or after
spending months in a coma or after days of clinging to life after being
horribly injured.  Family members have
seen their loved one die despite round-after-round of chemotherapy or surgeries
at an enormous cost in terms of not only treasure but also emotional capital.
We do not choose when we
are born.  Heck, we’re not even old
enough to choose when we go to the bathroom or what we eat for dinner.  But death is a different matter for most of
us.  By then, we’re adults and making all
kinds of decisions, some of major consequence and some of very little.  We can pick our doctors, our hospital, our
spouse, the person who holds medical power of attorney, whether we will take
our meds, and, in some cases, whether we want life-prolonging medical
procedures or treatment.  We can even
refuse to take food or liquid by mouth until we die, which can take up to ten
days or so and causes pain as our organs shut down (for which we would be given
pain killers).  What we can’t do legally
in this country is to ask for a dose of something that will end it all
painlessly and quickly.
The term “assisted
suicide” frightens people.  They
seem more comfortable with “dying with dignity” or
“aid-in-dying”.  Today, loved
ones who give aid-in-dying can be charged with murder.  Where are all the Right Wing voices who
scream about government overreach when it comes to aid-in-dying?  It seems they were all in favor of keeping Terri
Schiavo alive as long as humanly possible, even through recourse to the Florida
state courts.  Talk about government
abuse of power–and in service of a specific religious faction at that!
Ask a dozen
people–around this table, for example–what happens to us after we die and you
will likely get at least a handful of different opinions.  Is there anything that happens to us that is
more personal than the circumstances of our death, should we be fortunate
enough to have a choice?  If I am unable
to walk or stand, if I am unable to feed or go to the bathroom by myself, if I
do not recognize that the person standing beside me is my own next-of-kin, if I
am not able to talk and the only thing coming out of my mouth is drool, I do
not want to go on living. 
I do not believe in
life-after-death.  I believe that the
release of my last breath will feel very much like that moment before I
received that swat on my bottom that brought that first gasp for life-giving
air.  It is that belief that makes me
want to make the most of every day that I have left–to live, to love, to
celebrate, to share, to grow, to smell the roses, to simply be.  Then, when that final breath comes, it will
be every bit as sweet as my first.
© 13 Oct 2014 
About
the Author 
I came to the
beautiful state of Colorado out of my native Kansas by way of Michigan, the
state where I married and I came to the beautiful state of Colorado out of my
native Kansas by way of Michigan, the state where I married and had two
children while working as an engineer for the Ford Motor Company. I was married
to a wonderful woman for 26 happy years and suddenly realized that life was
passing me by. I figured that I should make a change, as our offspring were
basically on their own and I wasn’t getting any younger. Luckily, a very
attractive and personable man just happened to be crossing my path at that
time, so the change-over was both fortuitous and smooth.
Soon after, I
retired and we moved to Denver, my husband’s home town. He passed away after 13
blissful years together in October of 2012. I am left to find a new path to
fulfillment. One possibility is through writing. Thank goodness, the SAGE
Creative Writing Group was there to light the way.
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Sad but True, by Gillian

It is undeniably true, and equally undeniably sad, that selfish, inconsiderate, people keep insisting upon dying; often at very inconvenient times and in equally inconvenient places. Often they don’t even bother giving me any warning; which actually is of no consequence because, when I do have some presentiment of bad behavior on their part and sternly insist that they mend their ways, do they pay attention? No! They just pop their clogs, topple off their perches, in total disregard of my needs and wants.

Now, most of these people are old enough to know better. They must know that I, at a similar age, am too old to deal with emotional upheavals. Bad things just keep getting harder to deal with. So, do they cease and desist from such things? Far from it. In fact old friends insist on dying with ever-increasing frequency.

Take just last week. Nancy, the chef from Betsy’s cross-country bike trip, died unexpectedly. She was not only cook and bottle-washer, but she also rode her bike, along with the others. So her death was almost a double whammy: the loss of Nan the cook, and Nancy, the co-rider. She was also the first of the group to die, so that hit everyone very hard. I mean, just how inconsiderate is that? She was a perfectionist, and very competitive, so I guess she just had to be #1. (Actually, that whole group was made up of some very competitive people, so in a way it would not have been surprising if they’d chased each other right into the arms of that old Grim Reaper, like lemmings going over the cliffs.) But no, in the event, Nancy had to be first.

On top of that she was only 68, abandoning ship early, leaving old souls like Betsy to pedal on.

In a final act of selfishness, she had to go and die in some remote half-a-horse Wyoming town in the middle of winter. Whoa! How’s that for heaping it on? Just because she fell in love with this Wyoming rancher, just because she wanted to live on his remote ranch, just because she adored the midst of nowhere, we had to traverse the sleet and snow of Windy Wyoming on bitterly cold February days. Huh!

—————–

With that, I guess my attempt at some kind of dark humor has fizzled out. I suppose I had to try it as the only way, at this particular moment, to deal with the sad but true fact that as we age we lose so many friends; faster and faster they fall. All the tired old platitudes, such as death is just a part of life, offer me nothing, though I do try to remind myself constantly that in fact I am very fortunate: in order to lose so many friends you first have to have so many friends. Still, I hate that feeling of always waiting for another shoe to drop, dreading who will be next. Then, one day, I shall be the one who is next. Sad but true.

© February 2016

About the Author

I was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have been with my wonderful partner Betsy for thirty years. We have been married since 2013.

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The Party, by Lewis

As I thought about the
topic for today, I realized that I have no particular “party experience” that
stands out as a highlight of my life.  As
an introvert and basically shy person, going to a party seemed unnatural.  Bill Cosby once described swimming as “staying
alive in the water”.  For me, party-going
was like keeping my own sense of self-worth from drowning in a sea of
pretense.  As I thought back on all the
“party scenes” from movies I have watched, it seems to me that the common theme
was related to disguise, deception, duplicity, and, yes, even death.  So, I came up with one brief declarative
sentence that seems best to sum up my feelings about parties–
Parties
are where authenticity goes to die.
© 7 Jan 2013 
About
the Author 
I came to the beautiful state of Colorado out of my
native Kansas by way of Michigan, the state where I married and had two
children while working as an engineer for the Ford Motor Company. I was married
to a wonderful woman for 26 happy years and suddenly realized that life was
passing me by. I figured that I should make a change, as our offspring were
basically on their own and I wasn’t getting any younger. Luckily, a very
attractive and personable man just happened to be crossing my path at that
time, so the change-over was both fortuitous and smooth.
Soon after, I
retired and we moved to Denver, my husband’s home town. He passed away after 13
blissful years together in October of 2012. I am left to find a new path to
fulfillment. One possibility is through writing. Thank goodness, the SAGE
Creative Writing Group was there to light the way.
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Grief, by Pat Gourley

“By meditating on death, we paradoxically become conscious of life”.
Stephen Batchelor – from Buddhism Without Beliefs. 1997

This is one of those Story Telling Topics that really brings home to me what a lazy undisciplined writer I am. My life certainly dating from the death of my father in August of 1980 up until my most recent shift in Urgent Care, which was yesterday, has been chock-full of experience after experience of life’s impermanence and the personal grief that causes. I should be writing at least several chapters on grief if I were ever to get off my ass and write a memoir. The reality though is that the topic of Grief is going to get less than a thousand words as usual.

If I were in a really self-indulgent mood I suppose I could conjure up reams on grief around my own HIV infection and that of many, many friends and clients and their suffering and too often deaths over the past 35 years. An issue of self-exploration here for me would perhaps be how much of my own grief over the decades has really just been self-indulgent wallowing in the pool of “poor pitiful me”. How unfair that I am “forced” to face my own mortality every day when I swallow my HIV meds. And even worse how come I have witnessed so much suffering and death of others? I really need to watch this tendency in myself carefully and continually realize that no one gets out alive and many through the ages up until this minute have it so much worse than I do or ever will.

Nevertheless, that all said let me delve self-indulgently just a bit into my own grief issues, as they seem to come into focus for me especially this time of year. Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of Jerry Garcia’s death. The Grateful Dead were an integral part my life for decades. During the darkest years of the AIDS epidemic, from the late 1980’s until 1995 when I was not only looking down the barrel of my own infection I was also the nursing manger in the AIDS clinic at Denver Health and living with the love of my life who was dying in front of me. The music of the Grateful Dead was a great solace in those years and remains so today actually. I was at the last two shows Garcia and the Dead performed at Soldier’s Field in Chicago July. 1995.

Those shows were not particularly memorable at the time in large part because Garcia was not well but it never occurred to me that he would be gone himself in a few short weeks. The memory of hearing the news of his death on August 9th, 1995 is indelibly etched in my mind but not for the reason you may think.

Minutes after the news exploded across the world of Garcia’s death of a heart attack in a rehab center in Marin County my life partner David Woodyard, who was battling several major HIIV related issues of his own at the time, was on the phone deeply concerned about me and how I was taking the news.

This was and still is for me the real lesson on how to handle the feeling of grief in my own life. I need to always take a moment or several no matter what the circumstances and look around, outside my own little puddle and attempt to be “conscious of life’ and what an amazing trip it is to get to experience that at all, even when filled with grief.

David was teaching me that lesson right up until his own death five weeks later at 9 AM on September 17th, 1995. That was when my own real grieving began in earnest with no Grateful Dead song able to console me. Not even the beautiful lyrics of Brokedown Palace, which we played at his memorial.

Fare you well my honey
Fare you well my only true one
All the birds that were singing
Have flown except you alone

Going to leave this broke-down palace
On my hands and my knees I will roll roll roll
Make myself a bed by the waterside
In my time, in my time, I will roll roll roll
In a bed, in a bed


By the waterside I will lay my head
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul
River gonna take me

Sing me sweet and sleepy
Sing me sweet and sleepy
All the way back home

It’s a far-gone lullaby
Sung many years ago
Mama, Mama, many worlds I’ve come
Since I first left home


Going home, going home
By the waterside I will rest my bones
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Going to plant a weeping willow
On the banks green edge it will grow grow grow
Sing a lullaby beside the water


Lovers come and go, the river roll roll roll
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs

To rock my soul

Songwriters: GARCIA, JERRY / HUNTER, ROBERT

Brokedown Palace lyrics © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc., Universal Music Publishing Group

© August 2015

About the Author

I was born in La Porte, Indiana in 1949, raised on a farm and schooled by Holy Cross nuns. The bulk of my adult life, some 40 plus years, was spent in Denver, Colorado as a nurse, gardener and gay/AIDS activist. I have currently returned to Denver after an extended sabbatical in San Francisco, California.
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Forever, by Ricky

In this life nothing is forever. Possessions rust, tarnish, are lost, stolen, or permanently misplaced. Some things we own just simply wear out or become broken. Pets live their allotted time span, if they are lucky, and then die. People do the same. No one wants to think about or dwell on “death”, but we all will face it during our lifetime.

When I was a child of 2, my beloved pet dog, Bonnie, died from canine distemper. I was too young to comprehend “death” but I knew that she was no longer around.

At 13-years old, I discovered my neighbor from across the street, dead. I had not seen him for almost two weeks but his livingroom light was on all day and night. I went over to investigate. Looking in the cabin livingroom window I could see him locked in the attitude of trying to get out of bed. His door was unlocked and I opened it to be sure he was dead. His medium size pet dog met me at the door. The dog was emaciated. I stepped in and could smell the man was really dead. I noticed that the dog had drank all the water in the toilet bowl so I flushed it so he would have some more. I then ran home and called the sheriff’s office and then took the dog some food. I wanted to keep the dog at least until he was back in good condition, but the deputy insisted that the animal shelter would care for him.

Next to go was my mother’s dad while I was in the Air Force stationed in Florida. I took leave to attend his funeral in Minnesota. I hesitated to go into the viewing room so my 3-year-older-than-me uncle gently pushed me into the room. I had hesitated to decide if I really wanted my last memory of my grandfather to be this one. My uncle unwittingly made the choice for me. A few weeks thereafter, my mother wrote to tell me my pet dog, Peewee, died. I cried a little for her.

While working as a deputy sheriff in Pima County, Arizona, I had the occasion to discover three fatal traffic accidents. One killed a migrant worker when the vehicle he was riding in rolled over. He was thrown out and the car came to a stop on his head. The second accident involved an Air Force enlisted man, his wife, and newborn child. It happened on Christmas day and killed all three of them. No other vehicle was involved. The third accident was also a vehicle rollover. In this case, the two youths in the vehicle had been at a party involving some alcohol. Their high school classmates at the party reported later that the passenger had not been drinking, but the driver had. The driver survived the rollover and walked away uninjured. The passenger was thrown half-way out the passenger door at the time the door shut on his abdomen. These are three memories I wish I did not have, and they do periodically haunt me.

My mother passed a few years later from liver cancer. I arrived from Arizona to speak to her the afternoon prior to her passing that night. I took the early morning phone call from the hospital and woke my step-father to tell him. Then I went in to my sister’s bedroom where I could hear her crying and comforted her. After she calmed down I woke my brother and stayed with him for a while. He didn’t cry in front of me. I didn’t cry at all, but I did feel a loss. No one comforted me.

While in the Air Force for the second time, this time as an officer, my cat, Charlie, caught feline distemper. I made a “bed” for him near the furnace in the laundry room with a supply of water. I awoke during the wee hours of the night and felt that I should go check on him. He was breathing irregularly when I arrived in the laundry room and he looked at me with his beautiful blue eyes. I sat down and picked him up and held him and stroked his head and back. He died in my arms about three minutes later. I shed precious few tears for him.

Soon thereafter, my father’s mother passed away followed by my mother’s mother. More trips to Minnesota to attend funerals followed. Still no tears. Then the day I was dreading came. My father had gall bladder removal surgery which was successful, but his kidneys shut down and never restarted. He died two weeks after the surgery. Yet another trip to Minnesota followed. Still no tears, just holes left in my heart where everyone had been.

Then in September, 2001, my best friend and lover passed away from complications of breast cancer. Although my mental blockage of negative emotions had begun to break down back in 1981, it was mostly still in place, thus, I didn’t cry, but all the joy of life left me and I became an empty shell of the person I used to be, that person is not what I am like today.

Three years ago my brother that I comforted when our mother died, passed away from advanced prostate cancer. I had stayed with him for three months while he lingered. I had been notified of needing to appear for jury duty but was able to reschedule it once for two months into the future. When my time to appear was approaching, he was still alive but I had to return home. He died the day after I arrived home. I had no funds to return for his funeral and I was not needed for a jury. I could have stayed there after all.

As if to rub-my-nose in all this past death experiences, last Friday, July 10th, one patron of the establishment where I work had a heart attack and died. I evaluated his pulse by feeling his neck and listened for his heartbeat by placing my ear on his chest. His eyes were open, dilated, and unresponsive to light. He was also very clammy. Thus, another memory I did not desire but I am stuck with was born.

The emotional blockage in my mind is crumbling fast and I am now flooded with emotion whenever the latest tragic news story is told about death at the hands of evil people and Mother Nature. These stories cause me to actually cry real tears for people I never knew and for those whom I did know.

There really is a 12-year old boy, who never matured mentally or emotionally, who still lives inside my head. We are both tired of all the death we have experienced and the killings that bombard us in the news. We both remember the fear of nuclear attack from the duck-and-cover days of school drills and fear of the bomb was always present in the back recesses of our shared thoughts. I know how alone he feels now that all our “ancestors” have passed because he is me and I am him, but we are not integrated into one complete and whole person. We are tired and we want our mother and father to hold and comfort us and help us navigate the ever increasing chaos of our society. But they are gone. Where are peace and love now? Where can we find them?

© 13 July 2015

About the Author

I was born in June of 1948 in Los Angeles, living first in Lawndale and then in Redondo Beach. Just prior to turning 8 years old in 1956, I began living with my grandparents on their farm in Isanti County, Minnesota for two years during which time my parents divorced.

When united with my mother and stepfather two years later in 1958, I lived first at Emerald Bay and then at South Lake Tahoe, California, graduating from South Tahoe High School in 1966. After three tours of duty with the Air Force, I moved to Denver, Colorado where I lived with my wife and four children until her passing away from complications of breast cancer four days after the 9-11 terrorist attack.

I came out as a gay man in the summer of 2010. I find writing these memories to be therapeutic.

My story blog is TheTahoeBoy.Blogspot.com

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Death in Utopia by Gillian

When I rule the world, we will all have a sane, legal, choice of death’s time and place. Not everyone will make their own choice, but for those who wish to, it will be available.

Why must people be faced with detestable choices when they find themselves, for whatever reason, at the end of their rope? Blow your brains out and leave them all over the wall for loved ones to clean up. Die in a dirty stinking ally from a purposeful O.D. of drugs and/or alcohol. Drive your car off a cliff and leave others to identify the charred remains. Get in the bathtub and slit your wrists; only perhaps you don’t do it just right, or perhaps some well-meaning friend comes along and finds you too soon, so you’re left to struggle on with your disastrous life or try it again.

Why must those who chose the time of their passing, and those who love them, be forced into such indignity?

What do so many old people worry about?

Outliving their money. Outliving the effectiveness of their minds or bodies or both.

So why not remove those worries? If we outlive anything, and chose to go, we can. With dignity and serenity.

When I rule the world, there will be The Utopia Center available to you. It will be very much along the lines of Hospice, but with certain key differences. You check in to a pleasant, quiet room, and nothing can happen for 24 hours. It seems to me that a certain time to reconsider should be mandatory. At the appointed time, if you have had no change of heart, the end process is put in motion. If you wish to have loved ones with you, they can be there. If you prefer to be alone, it’s OK. They have a choice of CDs with music for you to play if you wish, or perhaps you choose to bring a favorite of your own. You lie peacefully on the bed and are gently administered some drug cocktail which will carry you painlessly away. I know Switzerland has something similar, but you have to have two doctors determine that you are terminal with some awful disease, or something like that. Why? Why can’t I simply say, I’ve had enough. For whatever reason. I’m ready to go. I shouldn’t have to explain or apologize. It’s my life; now I’m ready for my death.

What worries a place, a process, like that would relieve us of, would it not? Oh I know I am portraying a very simplified version. There would of course need to be controls re: coercion, undue influence, minors and third parties, to name but a few. But we could do it. But we never will. Religion, alas stands firmly between us and my sincerely held vision of Utopia, or at least one aspect of it. I fear it always will.

October 2014

About the Author

I was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have now been with my wonderful partner Betsy for 25 years.

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Magic by Will Stanton

For some of you, please bear with me for just a moment. Today’s
topic is Magic, and what easier way to start the conversation than with some
references, using them simply as a preface to my main thoughts, references to
the currently very popular books and movies about Harry Potter. We can’t be
more magical than that. Anyone who knows him is well aware of his great magical
powers. After my preface, I’ll then tell you about a few of the things I would do if I possessed such great
powers.
Harry’s special powers came about by, first, his having been
born a wizard, not a mere mortal (or “muggle,” if you will.) Then he
honed his skills and learned many more by attending Hogwarts School. During
those several years, he also gained from practical experience utilizing his
magical powers. Then finally, author J.K. Rowling writes that Harry had
acquired the three instruments of great power: the Elder Wand (the most
powerful wand in the world), the Resurrection Stone (with which one can bring
people back to life), and the Invisibility Cloak (which hides the person
possessing it from Death.) Harry could be the most powerful wizard in the whole
world.
Rowling then writes that Harry, admirably demonstrating his
modesty and his wariness of any one person possessing such vast powers, tosses
aside the Resurrection Stone and then breaks and discards the Elder Wand. Good
old Harry, modest and of good character right to the end. Logically, however,
there was a precedent of someone possessing all three instruments of power
without having abused such powers, Harry’s own friend and headmaster Professor
Dumbledore. He had those great
powers but apparently did not abuse them.
Harry might not have been able to bring back all those good
people who died at the hands of the evil wizard, Lord Voldemort and his
minions, but at least he could have helped to heal the many injured and
traumatized. With a mere flick or two of his wand, he could have rebuilt
Hogwarts that had been left in shambles after the last confrontation with the
evil hordes. I can think of so many additional, magnanimous uses of such
powers.
Yes I admit, if I were Harry, I would have done a few minor
things for myself, too. Why not? For example, why not fix his eyesight so that
he would not have to go around with those eye glasses that always seemed to
become broken? Then, now that Voldemort is gone, he might get rid of the
lightning-scar on his forehead. There was no need to go around the rest of his
life with that mark of evil. And, how about unobtrusively growing an inch or
three, considering that Harry was so short? (I’m talking about his height.)
Now getting on with the supposed reality, this poor world seems
always to have been plagued with hordes of evil Lord Voldemort, those persons who
have caused death, trauma, and great destruction. Some start wars or otherwise
engage in various levels of violence. Crime is rampant. Lack of empathy and
civility permeate humankind. So many people seem to be prone to continually
creating toxic levels of fear, suspicion, intolerance, and hate merely by their
words, words that seem to drip with acid. One such character in Tolkien’s
“Lord of the Rings” was known as “Wormtongue,” a singularly
appropriate name. I guess that such evil is why Canada has outlawed one
American television network from opening an affiliate in Canada. Canada
actually has a law against networks lying. Amazing! I wish that the U.S. had
such a law and it were enforced. The world and our own nation suffer from such
people on a daily basis. Oh, how I would like to do something about that if
only I had great magical powers!
How I also would like to eliminate illiteracy, ignorance,
economic hardship, the sad decline of culture and society, including the
lamentable failure to raise a huge portion of our children so that they become
well prepared, happy, and productive members of society. There is so much that
needs attending to among humankind.
Even without the deficiencies and destructiveness of humankind,
the world itself has plenty of troubles: global warming, natural disasters,
disease, and possibly an asteroid or meteor crashing into the earth. The powers
of nature and the universe appear to be overwhelming; however, some good, solid
magic might be able to tone down the impact of such troubles, even if just a
little.
I know that we all are supposed to accept reality, to not engage
excessively in fantasy; yet it is easy to understand how many of us do see what is and wish how things could be, and then possibly become frustrated. There
are some people who do have sufficient abilities and truly influential
positions where they might make some positive differences. Unfortunately, such
positive people are few and far between. For the rest of us poor souls,
however, slipping into fantastic thoughts and wishes can become rather
attractive. Oh, Harry! Where are your powers when we need them?

© 22 August 2013 

About the Author 

I have had a life-long fascination with people
and their life stories.  I also realize
that, although my own life has not brought me particular fame or fortune, I too
have had some noteworthy experiences and, at times, unusual ones.  Since I joined this Story Time group, I have
derived pleasure and satisfaction participating in the group.  I do put some thought and effort into my
stories, and I hope that you find them interesting.