Leaving – Sage Telling Your Story

July 27, 2018February 26, 2019

Leaving, by Betsy

My cycling adventure, an amazing trip across the country in 2005, has given me endless material for story time. Once again I call on my journal to remind me of the many places we found ourselves leaving and the experiences which followed the many “leavings” that took place. Leaving Dog Beach in San Diego, the tour’s place of origin, was by far the most exciting departure from anywhere that I can recall ever making. Reading from my journal: “Saturday, March 20: The first day we left from Dog Beach. We dipped our tires in the Pacific Ocean, rode out of San Diego and started up the coastal range. This was a 33 mile ride. It was a day of city traffic and then climbing. We climbed almost 2000 feet.” There are a couple of places where it was too steep for me to ride, so I had to walk, pushing my bike. This was the first of many such walks on this trip. Cycling clip-in shoes are not designed for walking. They have metal devises installed on the soles that clip into devises on the pedals. Once on the bike, shoes clipped to pedals, one is not stuck in this clipped-in position as a quick flick of the ankle releases you from the pedals. It turns out this is ever so handy when you come to a stop and have to put your foot on the ground.

Back to the journal: “Glenda, who is our oldest member—I thought I was the oldest—Glenda didn’t want anyone to know how old she was. She disclosed her secret to the Fox News people when they were interviewing us at the start of the trip on Dog Beach. Fox News is a bad choice when revealing something you don’t want anyone else to know. I guess she couldn’t resist the notoriety of being the most …whatever.” I remember how cold I was when we arrived at our first night’s stop—a place called Alpine, CA. Our accommodations provided a Jacuzzi which was most welcome. Another memorable departure on that cycling adventure happened a couple of weeks into the trip.

It was Sunday morning, April 3rd. We had been instructed the night before by our leader Susan as follows: “Now ladies, I know we are all tired having just completed a 90 mile ride today. But I want you to be alert enough to remember to turn your clocks back one hour as we switch to day light saving time at midnight. Now be sure to get up an hour early because we will lose an hour tomorrow. We have a long ride and i want everyone in before dark.” Yawning and stretching we all promised we would get with the correct time. We obediently turned our clocks back before going to sleep. Up an hour early in the morning and it’s pitch dark. Now breakfast is over and it’s time to saddle up and leave. We never leave in the dark. But we know we must because our leader told us we would lose an hour today so dark or not, we better get on the road. We LOSE an hour today. Let’s get going. Wait, a couple of the women have tires that went flat over night. That creates a serious delay for several of us. We need about 5 women to hold flashlights while four women fix the two flats. We’re finally leaving and it’s still dark.

It was about mid-morning coffee time, at the first SAG stop. After a few sips of the beloved beverage, it dawned on just about everyone at the same time: we actually gain an hour today. This is spring. Spring forward, right. We were supposed to turn our clocks forward an hour. We could have stayed in bed an extra hour. Where is leader Susan? I want to kill her. Moral of that story. Just because you are paying your leader to direct you, doesn’t mean you turn off your brain completely. We rode across 8 different states. That meant leaving California, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi on our bicycles. I clearly remember celebrating our entry into a new state at the end of the day with drinks at dinner. Except for the state’s welcome sign on the road, leaving one state and entering another was more of the same: pedal, pedal, pedal. But it was exciting and satisfying to be able to mark our progress with a huge sign on the road as we rode out of Texas: “Welcome to Louisiana.” This was especially true after pedaling for nearly three weeks as we journeyed through the endless countryside. We thought Texas would never end. Texas was full of exciting encounters, however. First there was the border patrol outside of El Paso. We cyclist were not suspect, but Bo Peep our SAG wagon was stopped and searched. The search took a long time, too. That vehicle was full of supplies. Fortunately nothing suspicious. In Texas we encountered every kind of terrain and environmental condition known to man: mountain passes, magnificent wildflowers, dessert flat, wind, rain , heat, cold, cities, wide open roads with nothing in sight except fields and more road. The scenic terrain of the Texas Hill Country may not have been the longest or highest in elevation, but those hills were definitely the steepest. One thing that remained the same throughout the state of Texas was the rough surface of the roads. This I found to be very annoying and hard on my aging joints. “Chip-seal” they called it. I called it cheap road surface. For this one reason I was thrilled when we arrived at our last Texas stop. Tomorrow we would leave Texas. We were at our Super 8 Motel in a small town in East Texas having our usual evening map meeting to prepare for the next day’s ride. We were told by Susan to be alert when riding in Louisiana, the state we would enter tomorrow just after crossing the Sabine River. “ Louisiana has lots of dogs,” she warned—“loose dogs.

There are no laws requiring people to keep their dogs under control in Louisiana. They love to run out at you and nip at your ankles.” “Oh dear,” I thought. “I think maybe I’ll bargain for more rough road in preference to loose, angry dogs. “Just look them in the eye and firmly yell ‘NO.” was Susan’s advise. Our leader’s counsel did nothing to ease my anxiety at the time, but I found on the couple of occasions when the foreseen event actually took place, the firm ‘no’ worked.

Leaving Texas felt good that time. A few weeks later leaving the Florida panhandle and approaching the Atlantic coast felt different. It was bittersweet. We were all aware this adventure was coming to an end. At this point in Florida I was having trouble focusing on anything other than pushing my pedals. Again from my journal: “It hasn’t fully registered in my head the fact that we have just ridden across the country 3165 miles. I expect it will sink in at some point, or maybe not. It’s a bit overwhelming. No question about it, it was the trip of a lifetime and a most extraordinary experience and a most extraordinary group of people.” Over the 58 days we made 52 departures from locations across eight different states. On those early morning departures, I was never more motivated to leave a place and so totally focused on arriving at the next place. I’m glad I have the day to day journal of the trip. I’m also grateful for the occasional appropriate story time topic to push me to get out the journal and relive some of the magical moments.

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.

May 8, 2018February 26, 2019

Leaving, by Betsy

About the Author

March 2, 2018February 26, 2019

Leaving, by Betsy

My cycling adventure, an amazing trip across the country in 2005, has given me endless material for story time. Once again I call on my journal to remind me of the many places we found ourselves leaving and the experiences which followed the many “leavings” that took place. Leaving Dog Beach in San Diego, the tour’s place of origin, was by far the most exciting departure from anywhere that I can recall ever making. Reading from my journal: “Saturday, March 20: The first day we left from Dog Beach. We dipped our tires in the Pacific Ocean, rode out of San Diego and started up the coastal range. This was a 33 mile ride. It was a day of city traffic and then climbing. We climbed almost 2000 feet.” There are a couple of places where it was too steep for me to ride, so I had to walk, pushing my bike. This was the first of many such walks on this trip. Cycling clip-in shoes are not designed for walking. They have metal devices installed on the soles that clip into devises on the pedals. Once on the bike, shoes clipped to pedals, one is not stuck in this clipped-in position as a quick flick of the ankle releases you from the pedals. It turns out this is ever so handy when you come to a stop and have to put your foot on the ground.

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.

January 1, 2018February 26, 2019

Leaving, by Will Stanton / A Memorial

[This is the last posting submitted by Will Stanton. He passed into history and memories on 1 January 2017. He is missed. — Editor]

Leaving

He was diagnosed with
lung cancer in 1991. We knew the
inevitable end; we just did not know when.
Each passing day, each passing year, was, in its own way, leaving. We both understood that. Some acquaintances told me, “Why don’t you
leave him?” I would not, not that
way. I stayed.

I did not cry as a
child. My mother told me that, and we
both pondered my difference from other children. Of course, I felt emotion, but nothing seemed
to drive me to tears. That changed later. A special someone came into my life who truly
mattered – – – and then left. It was the
leaving that changed me. As the famous
19th-century, authoress George Eliot stated, “Only in the agony of parting do we look into
the depths of love.”

I always have been
sensitive to others, perhaps unusually empathetic and caring. That increased significantly after his
leaving, both with people whom I knew, and also even fictional characters in
movies. If, in viewing well presented
stories, I become particularly attached
to characters who have deep bonds with each other, I apparently identify with
them, at least subconsciously; for, if they part from each other, either in
having to leave or, perhaps, in dying, emotion wells up within me. Such deep emotion comes suddenly and
unbidden. When a good person dies,
leaving the loved-ones behind, the emotion catches within my gut. When loving, deeply bonded people part ways,
never to see each other again, that, too, deeply moves me. Again, quoting George Eliot: “In every
parting, there is an image of death.”

I admit it: I never have
come fully to terms with reality, with mortality. And, I’m not like so many who choose to hold
deep-seated beliefs that this world is merely a stepping-stone to a so-called
“better world,” beliefs based upon common indoctrination and, perhaps, upon
fear and hope, Oh, I don’t mind so much
the afflictions and death of inhuman humans, those whose cruelty and dire deeds
harm others. But, it is the good people,
the loving people, people who have contributed so much to the betterment of
humankind, whose leaving distresses me.
I would be so much more content if they (dare I say, “we”?) did not have
to leave.

I understand and feel the
passionate, poetic lines of Dylan Thomas:

“Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

So, with these thoughts
of mine being presented close to All Souls Day (or in German, “Allerseelen”),
with the cold days of December soon upon us, I prefer my thoughts to dwell,
instead, upon our happier memories of May, our younger days, as expressed in
the final lines of Hermann von Gilm poem, “Allerseelen”, “— Spend on my heart again those lovely
hours, like once in May.”

© 23 July 2016

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.

June 8, 2017February 26, 2019

Leaving, by Ricky

Last week as I was
leaving my bathroom after leaving a small deposit, I thought it would be a good
idea to begin writing my story for the topic “Leaving”. So, leaving the upstairs behind me and then
leaving the main floor, I headed to my computer in the basement.

Of course, the first
episode of leaving to which I was a party, was my birth. I was seen leaving the birth canal by total
strangers. It wasn’t like I wanted to be
leaving that warm and cozy small space, but my mother kept pressuring me to
leave—as in “Damn it! Get out of there and be quick about it.” At least, that is what the screaming sounded
like to me.

Then there was the time
when I was about 4 or 5-years old, when my parents and I were to be leaving to
go somewhere. Mom had finished leaving clean
clothes for me on my bed and told me to get changed. Leaving the living room for my bedroom, I
arrived and began leaving the clothes I was wearing on the floor until I was
naked. I then went to my bed to get
dressed and noticed that my dick was hard and demanded attention. My mom saw me not getting dressed and not
leaving my dick alone so she told my dad.
Dad spanked me for not leaving my dick alone. Now
really! He’s a man who at one time
was a boy. He should have remembered his
discovery of his dick and known
better than to spank me for not leaving my dick alone. Once a boy discovers the pleasures of not
leaving his dick alone, he will never be leaving it alone for very long for the
rest of his life. After all, I doubt that Dad was leaving his
alone—my being alive is proof of that.

I’ll be leaving this
story for now because it is 3:00 AM and I am sleepy. I may write more someday about all those
other leavings in my life. (i.e.:
Leaving home for that first day of school.
Leaving home for my first overnight campout. Leaving home for
college. Leaving home for the
military. Leaving the military for
home. Leaving for the church to get
married. Leaving the apartment for the
delivery room—4 times.) Perhaps, I’ll
just be leaving this story unfinished.

© 7 Nov 2016

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 was sent to live 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 9-11-2001
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

May 11, 2017February 26, 2019

Leaving, by Gillian

This topic got me humming ‘Leavin’ on a Jet Plane,’ the old Peter, Paul, and Mary hit, which got me thinking about leaving on jet planes – or not.

It was 2003 and I was heading for DIA for a flight to London. Unfortunately, it was Tuesday March 18th of that year, and Denver was in the grip of one of the worst blizzards in the city’s history. All day, as the snow fell and the winds raged, I repeatedly checked on the departure status of my flight. Each time I was assured it was ‘on time’, even though every other flight out, or in, appeared to be cancelled. Eventually we could delay no longer and Betsy and I battled our way through at least a foot of heavy wet Spring snow in Betsy’s ancient Honda Civic – we had no four-wheel-drive vehicle at that time – and somehow made it to DIA. Sure enough, my flight was still listed ‘on time’ so Betsy left to fight her way back home, which by some miracle she was able to do.

Right on time we began boarding our plane; the only one visible at the entire airport with it’s lights on. The rest were hunkered down: abandoned, dark, and dormant. Meanwhile, the snow kept falling. The plows went doggedly up and down one runway which we London passengers began calling ‘our’ runway. But, no matter how the plows tried, they could not keep the surface clear. The snow was simply coming down too hard. After a couple of hours we moved away from the gate and onto the white runway. Some cheered. Most peered apprehensively out of the windows. Safely on the runway, engines roaring, we sat. And sat. Almost three hours later we slunk back to the gate. We were not leaving.

Over 4,000 people were stuck that night at DIA. The runways were closed and the roads were closed. Nobody was leaving. Most of the people were in the terminal and on other concourses, especially Concourse B which is always busy. Our flight had been leaving from Concourse A which is a little off by itself. The 500 or so passengers from that flight were the only people on the eerily dark and quiet Concourse A. The entire airport was without power except for that provided by the emergency generators. By the time we disembarked from our failed attempt at take-off, all the restaurants and shops were tightly closed up, dark and gated. So to bed without supper. Oh well! Come to that, without a bed either! We discovered that cots and blankets had been provided from DIA emergency supplies while we were spinning out wheels on the runway. There were not nearly enough, so we late-comers to the party had no hope. It was the hard marble floor for us.

Everyone seemed pretty cheerful all the same; nothing to be done about it. We all fanned out across Concourse A picking out a spot for the night. There was no hope of stretching out across a few chairs; they were all of the kind where several chairs are joined together in a row, with hard immovable arms between each. I remembered that behind the service desks there were rubber mats for the employees to stand on. Aha! That would soften that marble surface. I staked my claim by leaving my hand luggage in the middle of the mat and went off to see what others were doing. Of course our luggage was on the plane, and with carry-on alone it was hard to be very creative. Many of us hoped to use our coat as a pillow, unless or until it got too cold, with only a little emergency heat to keep us warm.

I sauntered over to a group of twenty or so in the midst of animated discussion. They were gathered around an old man being taken back to the U.K. for a final visit to celebrate his 90th birthday. No, they were all agreeing, he certainly could not be expected to sleep on the floor. He needed a cot. And a blanket. A raiding party of four young things was dispatched to the terminal, returning after a few minutes grinning broadly and carrying a cot and two blankets. They were greeted with cheers. Even pumped fists. Amazing, I thought. After a very few hours we had already become a village, a tribe, isolated out here, bereft of comfort, ready to attack that main body of refugees lolling around in the terminal in relative luxury, and simply take what we need.

After a pretty uncomfortable night for most of us, we nevertheless greeted each other cheerfully enough in the bathrooms in the morning. We had running, if cold, water; and, most important of all, we had flushing toilets. No morning coffee, no breakfast, but never mind, at least we had water to drink, and we’d be leaving this morning one way or another. Having encouraged each other in this way, we unanimously refused to see that it was actually snowing just as hard as it had been the day before and it now looked as if there was a good two feet of snow out there.

For a while we waited, expecting some official to appear momentarily with news. Nothing happened. Some child discovered, just playing around, that the phones were working. This was before cellphones were ubiquitous, and there were still banks of pay phones scattered around the airport. They couldn’t be working. Surely lines must be down? There was a rush to try them and they offered up the friendly hum of a dial tone. Unbelievable! After a wait for a phone to free up, I was able to call Betsy. She had spent a nightmare three hours getting back home from dropping me off at DIA, and of course had not been anywhere since. Assuring that I would call as soon as we knew about our flight, I joined the chattering people. That tribal village feeling was back as we fell over ourselves to exchange the news we had just heard via our phone calls.. It was as if we had been cut off from the outer world for weeks. There’s over two feet of snow. …. all the roads are closed in the city and in most of Colorado …… all the Interstates are closed; Denver is completely cut off ….. they’re calling out the National Guard to rescue stranded motorists …… it’s gonna snow all day and tonight and maybe stop tomorrow ….. the Red Cross can’t get here with food ………

The last two pronouncements left a little cloud of gloom in the air. Another whole day here without food? Another night on the cold hard floor? We gave a kind of collective shrug. Nothing to be done. Just fill the day.

A group of us went wandering off along the train tunnels, feeling like adventurous explorers. What would we find? Was there a food stash on Concourse D? Had more cots and blankets appeared in the terminal? Was there, by some miracle, coffee anywhere? We found none of the above. What we did find was water pouring in from the ceiling of the terminal onto astonished wet people, and, sadly, now wet cots and blankets, below. Apparently, so rumor had it, the weight of the wet snow had caused a rip in one of those famous tents on top of the Jeppesen Terminal.

Our little tribal band leaned over the railings on the second level and looked down upon the soggy scene below with, I am ashamed to admit, a certain grim satisfaction. That’s just what they deserved for hogging all those cots and blankets. Wondering, without much sympathy, how bad that waterfall would get, we returned to our village with the news.

We found a surprisingly varied scene. Some people sat quietly reading a book from their carry-on or doing the crossword in yesterday’s Denver Post. Other groups played cards. Again, this was prior to the days of universal laptops and tablets and smartphones. Further down the concourse was a young woman instructing a very well-attended aerobics class. Across from them was a yoga group. Still further along, a young man and woman had gathered up most of the kids and were organizing games. Others had started kids’ relay races down the concourse, using empty toilet rolls as batons. It was really rather an incredible scene. And the best of it was, everyone was smiling and laughing and just generally enjoying the day.

Definitely a village.

When we crawled up off that cold hard floor the next morning, pretty hungry by now, the snow had lessened to flurries and the skies looked slightly less threatening. Surely today we would leave! But there was a mighty lot of snow on the ground, and the wind had whipped it into really high drifts. On the phone, miraculously still working, Betsy knew little more than I did. With widespread power outages it was hard for most people to find out anything. Her little Honda, she said, was completely buried, leaving not even a little hump in the snow to signify it’s existence.

But for the first time there was a great deal of activity outside. Snow plows resumed their valiant attempts to clear paths and trucks loaded with mounds of sticky wet snow disappeared from view. We sat watching every move from the huge windows. Surely we would leave today!

The day wore on. Our village returned to much the same activities as the previous day, but with a slight edge of grim determination and a little less real enjoyment. This was getting old. By afternoon a few planes were taking off, but ours was not among them. There was great excitement when word reached us that the Red Cross had arrived in the terminal, followed by some disappointment when all they had to eat was food bars; two each. But as the power was now back on, they did have urns of good hot coffee, and all 4000 people lined up for their drink and snack in surprisingly good-humored and orderly fashion.

Back to our village and one more night in my little nest behind the service desk, but, joy of joys, the sun shone from a clear blue sky in the morning and Betsy informed me in our morning phone call that the airport was officially open. Soon, clean unsmelly unwrinkled people began to arrive, trampling our village. Our tribe dispersed to various just-opened restaurants. Eventually our plane took off, right on time if three days late.

As the wheels lifted off the runway a great cheer arose from us all. We really were, finally, leaving.

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.

March 3, 2017February 26, 2019

Obama and Gay Centurions and Death, by Louis Brown

I have three interpretations of “Leaving”: (a) Evaluation of Barak Obama’s presidency; Barack Obama will soon be leaving office; (b) Louis Brown leaves New York City from which he recalls another fond memory; (c) Leaving as dying: death of brother, Charles Brown.

(a) President Barack Obama: I voted for him twice. He talks like an enlightened liberal person, but, when the chips are down, he reacts like a hostile right-wing Republican. He went to Flint, Michigan, and spoke to a roomful of black students and told them, “I have your backs.” The facts do not really bear this out. His EPA knew all along that the governor of Michigan was poisoning the people of Flint but did nothing to interfere. His administration did nothing to get the governor of Michigan impeached and removed from office. Mr. Obama, like a bellicose right-wing Republican, continues to wage a perpetual war in Afghanistan, despite the widespread opposition of the American public. When Scott Walker was stripping union workers in Wisconsin of their labor rights, Mr. Obama was silent, breaking with the long history of the Democratic Party advocating for the rights of working people. Au contraire, Mr. Obama promotes TPP which is very hostile to the interests of American working people. So, despite some of his good qualities, Mr. Obama is just another failure in a long line of failed presidents.

(b) Louis Brown leaves New York City: one of my fondest memories of New York City was viewing for the past 3 years in June at the Gay Pride March the Alcazar Night Club float. This consisted of a large truck with a large dance floor platform on which around 15 very tall brawny beautiful Hispanic men, dressed up as Roman Centurions; they performed a rather wild and frenetic and yet very well-rehearsed, disco-style dance routine, accompanied by very loud disco music. The spectacular performance was not pornographic but was very suggestive and very erotic. Imagine, a loud boisterous display of male on male eroticism in public on a sundrenched day in June. I later thought that I should have videotaped the event so that, when asked why I recommend putting Classical Studies in gay and Lesbian studies curriculums, I would show these Hispanic gays evoking ancient Rome. They did a good job in expressing gay pride and making a naughty historical reference. Remember, if you want your minority group to promote a sense of community, and to empower itself, you have to learn its history – so taught Alex Haley, author of Roots. Amen.

(c) Leaving meaning dying: My brother Charles Brown died in 1999 at the age of 52. One of my friends told me he observed that my brother would stay a little too long at night at a local Irish bar in the nearby town of Flushing, New York, and would imbibe too many Martini’s, Manhattans and Bloody Mary’s. That is what killed him. Charlie Brown was thin, and soft-spoken and gay. He worked at a good job at the 42nd Street Library. He had several different boyfriends, but one long-term boyfriend, Pat Marra, was unusually good-looking. He was quite tall, had beautifully formed hands and dark wavy brown hair. He looked like a DaVinci painting. He was so beautiful he reminded me of my Italian teacher, il signor Guido, another unusually gorgeous Italian. I remember even the heterosexual male students in that Italian class were flabbergasted when they looked at him. To accentuate his good looks, he wore very expensive Italian silk suits and stylishly elegant Italian shoes. That was Italian 101. Everyone in the class was looking forward to Italian 102, but, at the end of the semester, Mr. Guido returned to Italy. Boohoo.

Two points to make, my brother Charlie died of alcohol abuse, and his boyfriend, Pat Marra, died of an illegal narcotic overdose, either heroin or cocaine, I forget which. Question, how could the gay community have intervened in their lives to prevent substance abuse? What was missing in their lives?

About the Author

I was born in 1944, I lived most of my life in New York City, Queens County. I still commute there. I worked for many years as a Caseworker for New York City Human Resources Administration, dealing with mentally impaired clients, then as a social work Supervisor dealing with homeless PWA’s. I have an apartment in Wheat Ridge, CO. I retired in 2002. I have a few interesting stories to tell. My boyfriend Kevin lives in New York City. I graduated Queens College, CUNY, in 1967.

February 27, 2017February 26, 2019

Leaving / Rejoice, by Will Stanton

[This is the last posting submitted by Will Stanton. — Editor]

Leaving

He
was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1991.
We knew the inevitable end; we just did not know when. Each passing day, each passing year, was, in
its own way, leaving. We both understood
that. Some acquaintances told me, “Why don’t
you leave him?” I would not, not that
way. I stayed.

I
did not cry as a child. My mother told
me that, and we both pondered my difference from other children. Of course, I felt emotion, but nothing seemed
to drive me to tears. That changed later. A special someone came into my life who truly
mattered – – – and then left. It was the
leaving that changed me. As the famous
19th-century, authoress George Eliot stated, “Only in the agony of parting do we look into
the depths of love.”

I
always have been sensitive to others, perhaps unusually empathetic and
caring. That increased significantly
after his leaving, both with people whom I knew, and also even fictional
characters in movies. If, in viewing
well presented stories, I become
particularly attached to characters who have deep bonds with each other, I
apparently identify with them, at least subconsciously; for, if they part from
each other, either in having to leave or, perhaps, in dying, emotion wells up
within me. Such deep emotion comes
suddenly and unbidden. When a good
person dies, leaving the loved-ones behind, the emotion catches within my
gut. When loving, deeply bonded people
part ways, never to see each other again, that, too, deeply moves me. Again, quoting George Eliot: “In every
parting, there is an image of death.”

I
admit it: I never have come fully to terms with reality, with mortality. And, I’m not like so many who choose to hold
deep-seated beliefs that this world is merely a stepping-stone to a so-called
“better world,” beliefs based upon common indoctrination and, perhaps, upon
fear and hope, Oh, I don’t mind so much
the afflictions and death of inhuman humans, those whose cruelty and dire deeds
harm others. But, it is the good people,
the loving people, people who have contributed so much to the betterment of
humankind, whose leaving distresses me.
I would be so much more content if they (dare I say, “we”?) did not have
to leave.

I
understand and feel the passionate, poetic lines of Dylan Thomas:

“Do not go gentle into that good
night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

So,
with these thoughts of mine being presented close to All Souls Day (or in
German, “Allerseelen”), with the cold days of December soon upon us, I prefer
my thoughts to dwell, instead, upon our happier memories of May, our younger
days, as expressed in the final lines of Hermann von Gilm poem, “Allerseelen”, “— Spend on my
heart again those lovely hours, like once in May.”

Rejoice

This presentation of mine
today is very personal, and the first important comments are very blunt. So, hang on, I appreciate your patience in my
telling. It deals with my medical
condition over the last several years and my current frame of mind, which has
developed, and perhaps even improved over time.

Among other conditions, my
three major problems — mega-killer immune system killing off all my clotting
blood platelets down to zero, large granular-T-cell leukemia, and the great
possibility of developing blood-clots in any organ, brain, or in the
circulatory system, — could kill me at any moment. So little is understood about these
conditions, and especially in my extreme case, that the medical staff are
writing papers about me. I consider that
a dubious honor.

Yet, here is where I
rejoice. My attitude to all of this has
changed markedly over the last few years.
When I first was diagnosed with these major problems, I was, of course,
surprised, shocked, and dismayed. Yet, a
whole team of oncology doctors and nurses went to great, extended effort to
treat me. For a short time, it seemed to
work.

Then a couple of years ago,
I suffered a truly major event when it seemed that no treatment would ever
help. With each episode, the efficacy seems
to diminish. Many people might totally
despair and wish to suffer no more. I
did not quite despair, but I was profoundly disappointed and felt resigned to
my fate. So yes, I did think about
simply driving up to the mountains some cold night, park on some high point,
and gaze at the mountain scenery until I fell asleep. Of course, I never did. I still have some pleasures and satisfactions
in my life.

Well here again is where I
rejoice. Despite my circumstances, my
whole mind-set has changed and improved.
I do what I need to do with St. Joseph’s Hospital the various Kaiser
clinics, and all the doctors and nurses.
But, it is what I do and think and feel outside of all of that which is
actually making me happy.

For one, just in a week of
being out of the hospital and being able to go home on October 28th
(mind you, with some misgivings of the medical staff), I accumulated as much as
fifty hours of accomplishing important tasks that, otherwise, would have been
neglected and not gotten done. In addition
to being able to take care of bills and other daily obligations, I was here to
go through the five days of repeated efforts to repair my broken furnace (thank
God, the Denver temperature was unusually warm), the six days to deal
frustratingly with Comcast to get my email back working so that I could
communicate with family and friends, and to have one other repair done. Now, if you understand, I felt satisfaction
and actually rejoiced that I was able to complete those tasks.

Secondly, I have spent much
of my home-time going back through some of my older, more interesting essays
and stories for Telling My Story, carefully editing, and (most fun of all)
locating and inserting delightful, augmenting images within the text. I print them for myself, house them in
plastic sleeves, and file them in several notebooks, separated by subject. Yes, I do find great pleasure in this.

Third, at home, I have the
pleasures of my fine piano, my TV, my computer, and all the comforts at
home. And on Sundays, I am able to go
with my friends, whom I call “the usual suspects,” to a particularly good
Perkins restaurant, have a particularly delicious breakfast, and then play the
card-game called “Samba,” a form of canasta at my dining-room table. That simple ritual is a welcome pleasure and
provides me with comfort more than people may realize. I, especially, have the pleasure of sharing
that with my friends.

Good friends, kind friends,
are the most important of all these factors.
I am truly appreciative and perhaps even ecstatic to have these
warm-hearted encounters with my friends, more than they may realize.

And, that brings me to what
finally makes me rejoice. At this
advanced age, with this, yet another, bout of terrible affliction, I finally
have accepted my situation, doing what I need to do but not fighting the
reality of it. I have developed over
time a more relaxed, philosophical feeling and attitude that “what will be will
be.” I am very thankful that, despite my
condition, I feel little pain, very much unlike so many other unfortunate
people. I rejoice in my cheerful,
positive, interactions with people, medical staff and very good friends. My positive, uplifting connection to very
good friends is, perhaps, my most powerful treatment, my greatest joy.

Thank you, all my kind
friends.

[This is the
last story (his “Good Bye”) Will Stanton read to the Telling Your Story group
on 21 Nov 2016. Sadly, he passed into
history and memories on 1 January 2017.
He is sorely missed. — Editor]

About the Author

25 Apr 1945 – 1 Jan 2017

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.