A Father's Thoughts

The Maraschino Cherry

This is an essay I wrote a few years ago narrating one experience during my work as a counselor intern in Atlanta Georgia.

Every time I eat a chocolate cake with cherries, I think of Robert. I met Robert in 1994 while working as a mental health intern providing counseling services and support to those who were either infected with the virus that causes AIDS or who were diagnosed with AIDS.

My interest in learning about AIDS began in November of 1991 when my daughter Cindy telephoned and said “Dad, I have AIDS.” In what Joan Didion describes as an ordinary moment when life changes, my life changed forever.  At the time, I was 55 years old, committed to beginning a new career, and a student in college studying psychology. After recovering from the distress and anguish that Cindy’s disclosure caused, I immersed myself in an effort to learn as much as I could about the disease. I welcomed the opportunity in 1994 to participate in an internship in Atlanta with Positive Impact, an agency providing mental health services to the HIV/AIDS community. I had faith that if I helped someone in Georgia, someone would help my daughter in Utah

Robert, a forty-two year old man living with Walter, his partner of a few years, was an early client during that internship. While Robert lived openly as a gay man for much of his adult life, Walter, a retired college professor, had foregone any open or serious intimate relationships until after completing his career. Neither of them was aware of Robert’s HIV status until Robert became ill.

Our early meetings took place in the agency counseling offices and then were continued in their home and eventually in the hospital as Robert’s health deteriorated. As we worked together over the months in this heavy emotionally laden atmosphere, gradually a meaningful three way therapeutic relationship developed.       

The treatment priority was to help Robert as he moved toward death experiencing many of the feelings described by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross in her landmark work, On Death and Dying. Since this was before the development of medications that transformed this illness into a more chronic disease thus prolonging the lives of those carrying the virus, there was a feeling of inevitability about Robert’s prognosis. We addressed many personal issues, not the least of which was Robert’s concern about his eternal well being and his relationship with God. He felt an affinity for the Catholic Church but was conflicted about the Church teachings regarding homosexuality. He also hungered for the acceptance from his family that they never offered him as a gay man.

Robert was grateful for the love and support he received from Walter, and over the weeks and months Robert gradually reached some resolution of his conflicts and moved toward a position of acceptance of his situation. On more than one occasion he had the wisdom and kindness to tolerate this beginning therapist’s awkwardness and even clumsiness. Belying the seriousness of his situation, he often displayed a sense of humor, allowing us to laugh at each other as we shared these few steps of our life’s journey. Of the many gifts Robert gave me, one was to permit me to be a witness to his courage, his vulnerability, and the strength of his human spirit, particularly during our last session together before his death.

By this time, the disease had taken its toll. Robert was in the hospital, sleeping lightly in his bed, when I arrived for our regular weekly session. He slowly woke as I entered his room and we chatted briefly about the day’s events, his physical weakness obvious. While lying on his back he would lift his knee in an attempt to ease the pain and find some comfort. Just the act of bending that knee was an exertion.

While we talked, an aide came in with a white bag containing a piece of maraschino cherry chocolate cake tightly encased in Saran wrap. Being the helper I was, I began to take the cake out of the bag with the intent of feeding him. Robert, as emphatically as his condition allowed, let me know he didn’t want my help. I gave him the bag and over the next 20 or 30 minutes he removed the cake from the bag and with great effort struggled to loosen the tightly clinging Saran wrap. As the cake became accessible he would break off little pieces and lift them to his mouth. Robert created a glorious mess as chocolate crumbs scattered over the previously white and spotless sheets and floor.

 While eating, Robert occasionally bit into a succulent maraschino cherry, a smile spreading across his face, his lips glistening as traces of juice from the cherry escaped his mouth. He savored the sweet flavor and moisture of the cherry pausing to enjoy the happiness and near joy he found in that precious moment! After resting to regain his strength, he continued his heroic task.

When finished, Robert lay back exhausted and fell into a light sleep. After I quietly cleaned up his bed, I held his hand for a few moments. Our visiting time up, I tapped him lightly on the shoulder and softly announced that I was leaving. He opened his eyes, looked intently into mine, smiled, and squeezed my hand affectionately. In a moment, reminiscent of the moment that I had during my last meeting with my terminally ill father years earlier, our eyes and our touch conveyed what I understood to be our last goodbye.        

 

DADT repealed but the struggle continues

It has been a difficult political year for our nation. Our dysfunctional politics have validated the concerns of columnist and author Tom Friedman who concluded a while ago that we could only adopt sub-optimal solutions for the many serious challenges we face in the 21^st century. It becomes increasingly difficult to be optimistic about the future.

But this week we observed the official end of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell in the military confirming and bolstering my confidence in the ability of our political system to make constructive policy changes consistent with the core values of equality and freedom in our nation. We will no longer discharge members of our military solely because they are gay.

As Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff stated, “we are a stronger joint force, a more tolerant joint force, a force of more character and honor.”

This marks another significant step forward in our continuing national civil rights debate, but married same-sex couples are still denied benefits available to heterosexual families including spousal health care, equal financial support if a service member makes the ultimate sacrifice, and more.

The road forward will remain contentious. At the Republican Presidential Debate in Orlando a gay soldier serving in Iraq asked a question by video and was booed by members of the audience and treated with disrespect by Senator Santorum who showed his ignorance and bigotry. Live blogging the debate Andrew Sullivan comments:

10.18 pm. Santorum claims bizarrely that repealing DADT means permission for sexual activity for gays in the military. This is a lie. The same rules of sexual misconduct apply to gays and straights alike. And a gay servicemember is booed by this foul crowd. Santorum keeps saying "sex is not an issue." But that's the current policy! This has nothing to do with sex, as Santorum surely knows. And again, the crowd reveals itself as hateful - even when it comes to those serving their country in uniform. This is one core reason why I cannot be a Republican. So many are bigots - and no one - no one - stands up against them. They're a bunch of bullies congratulating themselves on rooting out the queers.

How does one understand the hateful response of so many self-professed patriots to the words of a soldier serving in a combat zone and risking all for our nation?

 We are a better people than this.

 

 

We are a better people than this

Anthony Makk is an Australian trying to become a United States citizen. He and his husband, Bradford Wells have been together for 19 years. Bradford has AIDS and his husband Anthony is his primary caregiver. Anthony who has been in this country legally is being denied consideration for permanent residency because, although he is legally married, his marriage is not recognized nationally because of the Defense of Marriage, a law that the Obama administration argues is unconstitutional. 

I have listed links to articles that provide more details about the plight of Bradford and Anthony. It is clear that if the administration chose, a way could be found to keep these married men together while we continue our political battle over their marriage status. 

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/08/10/caregiver-of-husband-with-aids-facing-split-by-deportation-over-doma/

http://gay.americablog.com/2011/08/to-be-very-clear-obama-administration.html

http://www.hrcbackstory.org/2011/08/domas-consequences-tearing-loving-families-apart/#.TkRQ03Mz3Mk

http://articles.sfgate.com/2011-06-04/news/29619663_1_couples-defense-of-marriage-act-visa-requirements

I don't think I am alone in feeling that as an average citizen I no longer have any meaningful input into the policies of my country. I am not a corporate powerhouse nor do I have the financial resource to allow me to be heard by my elected representatives. But that reality does not deter me from continuing to try in the hopes that others will be of like mind and find the time to express their views. If the White House receives enough emails, letters, or phone calls perhaps just perhaps they will respond positively to plight of one married couple whose primary desire is to continue their lives together.

The White House web site is at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/ There is a link in the upper right hand corner Contact us that will take you to the page on which you can voice your opinion. On that page you can find an address and telephone number. 

I attended a conference in Atlanta, Georgia, a number of years ago in which the Dalia Lama spoke about the issues associated with aging. He spoke of retaining the "freshness of youth" and the ability to still experience "awe" in this world. That also implies the presence of a degree of naivety and idealism. I recognize and own my late life idealism and it motivates me to support causes that rationally seem perhaps hopeless. 

If enough of us and enough of our friends take the time to contact the White House and argue for a compassionate response to the needs of this married couple, perhaps, just perhaps, we can validate the hope that we are a better people than this. 

 

New York State legalizes same-sex marriage

I sit at my computer with tears flowing down my cheeks. The New York state legislature, with a Republican majority in the Senate, voted tonight to legalize same-sex marriage. The blll was approved by a 33-to29 vote as 4 Republican state senators joined 29 Democrats in voting for the bill. New York joins five states in permitting same sex marriage.

 Hearing the news I was reminded of the following commentary I wrote in 2009 in the midst of Utah debate about gay rights: 

"Victor Frankl was a German psychiatrist who survived the holocaust and wrote powerfully about the spiritual lessons he learned while in the Nazi death camps between 1942 and 1945.  Man’s Search for Meaning, first published in 1959, is one of the classic psychiatric texts of our time. As one reviewer noted, Frankl reminds us of “the responsibility each of us owes in valuing the community of our humanity.”

Frankl asserts that a core drive for humans is our search for meaning. He wrote from the perspective of life in the death camps. My experience is that in our lives we also find meaning in the antithesis of the horrors of the death camps, in those precious moments when we experience spiritual love.

All of this comes to mind as I think about one of those spiritual moments that occurred a few days ago while hiking in a beautiful wash with my wife. We had gone deep into the wash and stopped to rest and listen to the quiet amongst huge boulders that had fallen many millennia ago. She was sitting across from me with the sun reflecting off the rocks giving her face a subtle red glow while the early afternoon sun highlighted her beautiful blond hair. In a scene that could only be described adequately by a poet, which I am not, she was, at that moment, the center of my world and my existence. The love that I feel for this woman after 25 years of marriage is deeply felt but indescribable. The moment passed and we began our walk back to the world, while I continued in the afterglow of my experience.

As we walked I recalled the letter to the editor I had written a few days earlier trying to address the sources of our sexual orientation. I asserted that sexual orientation is not a behavioral issue but it is rooted in our wonderful human encounter with love. Love, that mysterious indefinable process by which we become attracted to other humans and engage in relationships of emotional and physical intimacy, intimacy when at its best has a deep and profound spiritual quality. 

My letter drew the predictable responses online by some unable or uninterested in understanding my argument. The memory of those responses brought me back to another moment I experienced 15 years ago while working as a mental health counselor at an agency in Atlanta, Georgia. We provided services to predominantly young gay men and their families as they struggled with the prospect of premature death from complications related to AIDS. At the time there were no effective medications to counter the effects of this disease.

During an emotionally intense counseling session with a young man, we were exploring aspects of our lives and our mutual experiences of romantic love. At one point he looked at me and said: “George, can you understand that the love that I feel for my partner is not different than that that you feel for your wife?”

In that therapeutic moment, a moment of genuine human intimacy and meaning, the student became the teacher. Reflecting later, I came to understand that in that moment I was confronting the last vestiges of my own homophobia and this man who sat across from me in this quiet room facing his own death had invited me into Victor Frankl's  “community of our humanity.”

As state legislatures consider the bills extending legal protections for gay and transgender couples, can they think beyond the narrow private sexual behavioral issues that dominate the debate to the more important issues of human relationships and love?" 

And so this evening, the progress continues.

 

Don't Ask Don't Tell Repeal

Saturday, December 14, 2010 at 3:30 EST:  

The Senate in an historic vote of 65 to 31 (including all Democrats and 8 Republicans) authorized the repeal of the military Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy ending the discrimination against gay and lesbian members in the military after a long struggle. 

As I watched the vote unfolding, my thoughts returned to a time more that fifteen years ago and the death of a young man from AIDS. In his memory, his family created an AIDS Quilt honoring his life with words, images, and symbols. One of the photographs was of this young man at an earlier time in a soldier's uniform as he served his country honorably while unable to be his authentic self. That sacrifice by others will no longer be required as Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the military begin to implement this policy in an orderly fashion. 

Andrew Sullivan, a strong advocate for this policy change, expressed its meaning best in his blog The Arc of History by reviewing some of the history of the struggle that led to this day. It is clearly a case where facts and testimony and truth prevailed. It is an affirmation of fundamental American values as we continue our march toward a more perfect union. 

Homosexuals in the military response

An anonymous blogger, BetterDazComing, published a blog on the St. George Utah Spectrum website today titled: Homosexuals in Military 2. He concludes with the following:

 "I really would like to hear an explanation of why others think this lifestyle choice should be allowed- anywhere, not just in the Military. "

 My response:

 The first reason is that we who have gay and lesbian members of our families, who we know and love, absolutely deny your fundamental assertion that one's sexual orientation is a lifestyle choice.

 The second reason is that there is an abundance of research by psychiatric and psychological professionals that supports that which we know in the deepest recesses of our souls.

 The third reason is that malicious diatribes such as yours are completely devoid of any thought or rationality and are rooted in deep prejudices of which you seem to be unaware.

 My fourth reason is that as a health care professional I have been privileged to engage with many in the GLBT community and their families as they have struggled to heal the pain that is the consequence of being the targets of hatefulness directed at them.

 My fifth reason is a bit more personal but it is, for me, more meaningful than any of the previous except the first.  In 1991 one of my daughters was diagnosed with AIDS. Being uninformed about the disease, I went to the gay community for information. After working through my own subconscious homophobia, my family and I were the recipients of a level of compassionate support that equaled or exceeded other support of which we were the beneficiaries.

 My sixth reason is that I am aware that the love that a gay or lesbian person feels for their partner is no different in quality than the love that I share with my wife.

The seventh reason is that I agree with Admiral Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who has worked in with gays in the military since 1968 and is uncomfortable with a policy that causes people to lie about who they are in order to serve our nation. The policy and the burden it places on the military and service members is violation of personal and national integrity.

I could go on, but sadly I am not optimistic about my ability to find the words that will be meaningful to the writer of the referenced blog. 

Traditional Families Under Attack

Recently the Sutherland Institute sponsored a public program in St. George, Utah explaining why it was important that the bills sponsored by Equality Utah and supported by Governor Huntsman and others failed to pass the legislature this year. The presentation was couched with religious overtones and frequent reminders of the perceived threat presented to traditional families that equal rights for gay and transgender citizens presents. “Homosexual activists” were excoriated.  

The next morning I woke with a memory of long ago roiling my brain. My wife and I were living in a small community in Georgia. A year or so earlier, I received the most painful call of my life from my daughter in Utah. After the usual small talk, my daughter Cindy spoke words that changed my life forever. “Dad, I have AIDS.”  After struggling for weeks to sort out the complex feelings and issues that had now intruded on our peaceful existence, gradually with the loving help of my wife, Cindy’s stepmother, and the compassionate help of members of the Atlanta gay community I developed a plan for helping my daughter, living 2000 miles away. I did so with the belief that if I helped someone in my community, others would step forth and help my daughter and members of my family in Utah. Gradually I became a homosexual activist, a title I wore with honor as I helped organize support for members of my community stricken with AIDS and their families. 

I wrote letters to the editor challenging the assertions of those who reshaped their bibles into arrows and hurled them at the hearts of vulnerable fellow human beings. Because of my public activities some friends invited my wife and me to dinner one evening. During the meal, unexpectedly, our friend broke into tears. Quietly sobbing she told us that her son had AIDS and that she needed help.  At the time there were no medications to stop this disease. She related how painful it had become to go to her Southern Baptist Church and sit quietly in the pew while some of her friends spoke so harshly about homosexuals. Her skin color offered her no protection from the overt expressions of prejudice. 

As time passed she and her family worked through the difficult process of coming to genuine acceptance of their loved one and his life threatening illness. After his death, his obituary included the fact that he had died of AIDS; news that I am sure was a surprise to many. The family agreed that the funeral would be held in Atlanta in the Metropolitan Community Church. On the right side of the church sat friends from the deceased’s gay community and on the left were the friends and relatives of his Southern Baptist family. I have attended few funerals as spiritual and potentially healing. 

A few months later, my wife and I stopped by our friends’ home and they showed us the AIDS Quilt honoring their son. It included photos and words depicting this young man’s life.  Photos of his Boy Scout years, his military service years and words describing his accomplishments as a successful businessman all conveyed the story of a man who lived successfully with integrity and compassion for others.

Now, here I am in Southern Utah and in the words of Yogi Berra “It’s like déjà vu all over again.” Now the issue is gay rights and gay marriage, but the passions driving the vocal opposition have their roots in the same unawareness, irrational fear, and sometimes raw prejudice as evidenced by the recent outburst of our state senator and those who agree with him. I know that there are good and sincere people on both sides of this issue. I believe, perhaps naively, that if we could come together and meet not as opposing members of abstract groups, but as individuals and engage in genuine dialogue characterized by authentic listening we may be able to begin to understand and respect each other. 

To those who are threatened by members of traditional families such as mine: “We are not your enemies?” The bond of love we have with our homosexual and transgender relatives and friends persuades us that they are not your enemies. We have no intent or desire to harm or threaten any other person or family. We believe that the legal and political fears expressed in the recent meeting are unfounded and damaging to today’s traditional families that embrace and love those who are the targets of the attacks.  

The irony of course is that those who are so fearful of the potential threats to their families if society were to genuinely accept our gay children seem unaware of the damage being done to traditional families that include gay children. Most people will agree that adolescent years can be very difficult even if the adolescent is the recipient of parental love and acceptance. Why can’t LaVar Christensen and others of like mind understand that to subject an adolescent to the rejection, stigmatization, alienation, and harsh judgment of the anti-gay rhetoric they hear so often just might have a negative impact on that person’s human development. Remarkably many of these young people, such as my friend from Georgia, overcome and manage to move into adulthood with a healthy sense of self, but tragically many are scarred for years. Often their families are stressed by the conflict parents feel between their commitment to their church and their love for their child. 

There is wealth of literature available for those who can seek understanding with an open heart. The work of Carol Lynn Pearson comes immediately to mind. She has written powerfully as a member of the LDS Church about the lives of those who have paid the price of stigmatization, and her play Facing East presents the pain and agony of a traditional family after the suicide of their son.

As I have I have previously written can’t we see beyond the narrow behavioral aspects of this conflict? Can’t we celebrate and honor the love that brings us together in intimate and committed relationships?

Let's move the focus of the gay rights debate from sex to love

Victor Frankl was a German psychiatrist who survived the holocaust and wrote powerfully about the spiritual lessons he learned while in the Nazi death camps between 1942 and 1945.  Man’s Search for Meaning, first published in 1959, is one of the classic psychiatric texts of our time. As one reviewer noted, Frankl reminds us of “the responsibility each of us owes in valuing the community of our humanity.”

 Frankl asserts that a core drive for humans is our search for meaning. He wrote from the perspective of life in the death camps. My experience is that in our lives we also find meaning in the antithesis of the horrors of the death camps, in those precious moments when we experience spiritual love.

 All of this comes to mind as I think about one of those spiritual moments that occurred a few days ago while hiking in a beautiful wash with my wife. We had gone deep into the wash and stopped to rest and listen to the quiet amongst huge boulders that had fallen many millennia ago. She was sitting across from me with the sun reflecting off the rocks giving her face a subtle red glow while the early afternoon sun highlighted her beautiful blond hair. In a scene that could only be described adequately by a poet, which I am not, she was, at that moment, the center of my world and my existence. The love that I feel for this woman after 25 years of marriage is deeply felt but indescribable. The moment passed and we began our walk back to the world, while I continued in the afterglow of my experience.

As we walked I recalled the letter to the editor I had written a few days earlier trying to address the sources of our sexual orientation. I asserted that sexual orientation is not a behavioral issue but it is rooted in our wonderful human encounter with love. Love, that mysterious indefinable process by which we become attracted to other humans and engage in relationships of emotional and physical intimacy, intimacy when at its best has a deep and profound spiritual quality. 

My letter drew the predictable responses online by some unable or uninterested in understanding my argument. The memory of those responses brought me back to another moment I experienced 15 years ago while working as a mental health counselor at an agency in Atlanta, Georgia. We provided services to predominantly young gay men and their families as they struggled with the prospect of premature death from complications related to AIDS. At the time there were no effective medications to counter the effects of this disease.

 During an emotionally intense counseling session with a young man, we were exploring aspects of our lives and our mutual experiences of romantic love. At one point he looked at me and said: “George, can you understand that the love that I feel for my partner is not different than that that you feel for your wife?”

 In that therapeutic moment, a moment of genuine human intimacy and meaning, the student became the teacher. Reflecting later, I came to understand that in that moment I was confronting the last vestiges of my own homophobia and this man who sat across from me in this quiet room facing his own death had invited me into Victor Frankl's  “community of our humanity.”

 As state legislatures consider the bills extending legal protections for gay and transgender couples, can they think beyond the narrow private sexual behavioral issues that dominate the debate to the more important issues of human relationships and love?