This is a compilation, some original work, some of which I have included in other diaries, put together for a writing submission that didn't go anywhere.
Day #1: It was a Sunday - a muggy, rainy day just like today – when I held my baby boy for the first time. He slipped into this world a little before 11:00, the last leg on his journey from wherever it is that the most beautiful souls begin.
He was a delightful fledgling, so sweet and pleasant, rarely cranky and, if a baby can be such a thing, intense. When something interested him, he would give all of his attention and hold nothing back. One of his life's passions has been music, and it was evident even then. If I close my eyes, I can still see him sitting in his car seat on the living room floor, eyes affixed to the TV as the theme song from "Law & Order" started playing. Lifting his head just a little, every bit of his body would quiver and slide around in that seat, wrists and ankles dancing and each pudgy finger and fat little piggy flexing over and over again.
From early on, The Boy has been one of the most resolute people I have ever known. He has always picked his passions carefully, and, having done so, he utterly devoured them - living, eating, breathing each one - until nothing was left and he could move on to the next one. His first passion was baseball (as opposed to his first obsessions, which were Scooby Doo and tractors), and he was magnificent.
The year he was born was the year that Ken Burns' "Baseball" premiered on PBS, and, although I was never a fan of any sport, I was enthralled with the series and the rich history of baseball. Somehow, I knew that my boy would love it, so I started watching and reading and falling in love even more with the sport. When I would watch the Phillies, he would sit next to me, those fingers and toes never keeping still, and one of the first games he and I played was sitting on the floor rolling and then tossing a plastic ball back and forth at each other.
By the time he was able to walk, he had a pretty good aim and rarely missed. Our back yard was fenced and not too large, but it was big enough to pretend there was a diamond there, and he and I would stand out there every day, practicing. By three, he had a professional-looking windup and could throw one of the most aesthetically pleasing curves I've ever seen. Sometimes, I even hit the ball, and he'd go charging after it and tag me out every time. When age begins to erase my memories, I pray that it spares those memories, the sight of his delivery and the intensity of his visage as he charged me with ball in glove as well as the sound of laughter when he succeeded.
My favorite picture of him is one which hangs on our living room wall. It was taken on the occasion of his fourth birthday, which we celebrated at a Reading Phillies game, and he is standing near the on-deck circle, waiting, a mitt on his right hand and his left picking nervously at it. Anyone with a birthday could be signed up to throw the first pitch, and there were maybe half a dozen others in attendance who were also celebrating that day. Being the youngest, he went first. When they announced him, he trotted out to the mound, his jeans all baggy and his towhead shining in the sun, and everyone in the stands chuckled as he had to be nudged to a spot a little closer to the catcher than 60 feet, 6 inches. Ambling up to where he was directed, he turned sideways and leaned in a bit, squinting those crystal blue eyes and sizing up the man behind the plate. Slowly, beautifully, he wound up and let it go.
The crowd hushed for just a second as that ball arced through the air and hit its target dead on. Cheers erupted, and, more satisfied than I've ever seen anyone before or since, my sweet, perfect little man looked up and smiled before trotting off the field into my waiting arms.
Day #2: Political canvassing is an experience that inspires many emotions, often conflicting ones. For example, there is joy: it's incredibly heartwarming to see the smiles on the faces of so many young people who see the Ruben Gallego shirt I'm wearing and brag that they already voted for him.
Then, there's frustration: Fuck everyone whose house already smells amazing at 11:00 in the morning and they don't invite an old broad in for some menudo.
Day #3: So, my new doctor has it in his head that 140/90 is a little high for my blood pressure and wants me to take my BP twice a day, but to do that, I have to find two times in each day where, in the preceding 30 minutes, I've not eaten, smoked, exercised OR had caffeine.
One out of four ain't bad, right?
According to our discussion about my blood pressure and blood work, my decision seems to be between gout and a heart attack. The diet to prevent one includes all the foods I am supposed to avoid to prevent the other. Clearly, his plan must be to help me avoid both by making my brain explode. But that’s my life, it seems: one big trade-off. In order to stay married to my best friend and be transitioned, I have had to give up all physical intimacy. She loves and affirms me; she just doesn’t want to touch me.
Day #4: I meant to write something today but instead sat down and watched a movie with Rhiannon about voiceover actors. Then, I spent the rest of the day reciting the first two stanzas of “The Raven” in different accents and voices. I could TOTALLY do that shit.
Day #5: I read a quote by Iowa senate candidate Joni Ernst that pissed me off and distracted me: "I will always protect a woman's access to reliable and affordable birth control. I think it's laughable that Congressman Braley is the one that's lecturing me on this. I'm a woman, and I have three beautiful daughters, and I just think when it comes to women's issues, I have an edge on women's issues."
The fuck you do. While it's conceivable that being born with a uterus could, possibly, give you an advantage in a debate about reproductive health issues, it's not the determining factor. One must possess a minimum level of empathy for all of the other humans born with a uterus in order to qualify for the edge about which you natter on.
Day #6: The little man was late. Our appointment at the office of Niagara Falls, New York, mayor Vincent Anello was for 2:00, and at 1:59, we had been sitting in the marble hallway of City Hall, waiting, for about ten minutes. Rather (and this would be quite typical of our union), you sat – patiently – while I paced, alternately bitching and moaning. The hallway remained largely empty, so I indulged myself by worrying aloud while you remained calm and quiet except for the occasional, “Yes, Dear.”
I hate when you say, “Yes, Dear.”
What were you thinking that day? I don’t believe I have ever asked you that question, but I have often wondered it. Normally, when I ask you what you’re thinking, the reply is the same: “Nothing.” I hate when you say that, too, because I still cannot believe that it’s possible for someone to think nothing. Just in the course of typing this sentence I have thought no less than twelve different things. That day, though, at that hour, you had to have at least one or two hamsters spinning on their wheels in there. Was it fear? Regret? Calculation? I’m sure I don’t know.
What I do know is that no bride who ever sat in that hallway -- or came to that town or stood by those falls -- was as exquisitely beautiful as you looked that afternoon. Was it all that you’d dreamed it would be, that moment? That’s another thought you’ve never shared with me.
It was about 2:05 when the door opened and we were ushered into the reception area. His secretary apologized with an excuse I don’t remember as she led us into Mayor Anello’s office. The room was large and full of light, his desk against the north wall, facing the falls, and he walked from behind it to greet us. His schedule was full that day, but he was so happy to have us there because, to him, being able to join two people in love was his favorite part of the job. We smiled at him and then at each other, unaware that his second favorite part of the job was receiving kickbacks. Then in his fourth and last year as mayor, he had been the subject of a federal investigation for most of his term that was triggered by a $40,000 “loan” he received from a developer whom he would later recommend for a no-bid contract with the city. But his ten-month prison sentence was still in the future, and that day, that afternoon, was reserved for marrying us.
The rite was brief: a short prologue, the recitation of the vows, the exchange of the rings, and then, with one kiss, the pronunciation of our union being legalized. In 19 years, this was the third time I had stood opposite a woman and pledged to forsake all others ‘til death did us part, and this, by far, was the tidiest of all three ceremonies.
We asked his secretary if she would mind taking a picture of us with the mayor. She was delighted to do so. The mayor was to your left and I was to your right and you held the simple white and blue bouquet that matched your outfit. The secretary snapped the first of a few pictures while you paused, the smile on your face tightening just for a second as you contemplated punching the little Sicilian standing next to you. Fortunately for us (and Mayor Anello), you figured out that it was my hand squeezing your butt when the photographer said, “Smile!”
The morning, like the entire day before, had been gloomy, alternating between torrential downpours and steady drizzle. Indeed, when we arrived at City Hall, the sky was still gray. As in the movies, though, when we descended the great cement steps, the sun shone brilliantly, yielding a perfect afternoon for taking pictures at the falls and bleeding into the glorious sunset we watched from the dining room atop the Minolta Tower. The day ended with fireworks over the falls and, if my memory serves me correct, as we walked along the river on the northern side of the American Falls, the sighting of a gang-tatted water rat who stood roughly four feet tall and weighed about 85 pounds in his birthday suit.
I turn as I write this and see you hunched over your laptop. It rests on a chipped and dented blonde Ikea coffee table and you stare at the screen, your lips drawn inward and pressed tightly together, your hand on the mouse while a “Harry Potter” movie, which was put in just to provide noise while you grade, distracts you and you lean back to catch a few minutes of it. Piled around you on that baby shit green sofa are a few dogs with whom I have increasingly less patience, and you are flanked by stacks of poster board geography assignments that have been sitting in our dining room for nearly a month now, waiting to be graded. Resting at your feet is a demented tan and white Pomeranian, her ears perked up and her beady eyes staring straight ahead, locked in on an empty-headed Russian Blue cat who takes a sip of water. In form, the dog resembles a mink stole my grandmother used to have, and, truly, she is about as smart as Nanna’s wrap. Spilling out of a sun dress of various blues, your pudgy little sausage toes sitting firmly on the dusty floor, you slowly lurch forward and click the mouse a few times and then lean back, your hand resting on a furry skull.
And I can’t help but think, “I love you.”
Day #7: When I speak to classes about being trans, I am usually asked about my faith. Sometimes, we discuss religion and certain types of denominational bigotry, and I like to point out how lucky the students are to have been born at this time in history. Then I mention this: if there is a God, and if He, at some point, may have had a problem with homosexuality but then changed His mind, how would He go about letting His people know? I believe that He would create an entire generation of people born understanding that we are ALL His children and ALL worthy of love and affirmation, whether we are straight, bi, gay, pan, asexual or wherever on the Kinsey scale we lie.
That generation is here, and with them comes the death knell for sexual bigotry. So, ask not for whom the bell tolls, conservative evangelical bigots: it fucking tolls for thee.
Day #8: "Texas' law sets out seven forms of approved ID — a list that includes concealed handgun licenses but not college student IDs, which are accepted in other states with similar measures."
SCOTUS needs more vaginas and fewer twats.
Day #9: They're not a hand job with satin gloves while lying on a fluffy cloud in the summer sunshine and being serenaded by Ella Fitzgerald, but the ribs at this joint come really fucking close.
Day #10: The day began with what felt like someone peeing the bed. I woke up, still a little disoriented in a new bedroom (the fourth in eight months), but it only took a few seconds to realize where I was and that you were on your way. Turning over, your mother was smiling, and I jumped out of bed. Would it be two hours? Four? Eight? Twenty? Whichever number it turned out to be, one thing was certain: I would be holding my second daughter in my arms very shortly.
We rushed to the hospital and began our wait. At that time, one could still smoke in hospitals, albeit in tiny, tucked-away corners, and I spent a good part of the morning riding the elevator between the Labor and Delivery floor and the floor with the supply closet they let expectant fathers smoke in.
At some point, I remember walking up to your aunt's apartment - I don't remember for what - and when I was walking back down the hill to the hospital, a woman came running out onto a front porch, crying for help. I was right there, so it's not like I could avoid her (yeah, I'm as empathetic as the next person, but I had a wife rapidly dilating just a block away). Following her into the house, the problem jumped right out at me…literally.
The woman had been cleaning someone's house and she accidentally let his cat out of the basement. A more foul-tempered creature I had never come across, and this beast was hissing and growling, it's back arched, hair bristling, and tail straight up into the air. It was as if someone's Halloween cookie cutter had sprung to life and the first item on its bucket list was to maul anyone in sight. Not wanting to seem like a dick, I circled the room a few times to make the first of three wildly unsuccessful attempts at corralling Attack Kitty. The second attempt brought me closer to the little spaz, and, worse still, the third attempt brought it closer to me. That's when I offered a running apology as I raced out the front door. Looking back, nothing could have prepared me more for being your parent than the combination of adrenaline rush and fear I felt that warm summer afternoon.
As it was, the winning number was "eight", Mommy's water having broken at 8:00 AM and you bursting forth at 4:08 that afternoon, rip, shit, or bust. It's been pretty much that way with you ever since.
As with all of your siblings, Life has not been easy for you, and I know this. Your mother and I had what, at best, could be described as a tempestuous marriage, and just when things might have been working out, she got sick. A better parent might have known how to handle that - any many other things - but you weren't blessed with a better parent; instead, you were stuck with me.
I marveled, though, at your bravery, and I still do. There was one night in particular that stands out. It was the first week of August, and you were eight. I had been in Lewisburg all day, working for the paving company, and when I got home around 7:30/8:00, there was an ambulance at the house along with Grandma and Pop-Pop and you and your brother and sister. Mommy had taken a turn for the worse and she was on her way back down to Jefferson. I pulled into the garage and walked out onto that little patio. There I stood, dirty, sweaty, and crying. James was too young to know what was going on, but everyone else had tears in their eyes, too, and you...you pushed through and gave me a hug and told me that everything was going to be OK.
You were right then, and I have lost track of how many times you have been right since.
Lost from my mind is the exact number of fights we've had or the times we have both resolved to write the other one off. But they all passed, those moments, and I would like to think that what has been left each time has been a stronger and definitely more honest relationship. The fear I felt at being molested by that vicious cat was real - and so was the fear I felt as I held you that evening and stared at that perfect round face. I didn't know what the hell I was supposed to do, but, fortunately, somehow, you always have. You have, from little on up, been the one with an answer, a solution. And if it was somehow not the correct one for that particular issue, well, you had a half dozen more which would surely work. One thing has always been certain: you were never going to give up.
As I was looking through your baby book, an ATM receipt fell out. The print is faded a bit, but you can see that it's date-stamped for the day you were born. Somewhere in the garage, I also have the Time magazine I bought to read that day as well as the newspaper from that morning. These are tucked away along with pretty much all of your elementary school papers. When I hold that receipt in my hand, it becomes a tiny portal, a window to a moment in space-time when all the good and bad was yet to be, and all that we had was anticipation and fear. I read that receipt and taste the coffee I bought, the cigarettes I smoked, and I feel every bit of joy and wonder you have brought to my life each day since.
Day #11: “'We live in a corrupt world, and until the Lord comes back, it’s going to be difficult to live in it,' (Pat Robertson) concluded."
Of course, this begs the question: If the world is so sexually corrupt, why hasn't the Son of Man hastened his appointment to smite us? Maybe he's busy searching for "13 men alone on a boat" on Tumblr.
Day #12: Trying to write on days I masturbate is pointless.
Day #13: This past January, the furies were unleashed on Katie Couric, Piers Morgan, and the general public at large, Couric and Morgan being seen as a poster children for the ignorance, bigotry, etc., of the non-trans community. The online indignation was over an interview Couric did with transgender stars Carmen Carrera and Laverne Cox and one that Morgan did with writer/editor Janet Mock. At the center of the controversy was limited questioning about the surgical phase of their transitioning. Immediately, issue was taken with whether non-trans people have a right to be interested and curious about all phases of transition, including one of the most profound aspects of it, gender affirmation surgery.
From Salon.com to Transadvocate to Mother Jones to myriad other news sites, stories seething with anger and judgment, accusing Couric and Morgan (and, by extension, all non-trans people) of transphobia and objectification and a host of other mortal crimes began to appear, and, by and large, all of the comments to these stories were affirming of the slander against Couric (and, by extension, all non-trans people) and the lionization of Carrera, Cox, and Mock.
Well, almost all of the comments.
There are some of us in the trans community who genuinely do not understand the demonization of people who are finally trying to understand us. I have engaged in electronic debate with quite a few people in the past few days, and we seem to be standing on opposite ends of a huge gulf, and I have been accused of intolerance of those more unwilling than I am to share details of their transition story. But openness versus privacy is not what I think the real issue is, and that debate is secondary to the real problem, which is the attitude that many people have regarding people’s curiosity about the transgender experience.
I believe people have a right to be curious and to ask questions, and it seems that most others do not.
In an article on Huffington Post entitled "The Fatal Transgender Double Standard," transgender activist Brynn Tannehill wrote (in response to the Katie Couric thing): "Is there societal acceptance of someone who beats a woman when he finds out she's a quarter Jewish? Are men required to tell if they're circumcised? Women have to announce if they're had a clitoral hood piercing? Is it self-defense if you murder your boyfriend because you found out he's not a gold star gay like you? How about throwing your girlfriend off a balcony when you find out she identified as bisexual before she identified as a lesbian?"
How do you go from a few banal questions about a step in the transition process to this? The asking - and honest answering - of these questions is neither objectifying nor disempowering, and open, carefully crafted answers will always go a long way towards helping people truly understand the process. While I agree that the decision to answer that question is wholly an individual's (though I personally don't understand the reluctance), I also believe it's incredibly hypocritical to try and take away another person's right to want to know. Not answering doesn't make somebody a hero (nor does answering), and asking doesn't make one a villain.
This is the only birth defect I know of where the affected have to fight tooth and nail to be believed, but when someone does believe, I seem to diverge from the mainstream in thinking they deserve a little leeway on their journey to understanding. We tend to forget, most of us having struggled with these feelings all of our lives, just how foreign the concept of disconnect between body and programmed gender identity is to people who aren't trans, and it really seems like many of us assume that that foreignness is somehow intentional, is malicious, and we accuse people of thought crimes in an attempt to reclaim...I don't know...what are we reclaiming? It can't be our dignity, because I think the crosses onto which this community has ascended in the last few days have taken that away far more than innocent transition-related questions.
I became involved in many online arguments over this "scandal," and I met with far more disagreement with my opinions than assent. We take ourselves way too seriously sometimes. Maybe it's because, so many times, an extended hand has swatted at us, so we don't trust the hands that are just reaching out to hold on. I don't know. I do know, though, that we need to extend what we demand – understanding – and we are not doing that right now.
I may be in a minority here, but I have read all of the articles praising Laverne, Carmen, and Janet, and each makes me feel that all of this outrage from allies is some sort of an overcompensation. Advocacy groups and much of the LGB community have been seen for a long time as keeping us at arm's length, and now everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon to reverse that, and it feels like they are swinging the pendulum a little too far in the opposite direction.
But back to the central issue at hand: should asking about our surgical state (pre- or post-) be off limits?
Transitioning is a deeply personal experience, but it's not done in a vacuum. Whether I talk about it or not, anyone who knows me knows exactly what's involved. They know that, at some point, Lord willing and the creek don't rise, I'm going to undergo major reconstructive surgery. It will be expensive, extensive, and painful, and, next to the social transition process, it is, by far, the most traumatic part of this whole journey. Leaving it out of the storytelling is like cutting vital whole chapters from a very intriguing book. (Read “East of Eden” and then watch the 1955 film version; you will understand what I mean.)
Eleven years ago, there was an HBO movie (a play adaptation) made named "Normal." It starred Tom Wilkinson and Jessica Lange as a couple who journey through the husband's transition. Hayden Panetierre played their daughter, and there is an incredibly well-done scene where her character (who is very affirming of her father) is explaining vaginoplasty to her friends at a sleepover. It was neither sensationalized nor pandering nor objectifying, but it explained something so complex in a few seconds in such a brilliant way. Why did the writers of that play include that scene? Because it is important. Because knowledge is important. It took the question off the table, and I firmly believe that a lot of tables are going to have to be cleared before we reach the next level of understanding.
Many of the commenters to the stories I read have suggested that, if Katie Couric and others wanted to know about genital reconstruction surgery, they should “look it up on the Internet” or “read a book.” Those are very valuable resources, provided that all someone wants to know is technical information about creating a vagina or forming a penis and scrotum. Many people, however, simply wish to know how it felt (or how does it feel) to have such disconnect between our genitalia (which, like it or not, are extremely important and powerful parts of our bodies; thus, the outrage) and our minds, the sense at our core of who we really are. Central to the answer to that question, that desire to understand, is information about our genitals, and we can either remove the question by answering it or shame the questioner, and they will only gain that knowledge by someone taking the time so have a conversation about it.
When I first transitioned, I was so conscientious about how I looked that I figured I was “obvious,” easily readable. I decided it would be easiest to deal with that by just outing myself when I met people so as to answer the question (“Is she?”) and move on. There have sometimes been more questions, but I could control that. I took ownership of every encounter. When I talk to people now about my transitioning (which I do all the time), what I have and don't have going on down there is always central to my story because it's central to my experience. By addressing it, however, I make it a non-issue, and I will never be convinced that, in the end, that doesn't help people to understand more easily than being enigmatic would.
I read a line by someone expressing condemnation about people just being interested in “the plumbing.” Well, plumbing is fucking important. It's actually pretty huge (no pun intended). I am fortunate enough to be married to a woman who has been by my side since before I started to transition. She loves and affirms who I am, no matter what. But her life - our sex life, our intimacy - is forever changed by the fact that medicine I take to transition has atrophied and weakened my "manhood." That's a big part of our journey together, and it informs much of our lives.
If and when I am able to get vaginoplasty, what I have in my pants will be fundamentally changed. Now, my wife is as straight as straight can be – unrepentantly and irreversibly straight. When I have a vagina, will she even be able to look at me? Will we ever be able to function as a loving, intimate couple? That's a HUGE part of my story, and I think about that in one form or another every day of my life. If anyone wants to understand what THIS is like, they have to understand that, as well. Likewise, if I were single and fell in love with a straight man (or a lesbian), the equipment with which I am currently endowed would be rather important barrier to intimacy.
These are not salacious facts; they are just facts, and they are important.
And then there are issues from minor to major that go along with my genitalia. They inform how I am able to dress (tights, yoga pants, bathing suits), how I sit (will shirts or dresses be long enough), how I will be treated if, God forbid, I am ever arrested, how some unenlightened ER doc will treat the surprise when doing a full body survey.
What is in my panties isn't simply sexual; it's experiential, it's a basic part of my life. If I'm going to talk about being trans, I'm going to talk about that.
Someone accused me of being jealous of Carrera and Cox based on my not praising them and my saying that they do not represent the average trans woman (and saying that that they represent us in the same way Gwyneth Paltrow represents the average genetic woman). “Who is the average trans woman?” I was asked. I had not really thought of that, and while I am no expert at any of this, I do believe I have an idea who she is.
The average trans woman is best typified by the slightly frazzled woman you see who is constantly paranoid about the shadow on her face, the timbre of her voice, the size of her (obviously gargantuan, she is certain) hands and feet. She had to settle for using the three-week-old razor at home in the shower and just barely managed to shave this morning before throwing on something from Goodwill that she hopes covers up her Adam's apple, throwing it on even though she wore it three days ago and there is a huge coffee stain on it. It was picked because it was the only thing that matched and would be long enough to cover up the junk she has no hopes of being able to afford getting rid of anytime in the near future.
She is scared and exhilarated at the same time; frightened of the always real threat of violence and scorn, exhilarated at finally being herself; frightened of the monthly obligatory phone call from home where, if she forgets to lower her voice, she is met with icy silence, exhilarated that she even has that problem; frightened to fall in love and having to explain her unexpected surprise, exhilarated that someone finally called her beautiful. She is scraping to get by and has not been able to afford electrolysis or laser hair removal or a decent wardrobe, much less the essential surgery that discriminatory insurance practices prevent her from getting. She has lost her natal family but has created a new one who loves and accepts her completely.
She is proud of what she’s gone through, and if you buy her a cup of coffee, she just might tell you all about it.
Day #14: "Vatican court head Cardinal Raymond Burke took his opposition to gay marriage to a new low in an interview with LifeSite News on Wednesday, calling same-sex relations 'intrinsically disordered' and dangerous for children to be exposed to."
Gay relationships are intrinsically disordered? I wonder how many women the good cardinal interacts with on a daily basis who are symbolically married to the phantom of a Galilean mystic who last walked this earth over two millennia ago.
Day #15: I read a story about an inmate in Texas, a man with severe mental illness. The state was given the green light to move forward with his execution. As it is practiced here in the US, capital punishment is designed to be the ultimate penalty in a free society, meted out with deep regret only after the most careful deliberation has determined that the crime committed by a defendant meets a predetermined standard of depravity or callousness for which the state has declared death to be the only true form of justice; but this isn't capital punishment: it's extermination.
Poor fucker should have thought twice about being insane in a pro-life state.
Day #16: He pulls up to the side of the house. There is a front door, but its use seems to be only to determine if a stranger is calling. Friends and family use the door into the kitchen off the side porch, which is covered, unlike the one at the front of the house. The old man is driving a rather plain, beat-up four-door sedan that is 20 years old if it is a day. Cruising speed is about 25 miles an hour, which may anger you if you happen to be behind him, but given his level of inebriation, you are only thankful he keeps to that crawl.
The engine quiets. Extracting himself from the car is an ordeal, not necessarily because he has had too much to drink (he has; and when you learn why, you find yourself excusing his alcoholic habit). The heavy driver’s side door opens. Very slowly, the man begins the process of turning his body so that his legs, short and fat, clear the door frame and his feet touch the ground. He takes a short break before a sharp inhale and putting all his weight on the door and standing up. The process is painful to watch, and one is tempted to think he has had too much.
Then you see the hands.
It is not the several beers he had at the fire company (or tap room or legion or club hall) that slow him down. Osteo-, rheumatoid, and gouty, his body has been attacked by all three of the most common forms of arthritis. Each of his ten fingers is permanently bent, their joints constantly swelling with calcium, and they must regularly be tapped. The assault does not stop there, as is apparent when you see his elbows, which are puffed out. His gait is a shuffle, necessitated by the state of his knees and ankles, and he begins the long walk up his short sidewalk.
A few minutes later, he has gotten himself into his small kitchen. His wife, in a plain housedress and apron, is found at the stove, and she turns towards the sink to finish removing the cooled leaves from a parboiled head of cabbage. Immediately to the right of the doorway is a table, only big enough for the two of them, and he lumbers around to the other side, falling into the worn wooden chair as he asks her to get him a beer.
Today, now that we are grown and he is gone, we kid about how he had to hold that bottle of Schmidt’s by bringing his gnarled hands together, the fingers nearly at a right angle, grasping the bottle as best as he could before lifting it to his mouth.
A square plastic radio is on the counter behind him, and he turns to push the “on” button, just in time for you to hear, “That ball is OUTTA HERE! Home run, Michael Jack Schmidt!” The smells come alive in my mind - an open bottle of ice cold beer, stuffed cabbage simmering in a pot along with home-canned tomato sauce. They are locked in there, imprinted, as is the voice of Harry Kalas, perennial play-by-play man for the Phillies, whose words form the background noise of most family memories.
The arthritic man is my Uncle Steve, Pista bácsi (PEESH-ta BOTCH-y) in Hungarian, the language of his youth, the language we kids love to hear them speak, especially when any two of them are arguing. He is one of my grandmother’s three natural younger brothers, sandwiched between Uncle Gus and Uncle Charlie. Gus was also an alcoholic, but his dependence was stronger and far more devastating than Steve’s, and it would kill him before I had been old enough to have any real memory of him.
Steve was a jack of all trades, and besides being a building contractor and working a factory job at the Dana plant, he supervised the pouring of concrete sidewalks. After concrete has partially dried, you have to take a type of trowel called a float and work it over the still-damp sidewalk, bringing a slurry to the surface. One of the final, and most expert, steps is to take a steel trowel across the concrete, smoothing it out. To do this well, one must vibrate the trowel a little, working the entire slab until it looks perfect.
Gus worked for Steve, and this was one of Gus’s jobs, primarily because, in the morning, before he had his first drink of the day, Gus’s hands shook in a way that made him an artist with the trowel. When a sidewalk looked perfect, Steve would give his older brother a few bucks to go get a drink to get rid of the shakes.
It was in the living room of Steve’s house one March Sunday that I would meet his half-brother, my Uncle Frank. It was the spring of 1978, soon before I turned 11, and the occasion was Frank’s return to the family after 30 years of self-imposed exile. As he would tell me, he had driven to Pennsylvania from California for the express purpose of re-establishing contact, but he turned around when his nerves failed him and made the trip back to California, returning soon after. He checked into a motel and, going through the phone book, called his brother Steve.
What I remember most about that meeting was that he began then and there with what, in retrospect, was flirting with me. My preference had always been to be around and talk with adults, so I was not uncomfortable talking with him. When I look back, I try and remember what it might have been that let him know that I would be the perfect victim for him. Was it my beauty? Was it my femininity? Was it the way I must have seemed like the outsider among my siblings? I try and remember, as well, whether I understood what he was thinking about me.
Our conversation was largely unmemorable. What has stuck with me was that I pointed out to him that he looked like Jack Benny. “How do you know who that is?” he asked, and I explained that I loved old movies and entertainers and that Jack Benny was one of my favorites.
Soon after, he visited us at our home. We lived about an hour from where my parents grew up and I had been born, having moved there two years earlier when my father entered the seminary. We walked the grounds of the seminary as I showed him around, and we talked about my family, my place in it, and he asked me if I had any girlfriends. He kidded me about how pretty I was.
Frank made several trips back and forth from California that year, attending our annual family reunion over Labor Day weekend and then returning for Thanksgiving. We normally celebrated Thanksgiving with my father’s parents, and that year there was one more at the table when I invited Frank to join us. At some point, I wonder if either of my parents began to think about how much attention Frank was paying to their son. Out of a large extended family, he had taken to making sure that we (I) were on the short list of people he made sure to visit every time he came back east. But we don’t talk about that, ever. Apart from one muggy Saturday afternoon in the summer of 1981, they would never willingly discuss anything about me and Frank after I was molested.
There is a picture of my mother, my siblings, and me with Frank taken on Christmas Eve in my grandparents’ living room, and my arm is around him. He was a rather handsome man, with fading brown hair that came to a widow’s peak at the top of his well-tanned face. His hands were callused from years of all kinds of hard labor, and his voice was on the soft side and buttery smooth. Frank had two full sisters and one full brother, and their voices all had a similar velvety quality. I was too young to remember their mother’s voice, but when I imagine it, it is a combination of all of their voices.
I was 11, and, if I say so myself, a rather pretty young boy. Definitely, I was a very naive, needy, lonely, lost little boy, too. In a span of six years, my parents had three children, and I am right in the middle, between an older sister (Daddy's girl) and younger brother (the golden child - funny, smart, into sports like Dad). Me? I was the son my father had to threaten with smacking one day if I didn't stop standing with my wrist in a too-limp-for-comfort fashion as I was talking.
In November 1979, instead of the usual car or pickup truck, Frank drove across the country towing a silver camper. Of all his visits, this was the first time he had brought along anything like this. Normally, he would just stay in a motel or with family. But Frank didn't have anything routine in mind this time.
Why would my parents have allowed their two sons to sleep in a trailer with a man they barely knew (uncle or not)? I still can't figure that one out. It escapes me whether or not my brother was as excited as I was about the whole thing, but I was thrilled. It was a Friday night, and I knew, I think, what was going to happen.
The camper had two beds, perpendicular to each other. As you walked in, one bed was on the left, and one was along the other wall, so that your feet were almost touching the door. My brother was on the bed to the left, and Frank and I were on the other one. It was at some point after my brother was asleep, Frank turned to me and kissed me. It was as natural as can be, I suppose. I have read enough about rape victims, about the out-of-body experiences they try to have, about their minds feeling numb, about their trying to be somewhere - anywhere - else while it's going on. I felt none of that; I was IN this moment. To this day, I can still close my eyes and feel my body against his, feel what it was like to be kissed by - and to kiss - him. It was not anything foreign or unwanted - at least at that moment. There would be moments later like that, but not on that night.
This wasn't the first time I had kissed someone. At 10 and 11, I used to make out routinely with a neighbor boy down the street, and we would lie naked and kiss as often as possible as well as touch each other all over. I knew even at that age that I enjoyed being with another boy. But to be with a man? This was a completely different world, and I was so taken in by our difference in size. He was probably what I would consider short today, but at that time, he was so big, and I melted into his arms, and when he reached down and touched me, I was already hard.
And I probably will never forget the feeling of his naked body against mine that first time. I have vague memories of having touched his erect penis through his pants before this, but this was the first time I was WITH a man, and I didn't feel that it was wrong. We kissed and touched for I don't know how long, and then he turned himself around and put me inside of him. I was 12 and had already discovered the magic of masturbation, but this was totally different; this was being connected with someone else who made me feel that he wanted to be connected with me, and I fell for that feeling, and for him.
Day #17: And while some things are always the same (it's always depression, it's always going to be there, it's always unpredictable), the thing itself is always changing. What might push you over the edge today might not push you over tomorrow - but you can rest assured that something will. What plunges you to the lowest depths today might only be a hiccup next week. Depression is evil in its unpredictable predictability.
It's like a snowball rolling down a hill, picking up bits and pieces of everything in its path, and that's the worst of the worst parts: whatever it picks up never, ever goes away. If a dark thought springs up that is new, then that thought will always be part of your depressive repertoire. Eventually, you just become overwhelmed with all the details.
Day #18: My lungs most likely too careworn to be marketable, I'm wondering if anyone wishes to negotiate for a kidney - either one. By all accounts and to the best of my knowledge, they are in mintish condition. Other spare parts are available, as well: a spleen, half a liver, tendons, sinew, cartilage, an overabundance of adipose tissue (likely enough to burn several lanterns for days), all at fair market value. Aside from the lungs, also unavailable is the sphincter, to which Karma has seen fit to roughly and rhythmically apply a girthy, spiked truncheon.
Day #19: I read a story about a pregnant woman organizing a boycott of the entire Starbuck’s chain because one employee at one store wouldn’t let her use the bathroom without purchasing something. One dickish barista and she's calling for a boycott? They could yank my child from the womb and sell it into slavery, and still, the most I'd probably do is just drink my white chocolate mocha with a scowl.
Day #20: Yesterday, I read a post from a Facebook friend about how she avoided giving to people by the side of the road or in parking lots who were asking for charity. Her friends let loose with a series of comments trashing the poor and desperate, each one more callous than the other. This was my reply.
I don’t understand.
I don’t understand how anyone can believe the things that I read in all of your comments. That these thoughts were shared in response to the Facebook post of your friend leads me to believe that each of you was being honest, and my heart is heavy with what you had to say.
We have all seen them, standing in a parking lot or on a corner at a busy intersection, sign in hand telling of their plight and asking for help. Few communities are free of people in this situation, forced to have to ask anyone they can find for help. I have seen them, and because, like most people, I don’t carry cash, I haven’t given; instead, I have just turned my face in shame to avoid meeting their gaze. (I will change that because of what I read today. Thank you.)
I don’t understand.
I don’t understand, but I would like to know if you have ever lost everything. As well, I would like to also know if you have a solution to a math problem I can’t seem to figure out. You see, there are only a finite number of jobs out there and a larger number of people out of work who might be qualified for them. When you factor in the number of jobs for which many of these people aren’t qualified, what do you get? I don’t know, either. (I suck at math.) But I see a problem. Do you see it? I wonder if you thought about that problem when you typed, “I've seen those people(.) I told the woman standing in Walmart parking lot to walk inside get a a (sic) job just like the rest of us do. Lol(.)” The “Lol” at the end kind-of made me sick, by the way. I mean, do you really find whatever might have happened to this woman funny?
Many of you seem convinced that all of the people baking in the sun or soaking in the rain or freezing in the snow are there because they are lazy or dishonest. “We have all thought the same thing when seeing someone who "might" need help. Back in the day we knew most of the people in our towns, at least I did…so helping others out was so much easier. There are so many agencies any of these people could go to for help today there is no reason for them to solicit money in a parking lot.” I wonder if you have ever had so little that you had to use one of the “so many agencies” to which you refer. Have you ever had to navigate the bureaucratic maze involved with getting any kind of government assistance? Have you actually researched what opportunities for help really are available? There aren’t as many as you think, and the number is shrinking. Not only is there not enough money available, access to it is not as simple as you might think.
One of the most popular back-to-work/retraining assistance programs in Pennsylvania has been cut so much that many of the locations to which people could easily get have shuttered their doors, and without a car or public transportation, many are physically unable to even begin the process. It’s not just in PA, either; this is happening everywhere. I point this out because I want to believe that, if you knew, you might try to not seem so callous.
"’Are there no prisons?’
"’Plenty of prisons...’
"’And the Union workhouses.’ demanded Scrooge. ‘Are they still in operation?’
"’Both very busy, sir...’
"’Those who are badly off must go there.’
“’Many can't go there; and many would rather die.’
"’If they would rather die,’ said Scrooge, ‘they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.’”
I also want to believe you didn’t realize that is how you sound.
The same goes for you, too. “I believe that there are enough federal and state assistance programs available for all those who need it. Recent statistics show that a person can make more money on assistance than working full time on minimum wage in PA. I recommend these people seek the many services available - I feel no guilt by passing them by as I say a short prayer for their well-being.” As with many things in this world, just because you believe it to be doesn’t make it so. The fact is that there are NOT enough federal and state assistance programs. Furthermore (again), the ones that do exist don’t have enough money to go around.
For the sake of argument, I will assume that we can all agree on one thing: there is a problem. Something is wrong somewhere that leads to these people standing there and making all of us uncomfortable, and it would be for the benefit of everyone if we could find a solution. I bet we both agree that your statistic about assistance vs a minimum-wage income is disturbing. I can’t say for sure what your beef with that is, but mine is that we expect anyone to live on the current minimum wage. There is an entrenched reluctance among those on the right to fix that, and I have yet to hear an objection that doesn’t crumble under the weight of logic. In the meantime, there are people crumbling under the weight of economic injustice and crippling poverty.
One more observation: if you’re going to pray for the people you ignore, your supplication would be more meaningful if you were willing to accept that you might be the answer God provides.
I don’t understand.
I don’t understand, but I have a feeling you don’t either. “As they say give a man a fish and he can eat for a day, teach a man a (sic) fish and he can eat for a lifetime. I'll bet if you offered them free financial counceling (sic) they wouldn't take you up on it. When we lived in Philadelphia, my husband gave a homeless man this jacket as it was very cold. Next day my husband saw said man without a coat and he had a bottle!!!!” Wait…what? Your platitude about fish doesn’t make any sense. It’s not the first time I’ve heard it, and it didn’t make sense then, either. You might as well advocate against Band-Aids, lest people unlucky enough to cut themselves avoid learning how not to bleed. We are trying to teach people to fish, but what are they to do when there aren’t enough fish to go around? Last time I checked, it’s been about 2000 years since someone was able to do piscatorial multiplication. Until he returns, what's your solution?
I am reminded of the job retraining facilities I mentioned above, one in particular that was closed a while ago. At the same time, many of the people who used that facility were evicted because no one stepped in to avoid the sale of their apartment complex (the only public housing complex in town) so that it could be converted to student housing. Many people, some working minimum-wage jobs, some out of work but trying to use the assistance programs available, were tossed out on the street with nowhere to go. Exactly what type of “financial counceling” (sic) are you betting they would turn down? The suggestion is not only condescending, it’s ridiculous.
I don’t understand.
I don’t understand where these attitudes come from. Well, I didn’t until I read this. “My kids come first, and that means when I am with them I do not stop for people like that. When I am alone, I may give them some food, or tell them where to find a job. But that is it.” The “people like that” are you. The “people like that” are me. The “people like that” are all of us, and, you know, one day they may be those kids you choose to keep hidden from the realities of this world.
I looked at your profile, and I saw the picture of the cross and the memes about faith and “One nation under God,” so I will assume you’re a Christian. Let me remind you of what the namesake for your faith had to say in St. Matthew’s gospel about the coming of the Son of Man. I am not a believer, myself, but I recognize a good command when I read one.
“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’”
(By the way, I looked; he said nothing at all about the Pledge of Allegiance.)
I don’t understand.
I don’t understand why you automatically assume the worst. The other day, I volunteered at a facility for homeless veterans. There were at least 40 that evening (though most evenings see more than that) who came for a meal and who avail themselves of the services the facility offers. All served in our armed forces, and all have been (or still are) in the streets. Some are mentally ill, and there are so many of them that there is no way that the system can keep up with them. Some of them at one point had as much as you and I, and, for as many reasons as there were people there, they lost it all.
What they all had in common was that none of them planned for their lives to end up this way. Life happened to them, and if you don't think that it can happen to you, if you think it impossible that you might one day be in the same situation and have to rely on the empathy of a stranger, you are mistaken. I am not a believer, but even I understand that there, but for his grace, go I.
Day #21: It was a wintry spring night, with slush on the ground, and the first-floor bedroom, an add-on with walls barely thicker than its '70s-era paneling, was the least comfortable room in the house. The nightly film of frost had begun to form on the windows, and the curtains occasionally moved from the breeze which barged in through the gaps around the window frames. It was so cold, neither of the dogs - Kozzy, the Rottweiler-Chow mix with the purest heart of any dog I've ever known, and Scooby-Doo, an irascible Chihuahua with an extra chromosome for dickheadedness - would stay in the room for very long. I sat at the computer desk, which just fit in the larger of the room's two closets, scrolling through AOL very slowly while your mother was in the adjacent powder room. We knew what the result would be - we just knew it - but we wanted to confirm it with the test Mommy had hidden in her purse earlier so that your nosy sisters wouldn't see it
When she pushed the accordion-style door to the powder room aside, the smile said it all. In her belly, no bigger than the head of a pin, was the tiny blastocyst that would become you. We both cried and laughed and jumped around. A baby!! Woohoo!!
It was late, and your brother and sisters were in bed, but we wanted to share this joy with someone, so we left a note for your siblings, bundled up, and drove the few miles to the two people we knew would be awake and would be as excited as we were, the couple who would become your godparents.
By the time you arrived later that year, 7:20 PM on the day after Thanksgiving, so much had changed. We had moved out of that drafty house in August to a much larger place (my favorite of all of the homes where we have lived), and it wasn't too long before your birth that your room was finally finished, thanks to Auntie Jen. It was Winnie the Pooh, and, looking back, I don't think we could have picked a more fitting theme for you. It's from a Winnie the Pooh story that we get, "A little consideration, a little thought for others, makes all the difference." What quote could better describe the way you look at the world?
Well, this one comes pretty close: "If the person you are talking to doesn't appear to be listening, be patient. It may simply be that he has a small piece of fluff in his ear." Sometimes, you have a lot of fluff in those cute little ears
That first Christmas with you was magical, and I am not convinced that you didn't, all by your little self, create that magic (a feat of which I have suspected you to be guilty for all of your life). Everybody was there - Mommy, me, your brother and sisters, Aunt Kate for a little bit, Uncle David and Uncle John, Grandpa (his last Christmas), Nanna, Aunt Kate's family. The house was brimming with joy, and the blizzard that began mid-morning just made it all the more perfect. It was the stuff of Christmas carols and oft-told tales, and at the center of it all was the little girl who wouldn't stop smiling
You grew that year as if it were a race and you were determined to set a record. It seemed as if I turned around for just a second, and there you were climbing out of your playpen and standing on the coffee table, dancing along to the Wiggles. Try as we might, we could not keep you from taking center stage. After a while, we just gave up
Before we knew it, you were two, and by then, Mommy and I had split up for the first time. We tried the best we could to make it as seamless as possible, and, looking back, I think we did pretty well. I don't remember you at this stage as being anything besides the giggliest, silliest, most lovable little girl. You loved to sing, especially once you had discovered "Annie". Mommy and I both needed to have a copy of the Broadway soundtrack in our cars, and every one of us had memorized the songs. It's still my favorite musical. The "Annie" stage was over too soon, and, as I look back over time threads that seem to have stretched impossibly thin, it seems both like yesterday and a million years ago. Then there was the puzzle stage: a solid month where anyone who sat in the living room with you had to help you put together a stack of puzzles for hours and hours. These were followed by countless other stages (including the short-lived but frightening "trying to climb out the second-story window" stage).
And suddenly, we're here, at the "Holy Shit, You're A Young Woman!" stage, and I don't know where the last twelve years have gotten to. You have had to endure so many things, Munchkin, but you have endured them well. I want to say that I wish none of them had happened, but I stop myself. You have taken control of each of those situations, my Love, and you have allowed them not only to not crush you, but, with each one, you have become stronger and fiercer. Please believe me when I tell you that you are the bravest person I have ever known.
But as much as I fall in love each day with the woman you are becoming (future President, I'm sure of it), I miss the little girl who used to pad along the upstairs hallway early in the morning. I would hear her bony little butt slide down the first few steps before she would stop and peer through the railing at me. Every morning, it was the same: she would sit there, trying not to giggle. Slowly, I would turn and jump out of my seat in surprise, and that baby girl, that beautiful, shiny soul, would erupt with peals of belly laughs. It was to that soundtrack she would scooch her butt down the rest of those steps, run across the room, and leap into my heart.