Changes in the weather

In the image, Me and John, Kim and her baby Kate.

Changes in the weather

I love autumn and dislike autumn at the same time. The clear air, void of haze and humidity and the brilliant light take me to back to happy times. John and I became an item in the fall. I felt renewed and complete once that happened. I was able to cope with the suicide of my friend Kim because John was there for me. Kim killed herself on October 29, 1992 and that event officially closed a significant chapter in my life and was the preamble to another.

When the light changes and the air clears my mind turns to Kim and John, two people I have been closest to in my life and both gone. In a way, both gone by choice whether rational or irrational, but both gone, and what’s left, a void. In both cases when they died, I wondered if I’d ever be able to cope with and reconcile the holes left in my life. I really haven’t, those holes never fill in you just learn not to tumble into them.

Last night I got to wondering about Heaven and meeting back up with John there. I wondered if he’d be there as a 35 year old man, the age he was when he died. I wondered what his reaction would be to me, a man greater in years than 46; or would our reunion transcend age and be a reunion of soul and spirit? I thought about Kim and if Heaven would bring mental clarity and peace or if she’d be even more damaged by regret and pain.

I suppose my prayer is that my reunion with both is just one of joy and peace and a homecoming of happy soul and spirit. I long desperately to tell them both so much and as a matter of fact that is one of my recurring dreams.

I reunite with John and we’re at the Parade, a club in New Orleans. I have so much to tell him, but he doesn’t speak or want to speak, he just wants to hold me and dance. The light is crisp pouring through the windows, brilliant and autumn clear, the music thumps and we dance. We dance in New Orleans a place of exuberant happy memories and warmth and that’s it. Well hopefully... perhaps.

I am ashamed to be a North Carolinian

RALEIGH, N.C. — The North Carolina House of Representatives will decide Monday whether to put a ban on same-sex marriage before voters next year, Speaker Thom Tillis said.

The General Assembly reconvened at noon, and a House committee quickly agreed to bring the measure to the floor. The bill would allow voters to decide whether to change the state constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman.
Thom Tillis said he expected the measure to pass with the required three-fifths vote — or 72 representatives — of the House, which would mean some Democrats joined the Republican majority in voting for the measure. The House must vote yes twice before it can move on to the Senate.
Voters could see it on the ballot during the May primary election. (WRAL Sept. 12, 2011)

So how do I respond to this without becoming emotional? When across the south Jim Crow Laws were on the books abridging the rights of African Americans; people in favor of those laws believed that they were right and in many instances would have laid down their lives to defend the indefensible. Now the State legislature in North Carolina stands all but ready to turn the abrogation of rights, of a segment of the population, over to popular vote. I am sure that large sections of the population will indeed vote to constitutionally ban same sex marriage and union, the clarion call being that the Bible states that marriage is the union of one man and one woman. We won’t even go into the fact that through out the Old Testament there are marriages of multiples.

I am a human; I am made in God’s image as all humans are. I am called to be what God has called me to be as all human beings are called. That’s what I believe. That’s what all fundamental Bible believers believe. Then why if this is the case can they, those believers not grasp, accept, comprehend that not everyone will be made to look and live as they do? Why then can they not grasp, comprehend that to abrogate the rights of some is not a loving Christian thing to do? Jesus said [Love God with all your heart, mind and soul and love your neighbors as you love yourself.]

Would then a loving person take such drastic measures to make it a matter of law to abrogate another’s rights? I think not.

So this is why today I am ashamed to be a North Carolinian