Estrangement is strange

Estrangement is…strange

It is amazing to me how years quickly melt away and how the agonizing pain of estrangement ebbs with the passing of time. Early in the alienation I would obsess with what actions I could take to fix the problem with my brother. I tried calling at first, that didn’t work. Then as I grew ever angrier and frustrated I would lash out in writing, mostly directed at my brother’s wife, who I still hold responsible to a large degree for the schism in my family. With the clarity of distance I see that she doesn’t bear the entire burden, most of it, but  not all of it.  My brother, who is using his silence and withdrawal of love as a weapon is responsible too. I wonder if this is how he practices his family counseling and if this is what they teach at Liberty University?

I suppose years ago I could have kept quiet, but in my mind that would have made me just as guilty in the premeditated attempt to destroy my nephew Julian’s life. The demand that was never spoken was that since my brother and his wife had disowned Julian, we the extended family was to do the same in lock step. Of course Julian just happened to get into a little trouble at the time and so we were also to join in the call to send him to jail.

My conscience would not let me do that; so based on cost/benefit analysis I spoke up and four years into my brother’s silence; this is the cost.  Would I do it again knowing what I know now?  I think so. There was so much more than Julian at play and based on my brother’s actions even if I’d said nothing, I think at some point we’d be where we are now.  I’m sure there would have been some sort of precipitating event. I suspect that my brother’s wife; getting all that she needed out of my parents, had decided that she was done with us.  She no longer needed my folk’s money, support and babysitting and we were now starting to call into question their actions as a “parents” and so, she was done and he went along with it.

Currently there is still drama because this Lynchburg cadre won’t turn Julian’s final adoption decree over to my nephew. Julian wants to travel back to Uganda to see friends. The US State department won’t issue a passport without the final decree.  My mom requested that my brother give it over and my brother refused.  There is a blow up brewing because of this horribly bad behavior. Julian is an adult and they are still abusing him.

My mom now stands accused of not respecting some never articulated boundary in asking for Julian’s writ of adoption.  This is all part of the brain screw that they play. It’s like; there are many rules, we’re not going to tell YOU what the rules are; but, you will know that you violated a rule when we punish you. Additionally, some rules will require very strict punishment and others won’t, but the severity of punishment will change when we see fit. Oh, we won’t tell you when that’s going to happen either.

So, my brother and I are estranged because I was honest.  The situation inside my family is sad.  It’s sad for my folks, it’s sad for Jasmine and Julian and I can guess on some level it’s sad for my brother. Can I change any of this? No. Do I want to? No, because it would mean being a part of the lunacy.

I'm sure a quick study will undertand why this photo was put in this post.

I Don't Understand

John with the look. Barcelona 1999

Castle in Ibiza

 

As I stood at the altar of Immaculate Conception Church looking out at our assembled friends while delivering John’s eulogy, I noticed that our friend Brad, sitting next to his partner Thom looked furious.  Interestingly, the more I spoke the angrier he seemed to get and by the end of my fifteen minute remembrance Brad was undone to the point where he couldn’t sit still.  Yet despite his agitation, Brad and Thom showed up after the memorial for the reception at my home and as they departed they promised to stay in touch.

We’d been casual close friends, dinner at one another’s homes, short vacations together to Ocracoke Island for the weekend, pool parties at our place and in the final year of John’s life; before he got sick an amazing European vacation that included renting a castle on the island of Ibiza. Once Johns was sick, I don’t recall Brad and Thom being around much. They visited when John had turned for the worst and was comatose in the hospital. In his final weeks at home they didn’t stop by until the night he died, then Brad came alone, perhaps Thom was traveling.

In between Spain and John being diagnosed with lymphoma; we had separated. The stress of renovating a one hundred year old home, building a business, John’s travel schedule and mutual immaturity and changing life perspectives had driven us apart.  Perhaps on some level John knew that he was sick and needed me to leave for a while so that we’d be strong for the fight for his life. There is a photo of John in Barcelona where he looks aware of something coming down the pike.  This is an assumption. It’s something that John and I never talked about. We just hadn’t had time. When he and I separated I was ready to move on for good.  I think John was ready too; he’d started courting a housemate of Brad and Thom’s; I imagine if John had lived that courtship might have gone somewhere.

Brad and Thom had decided during my separation from John, who they'd remain friends with. It wasn’t me.  That was ok too, they had been friends with John first and although we got along. I’d always been a little mistrustful of them.  Brad especially had an acidic tongue and wouldn’t bat an eye when it came to dissing or gossiping; even if the brunt were his closes friends or even his partner.  He tended to present as queen bee which is rather ironic because Thom was the steady earner as a scientist. Brad was an artist, very capable but not really driven.  John and Thom were close because they’d worked together. I was the accidental and disposable friend because I was sleeping with John. When that ended so did the friendship in their eyes.

So at the memorial service Brad was furious and then in the heart wrenching years after John died, when I really needed friends, I heard nothing. No cards, no phone calls, no emails, nothing.  It wasn’t until we ran into one another by happenstance years later that the light bulb went on for me. I’d gone out to a bar with some friends, something I just don’t do anymore and Brad and Thom were there. Being adult and in the company of one another we spoke and I was told that they weren’t mad at me.  I found that proclamation odd.  The years of silence meant something right? There was anger and now it had been articulated, but what was it?

I suppose John could have vented to them about all that had gone wrong between us and my verbal painting at the eulogy was rather idealistic and contrary to the reality of our split up. Silly me, but it just didn’t seem appropriate at John’s funeral to go into the details of our split up and all that had gone wrong in our life together. After all he’d just lost his life. I suppose that Brad and Thom expected to participate in John’s service and they weren’t asked.  I included people who were within my line of site at the time.  

In the end, I’ll never know what the answer is. They aren’t part of my life, my true friends are close and have remained close; still it would have been nice to have a few more people around who knew and remember John. It would be nice to have more people close at hand who could reflect and remember aspects of a great guy seen through the kaleidoscope of their perceptions.

Our Identity

Identity

Sexual identity is at the core of our sexuality. Just as with other aspects of our identity (male or female, young or old, and so on) our sexual identity is how we see our sexual self and how we express that part of ourself to others.

But it is just part of yourself - there is more to you as a person than your sexual identity. Most people have many relationships, such as with friends and family that have nothing to do with their sexual identity.

Today on Facebook a second cousin of mine wrote that Jesus loves the homosexual but hates homosexuality.  I cannot for the life of me find any scriptural passage that says any such thing. 

I bristle at such statements.  I also won’t tolerate them without a reaction.  To condemn one’s sexual identity is to condemn the core of one’s being. It is at essence a condemnation of one’s spirit and soul.  It also is an operation from a point of believing that the homosexual has made a conscience decision to be what they are.  This is illogical and no more grounded in foundation than saying that a woman makes a choice to be female, an Asian to be Asian, a heterosexual to be same.

Speaking only from the kaleidoscope of my perception, I NEVER, EVER made a choice to be gay or homosexual.  From my earliest recollections I was attracted to men; early recollections like elementary school. I was less than ten years old.  I was reading Ann Landers the famous advice columnist when I was in second grade; there was a letter from a gay man regarding coming out of the closet; I stood in our dining room at 53 Bortic Rd. in Cedar Grove, NJ and knew at that moment what I was.

The decision I made when I was much older, seventeen years old to be exact was, that I would NOT live in shame or silence.  I would live honestly and true to myself.  To anyone who would state otherwise, my question to them is simple; when, just when as a heterosexual person did YOU make a decision to be heterosexual?  And, how many homosexual experiences did YOU have before you made that decision?  Typically, this course of questioning shuts down the debate, indictment and crucifixion because, there is typically NO answer. Or better yet, no honest answer.  So to my cousin, wow, and thanks for lumping me in with murderers that association really, really hurts.