In Memoriam: Cody

My late husband Cody died 20 years ago today.  We had five years together before he died unexpectedly.  Our story is linked in the sidebar with our photograph.  Miss you, cowboy.  Rest in God.

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Sunday Drive: O Come, All Ye Faithful

As performed in Westminster Abbey, Christmas Eve, 2013:




I post these choral pieces every December in memory of my late husband Cody, 1950-2005, organist and choir director, who always put his heart and soul into his Christmas concerts and Sunday services for forty years, and thereby gave delight to many.

Ten Years Gone

Today.

Sunday Drive: Chopin, Nocturne in E-flat Major, Op. 9, No. 2

My late husband was a past master of the piano as well as the organ, and this lovely piece - a favorite of his - is one I have listened to many times in his memory since I lost him seven years ago today.

Lovelight: When You Kiss Me

Cody

A gray, gloomy day in Texas, a day of quiet tasks and deep thoughts. A day to shut the doors, keep the wind out, and avoid looking in mirrors. It is not until you begin to grow old that you realize what a cruel thing that aging really is. A thief, a robber with no mercy. Nothing you have is safe from his clutches.

All the more reason to enjoy your youth while you have it.

Yesterday would have been my husband's 61st birthday.  Not looking for sympathy; nothing anyone can say about that now.  Just remembering.  Funny how time slips away.

But my husband had a rather Egyptian idea of immortality:  that no one dies as long as their name is spoken and remembered. 

So this is for Cody: and for me, a meditation on what was, what might have been . . . and what can never be.

On a Personal Note

I've now lived two days longer than my late husband Cody did.

Strange thought.  Strange feeling.

There's nothing to be said about it, I just wanted to tell someone that.

Lovelight: Unchained Melody

If I have faith enough to move mountains but have not love,

I am nothing but sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.

Years ago when I was a good little churchgoer in my late teens, I became good friends with a woman from church, the widow of a man killed in Vietnam.  Though her three young children and church activities kept her quite busy, it was obvious that the loss of her husband still grieved her even after nearly a decade.  B. was in her mid-thirties, a lively personality, and became sort of like a big sister to me:  a close friend and confidant.

She was one of the very first people I ever disclosed my sexuality to, one of the few people I thought I could trust with that information.  And not only that but also my very deep wish to find a man one day to love and cherish forever.

But I had not reckoned on the intensity of B.'s religiosity.  Back came the angry exclamation she spit out of her mouth:  "But those people can't love each other!"  Not like her and her husband, oh no.  Most certainly not.  That was real love, you see.  The only possible kind.

"They can't love each other!"  The words cut like a knife. 

And hung there in my heart for many a long year to come.  Perhaps they still do.

And perhaps in hoping so much to prove her wrong - even long after we had lost all contact with each other - perhaps I sometimes tried too hard with one man or another to make things work, when there really was no way they could.

But of course I now know what my 20-year-old self, isolated and afraid, did not know, and you boys know it too:  of course two men can love each other, as deeply as any man and woman ever could. They can and they do. 

And I'm here to testify to the fact of the matter, for any sonofabitch who cares to listen.

That's part of the systematic destruction and deconstruction of all that we are, every part of our experience.  That's what justifies keeping us out of sight, out of mind, and invisible to the eyes of the law.  Likewise, I'm sure back in slavery times, there were people who said, Oh the nigras don't really love each other, look at how they shack up without even being married. 

Which of course was a prime example of circular reasoning because the laws didn't allow them to be married; and even if they were, in rare cases, the high and mighty white folks, good Christian people, thought nothing at all of selling wives away from husbands and children away from parents - forever.  With no more remorse about it than selling a horse or a dog. 

And prided themselves on living in a great Christian nation.

But of course the real honest-to-God truth is that every human being, black or white, straight or gay, has the capacity to love and be loved.  It may sometimes be thwarted or frustrated, or even forbidden - but you can no more deny that than you can deny that all men and women feel hunger or thirst.

Love is a great big part, maybe the biggest part, of what makes us truly human.  And you fellas know that as well as I do.  Something to be celebrated, not shunned or despised.

So I'm sending out this little valentine to all my Truckbuddies in celebration of the love of one man for another - and how I wish I could show this to my younger self, so lonely and so uncertain of the future.  Enjoy.

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Goodnight guys.  Sweet dreams.


Special thanks to my truckbuddy Ultra Dave who very kindly contributed some sweet pics to this project.

Lovelight: I Will Always Love You

Whatever else may happen in my life, this I can say:  I loved, and I was loved.

This is my testimony to the world:  the story of a life together.

Two men and a little fuzzy dog, no better than they ought to be, in a tiny Texas town far out on the prairie, far from the madding crowd.  Wanting nothing more than to be left alone, to live out their lives together in peace and happiness just like everybody else.

A small house, a small town, a small, obscure life.  Nothing the world noticed, or cared to know about.   Nothing that anyone will remember a hundred years from now. 

But it was ours, and this is our story.

A love that will never grow old.

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Sunday Drive: In the Garden

There are some who would say these pictures represent an intrinsic moral disorder, a great and abominable evil in the world.

Oh really?  Look and judge for yourself.

Today's text is from the book of Isaiah, chapter 5, verse 20:

Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil.

Let popes and preachers rant, wave their Bibles and spout their creeds.

What does all that foolishness matter, and how shall it weigh in the balances against a life lived together in love?

Five Years

My Cody won the Texas Piano Guild competion when he was 15, and placed sixth in the nationals.  Although he preferred the organ because its complexity was more challenging - he went on to obtain a bachelor's in organ, with minor in harpsichord - he could play the piano like nobody's business.  Just like this.

One of his old piano teachers played this nocturne at his funeral, and it sounded to me as if Cody himself were playing.  This (by some other artist than the one in the video) was one of a handful of recordings I played over and over again in the weeks and months after his death.

Music was his great passion, his raison d'etre. It brought me great comfort to think of him playing more and more glorious music somewhere, unimpeded by the limitations of this mortal coil.  He used to complain that it was very difficult to master a piece by Chopin or Liszt - they must have had such huge hands! he would say.  But he was a cowboy too, and master them he did.

Five years ago today, I awoke a widower.  That awful day.

It's hard to believe five years have gone by already.  We had only a little more than five years together.

A great loss; but better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all, as Tennyson said.  And I know that Cody loved me:  something no one can ever take away from me.

The cosmic irony is that we both had already loved and lost before, one way or another.  And when we found each other, at rather a late age, we neither of us dreamed that fate could be so cruel to us again, so soon. 

But it was that cruel. 

Or yet should I say, fate was that kind:  to allow us both a time of love and healing, of comfort and joy, before the dark waters parted us again.

I'm not writing to gain anyone's sympathy here; the time for all that is long past now. 

I'm just sharing a lovely memory, which sustains me to this day.  And the lesson that all in this life is temporary.  All of it.

So enjoy what you have, whether little or much - enjoy it today, fellas, and be grateful for it.  Because you never know what smiles or tears the morrow will bring.

Cody at our first meeting in New Orleans, November 1998.

Afternoon Drive: I Know How the River Feels

for Cody

my sweet cowboy

1950-2005

Newsbites

• In a major reversal of attitude, General Colin Powell comes out for DADT repeal, saying "In the almost 17 years since the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ legislation was passed, attitudes and circumstances have changed.  I fully support the new approach presented to the Senate Armed Services Committee this week by Secretary of Defense Gates and Admiral Mullen."  As chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President Clinton, Powell opposed allowing gays to serve openly, and presided over the application of the DADT policy.

• Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) says if gays are let loose in the military, it will "lead to alcohol use, adultery, fraternization, and body art. If we change this rule of 'Don't Ask, Dont Tell' what are we going to do with these other rules?"  Joe Jervis responds:  "[He's] worried that if DADT is repealed, soldiers will get drunk, visit whorehouses, and get tattoos. Unprecedented!"

• Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council not only doesn't want the big, bad, drunken, tattooed, rapist gays in the military - he wants Lawrence v. Texas overturned, so homosex in civilian life can be recriminalized. 

• Rob Tisinai reacts:  "We see what their position is — and how can you compromise between full civil equality and being thrown in prison? What would that compromise even look like?"

• The ACLU and Lambda Legal are planning to sue the state of Hawaii over marriage equality, after the Hawaii House defeated a civil-unions bill last week by voice vote - the same bill they had already approved in two previous sessions, and which had passed the Hawaii Senate.

• Nine Republican senators have introduced a bill to block same-sex marriages in Washington, D. C., pending a voter referendum on the issue.

• Former Eagle Scout, Air Force Captain, and Congressman, and current Republican Governor of South Carolina Mark Sanford, who came to national attention last summer while hiking the Appalachian Trail some Argentinian tail at taxpayer's expense, insisted on removing the fidelity clause from their marriage vows when he wed his wife Jenny in 1989, Mrs. Sanford has revealed in a Barbara Walters interview that will air this Friday.  They are the parents of four sons; Mrs. Sanford filed for divorce in December.  Governor Sanford has publicly opposed civil unions, same-sex marriage, and gay adoptions.  Of course.

• And finally, not only does it seem to this old dude totally astounding that the world has changed so much that a Cosmo centerfold can grow up to be a United States Senator; and likewise totally amazing that there has not been one single fucking word of objection to that fact on anyone's part, most specifically the oh-so-holy "family values" right; but it also seems totally pornographic to watch this blonde newswoman getting her panties soaking wet right on national television at the very thought of stroking some good, solid Republican cock, even the plastic kind:

Obviously, for the Republican gals, Brown has that same "starburst" effect that Palin has for the men.  And they all think that's so cute, so funny, so adorable, so Christian.  So "normal."  So "natural."  Oh, yes, all the good Republican heteros are so upright, so moral, so totally on God's side.

But me and my husband and the little dog, living a quiet, obscure life in a tiny town far out on the prairie, we were a "locus of evil" in the world. 

Fuck 'em all, is what I say, the filthy grandstanding hypocrite lying bastards.  And you can quote me on that, boys.

Different Strokes for Different Folks

I used to have a certain admiration for the late Pope John Paul II as an indefatigable supporter of human rights in general, notwithstanding his also obvious support for the Catholic moral position on matters of sexuality.

But I can never forget the cold and cutting pronouncement he made in his last book, Memory and Identity, reported in the news media just a week or two after my husband's death, that same-sex marriage was an "ideology of evil."  Yes, two men and a little dog living quietly and peacefully in a little town far out on the prairie, working their jobs, serving the community, paying their taxes, attending church, buying groceries, doing all the very same things their neighbors did, day in and day out, were "objectively disordered" and "intrinsically evil," points he had already made in a letter to American bishops twenty years earlier. 

But now with my husband barely cold in the ground, I felt His Holiness's nasty, coldhearted, evil-minded words more acutely than ever before.  This was a man, it must be recalled, in a position of ultimate moral authority over more than a billion people; and for all his great intellect and wide experience, the best he could say about Cody and me is that we were evil, and promoting evil.  Really. 

Well now come to find out, as Sullivan and others have reported, the late Pontiff

whipped himself with a belt, even on vacation, and slept on the floor as acts of penitence and to bring him closer to Christian perfection, according to a new book by the Polish prelate spearheading his sainthood case...

"It's an instrument of Christian perfection," Oder said, responding to questions about how such a practice could be condoned considering Catholic teaching holds that the human body is a gift from God.

"As some members of his close entourage in Poland and in the Vatican were able to hear with their own ears, John Paul flagellated himself. In his armoire, amid all the vestments and hanging on a hanger, was a belt which he used as a whip and which he always brought to Castel Gandolfo," the papal retreat where John Paul vacationed each summer.

Sullivan, a devout Catholic, approves, saying

I have every respect for the practice of self-mortification and self-denial. . . .  I see the last Pope's embrace of these things as affecting signs of his deep and genuine closeness to God.

Yet despite his loyal support for self-flagellation - a practice which Jesus never indulged in, and never, ever recommended - that brilliant mind also has the independence to ask the pertinent question here:

So why is self-abuse inherently wrong when it is done by hand and yet saintly when it is done by whip?

Masturbation, of course, is also an "intrinsically and gravely disordered action," the Church says.

So - if you jack yourself off, or you get off with your committed partner, you are committing outrageous evil.  And destroying civilization while you're at it.  Don't even think about asking for the law to protect your love and marriage, you filthy, twisted, disordered creep, you.

But - if you whip yourself bloody in your bedroom every night, why, God smiles - and loves you even more.

Now I ask you, fellas:  Just how fucked up is that?

Christian perfection, my ass. 

And again I refer my truckbuddies to Matthew 25 for clarification.

Oh Love

In Memoriam: Veterans Day

Today it is fitting that we all take a moment to honor the memory of those who fought and those who died in the service of our country.  If you know a veteran, smile and say "thank you."  It is always right to admire the individual courage and dedication of those men and women who put themselves at the nation's call, and in harm's way.

In my mind there is a big difference between honoring those who have served, remembering with immense gratitude those who made the ultimate sacrifice of their lives; and, on the other hand, taking to task those politicians who have sometimes abused the trust granted them by the people and sometimes sent young men and women to die unnecessarily for a political purpose.  A soldier has no choice but to obey; a citizen has the duty to dissent from and expose unworthy political schemes put forward by those in power, that no soldier, seaman, or airman may die in vain.

On a personal note, this is an especial day of rememberance for me.  A grandmother and an aunt both died on this day, in different years - one of those odd coincidences.  It also happened that way on the other side of the family with a grandfather and an uncle. 

And then in a new twist of fate, my faithful little Rocky dog died two years ago today; the last living link with my late husband, Cody.  So it's a day full of memories and bittersweet recollection for me. 

But life goes on.

Lovelight: Go Down, Death

for Cody

(Poem: Go Down, Death by James Weldon Johnson / Painting: Worlds Within Your Memory by Dale TerBush)

Sunday Drive: The Bridge Builder

Thanks to all my Truckbuddies who responded to my post about Cody. Your kindness touched my heart.

I don't want to dwell on all that - life moves on, you know, and we all just have to take it as it comes, light or dark, rain or shine. But I will share with you one more thing that happened, and I can't explain it. Make of it what you will.

A few weeks before Cody died so unexpectedly, I had emailed him a link to a poem I'd stumbled across and thought interesting. He didn't remark much upon it then, but several days later, he surprised me with a gift: he had printed out the poem in a nice format, and put it in a frame. I thanked him, of course, and hung it on the wall by my desk, though secretly I wasn't sure why he had picked this particular poem to frame, out of all the other things we shared with each other.

Only after he was gone did I begin to get a glimmer of why.

An old man, going a lone highway,
Came, at the evening, cold and gray,
To a chasm vast and deep and wide,
Through which was flowing a sullen tide.

The old man crossed in the twilight dim;
That sullen stream had no fears for him;
But he turned, when safe on the other side,
And built a bridge to span the tide.

"Old man," said a fellow pilgrim near,
"You are wasting strength with building here.
Your journey will end with the ending day;
You never again will pass this way.
You've crossed the chasm, deep and wide -
Why build you this bridge at the eventide?"

The builder lifted his old gray head:
"Good friend, in the path I have come," he said,
"There followeth after me today,
A youth, whose feet must pass this way.

This chasm, that has been naught to me,
To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be.
He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;
Good friend, I am building this bridge for him."

At the bottom, Cody had added:

To Russ, January 19, 2005
For no other reason than
I love
you
- Cody

I still keep it right here by my desk, close to me.

(Poem by Will Allen Dromgoole / Painting: Bridge of Faith by Thomas Kinkade)

Four Years

First anniversary, November 2000

Four years ago tonight, at right about 9 p.m., I saw my husband alive for the last time. As we always did, I kissed him goodbye at the door when he left to go practice the organ at church for the next day's Sunday service. I'm glad we had that custom. You never know when the last kiss, the last touch, the last look will come.

I checked my email, surfed the Internet for a while, finally had a midnight snack of cake and milk and went to bed about 11:30, watching an old movie on TV. Cody wasn't home when I drifted off to sleep before midnight, but that wasn't unusual; he was a professional musician, that organ was his glory, and he often practiced 3 or 4 hours before coming home, so I expected he'd be back when he was done.

Usually I wake up momentarily at least once or twice in the night, sometimes to make a bathroom run, but that night I fell into a deep sleep and was conscious of nothing at all until morning. At five minutes to seven, long before the alarm was due to go off, I suddenly opened my eyes for some reason. I looked at the clock. I looked at Cody's empty half of the bed, obviously untouched. And I knew something was terribly wrong.

I stumbled into the living room - perhaps he came home and fell asleep on the couch? No, not there. His car was not in the driveway. The porch light was still on. Groggy, unable to focus my thoughts, I couldn't quite figure why he wasn't home. I called the church, knowing he could hear the phone ring in the choir room. No answer. How strange.

I pulled on some jeans, my boots, a sweatshirt, and drove my truck over to the church, less than 2 minutes from the house. There was his car, parked by the choir room door. I got out, pounded on the locked door. No response. It was cold and overcast, with a light mist falling, the sky was gray like the jacket I was wearing. My mind was still in a fog; I couldn't figure out why he would stay there all night, why he wouldn't answer the phone or come to the door. I walked around and tried the public entrance on one side of the church. Locked. I walked around the building and tried the other big door. That was locked too. It made no sense.

I walked back around and stood there staring stupidly at the choir room door, wondering what to do, the cold mist falling silently on my hair, my face, speckling my jacket. I hadn't brought a cell phone with me. I was about to decide to get back in the truck and go to the house and call somebody when I heard someone calling my name. I turned and saw a little old lady who lived a couple doors down from the church, walking up to meet me. She had noticed Cody's car there and was wondering about it too. I told her he hadn't come home last night, and she offered to go back to her house and call the preacher to come unlock the church, which I was grateful for.

I sat in my truck and smoked a cigarette, maybe two, and by that time the preacher was there, pretty quick but it was a very small town. She unlocked the main door, and we walked into the sanctuary. From the back row, we could see Cody sitting slumped over in the big red bishop's chair next to the organ. The preacher hugged my shoulders for a moment, then went to her office to call an ambulance. I walked on up the aisle alone, up the chancel steps, and knelt in front of the chair, holding my darling man gently in my arms, speaking softly, telling him how much I loved him.

No response. Cold. Stiff. Gone.

It is very hard to describe the shock to the mind when you realize that this person, this warm, living, breathing human being that you love oh so dearly, is now a thing - like a log, a stone, a fencepost. Not moving. Not seeing. Not feeling. A thing, not a man.

It must have happened quickly; a comforting thought later. His music books and organ shoes were sitting neatly on the bench, as if he had just walked in and set them down. He was sitting very neatly, very naturally, just as you would if you had just sat down in that chair, feet on the floor, one hand resting on his leg. But the other arm was hanging off the chair, and his upper body was leaning in that direction too. It must have hit him, the heart attack, just after he placed his books on the organ bench; perhaps he felt a little odd, and sat down to take stock of himself. And then he was gone.

Now of course it was a great loss to me, and many others. But when all that is taken into account, what a good, good death he had. There in the heart of the church he had devoted his whole life to, only a few steps from the altar, in the shadow of the great golden cross suspended overhead - and next to his beloved organ, which he so loved to play, and with which he had touched many, many hearts with magnificent sacred music for decades.

What better place, what better way could there be to go - if you have to go?

I wept a lot, of course, in the days that followed. But for me. Not for him, knowing my darling man was beyond all tears - forever. Gone home so quickly, quietly, easily. No agony, no lingering, no dread, no fear. What a blessing for him. For anyone.

Blessed are the merciful; for they shall be shown mercy.

I've written before about Cody and me here and here. A favorite of his:

Write to Marry Day: My Story

I've been overwhelmed with my real job lately, not to mention a bad cold, so I've not blogged here in several weeks. Which is no great loss to the world, as I can't keep up with the professional bloggers anyway, especially with all the election-campaign stories coming out so fast and furious these days. But today I found a good reason to take a little time to make another post here in the Blue Truck: Write to Marry Day.

All gay people should understand how absolutely vital it is that California’s Proposition 8 go down in defeat next Tuesday; this is the big, fat turning point in our struggle for equal rights and the equal protection of the laws. If the California Supreme Court’s beautifully well-reasoned ruling on the constitutional issue is allowed to stand, many other states will follow suit. If it is overturned by the hateful forces promoting Prop 8, our struggle may be set back for another generation. That must not happen; happiness, security, and dignity must not be denied to millions of gay people, as it has been for most of my life. The changing legal and social landscape for gays may not benefit me much at this late stage of my life, but it’s high time the old laws and old attitudes changed, forever; changed for good.

In support of Write to Marry Day, all I know to do is share my particular story to show why equal marriage is so important to me; it’s not just a pretty phrase, a nice idea. It’s a fundamental right that bears directly on not only matters of love, but also money, property, inheritance, taxes, pensions, rights and responsibilities – all the real-world practical matters that give love a place to root itself, bloom, and grow. It’s not an abstract idea: it’s concrete protection for everyone who loves another of the same gender.

Here’s my story, for what it’s worth to anyone; a very small and perhaps insignificant story in the scheme of the universe, but part of the bigger picture of equal rights for all queer people.


In 1998, my late partner Cody and I met online and from the first time we talked, we both recognized something very special in each other. Though we lived a thousand miles apart, we carried on a year-long courtship by computer and telephone, running up some truly huge long-distance bills with our daily talks. We visited back and forth in person several times, too.

Finally we felt ready to take the big leap and make the big commitment – for life. We spoke the marriage service to each other; at that time, gay marriage and civil unions were still not on the radar for us Southern boys. But we felt secure making our vows privately; we were both in our 40’s and we both had loved and lost before. We meant all that we promised.

Because he had a family, a business, and a house, and I had none of those things, I made the move to be with him in a little Texas town far out on the prairie, population 5,000. All of my family was dead and gone by this time, but one side was Texan, so it wasn’t a huge culture shock, and I’d lived in small towns before. Though I gave up a secure civil-service job, a decent paycheck, and significant seniority, I was happy to love and be loved, to have a home to come back to each night, not just an empty apartment. And the moment I arrived and walked through the door, the very first thing Cody did was hand me a key to the house, saying “This is your home.” And from that moment, it was, and I knew it was worth all I’d left behind to be here with the man I loved, the man who loved me.

Over the next five years, we had our ups and downs like any couple, but on balance the good outweighed the bad; and we were very happy together, living a quiet, respectable life like any of our neighbors, paying our bills, paying our taxes, volunteering in community projects, keeping the grass cut and the shades drawn at night. Because my husband was the organist at the local Methodist Church, we were even in church every Sunday. Just like all the straight couples in town, old and young. And after church each week, we ate a big dinner with his parents at a local restaurant, and for every single holiday we were front and center at his sister’s house, bringing our share of cookery and goodies to share with the whole family, and his sister's crowd of children and grandchildren.

It was a good life: quiet, predictable, far from the madding crowd. Secure—I thought. Though time and again over those five years, I warned him that we really, really needed to make wills and other legal documents. I’d already made him the beneficiary of all my life insurance and pension plans. But he was an artist, not an accountant; he would always reply, “I’m working on it, just give me a little time.” But he never did get around to changing his life insurance or doing any of the other legal necessities to protect me in case something happened to him. Not that we could imagine any such tragedy actually occurring; and as he repeatedly assured me, “Oh my family loves you; they would never be unkind to you.” And they themselves all said to my face, “Oh we love you, you’re part of our family.” Right.

I was deeply skeptical; I had already seen what happened in my own family when my father had died without a will, back when I was in high school. And Cody had been brusquely disregarded and overwhelmed by the cruelty of his first partner’s family when he had died, ten years before. But Cody kept assuring me nothing like that could ever happen with his own family; and of course we couldn’t bear to think fate would part us, not after having taken so long to find each other and create a loving life and home together.

Well. One day, between midnight and morning, the unthinkable suddenly happened and our happy little world disappeared: my darling man died of a completely unexpected heart attack, age 54. And just as suddenly, his sweet, loving, accepting family turned sour and menacing, just as I’d feared. I woke the next morning to find myself alone in a homophobic small town, without friends, without family, without help, without any recourse to the laws. As far as the laws of the great Lone Star State were concerned, I was no more than a stranger living in Cody’s house – for it was in his name only. And as a local attorney informed me, Texas law would allow the family to evict me in only three days’ time. The law was utterly indifferent to my protection, as if I were a wild beast.

So were the townspeople; a few were genuinely sympathetic and a couple of folks even brought me some platters of food, as the Southern custom is. But so many at the viewing, at the funeral, and even at the graveside service, ignored me as if I were not there – pretended not to notice my presence, did not shake my hand, look me in the eye, offer a single word of condolence. Walked between me and my husband’s open grave, passing by not 12 inches away from me, and didn’t even glance at me – all those good Christian people. What contempt. They knew who I was; for more than five years, Cody and I had done everything together in this tiny town, where he had lived his entire life. Of course we didn’t hold hands or kiss or do anything “shocking”; we wore jeans and flannel shirts and cowboy boots like everyone else, we fit in, we did the whole Uncle Tom routine, as I realize now. We were “good,” we “behaved,” we didn’t “flaunt” ourselves.

But everyone knew. And after all that, my reward was to be – despised, sneered at, ignored, cold-shouldered. Yet none of them would have behaved that way at the funeral of the lowest dope dealer or wife beater in town. It was a real Damascus Road experience for me, standing there by his casket, and at his grave. The scales fell from my eyes. I'd always thought that somehow if people knew me, knew us, up close, they would understand and accept. But this is the South, my beautiful, terrible, tragic native land: I should have known better.

And then suddenly, out of nowhere, his family started in on me with the accusations and the grievances and the demands. Had we been a straight couple, the laws of Texas would have given all of Cody’s assets, including the house, to me when he died without a will. But because I was a man, not a woman, I was entitled to nothing whatsoever, not a cup or a pencil or a shirt button, not even the little dog. And his family could walk in at any moment and cart off anything they pleased, claiming it was Cody’s, even my own furniture and clothes – if I called the police, who do you think they would believe: me, the queer outsider, or them, the good, Christian, long-time local residents? The handwriting on the wall was very plain.

Though it wasn't really about the money, the house, the car, all that: the little house was all paid for, but it was a small house in a tiny town. Cody's estate was not large, we were at the lower range of the middle class. What it was about was protection for me, left all alone suddenly in the middle of nowhere, in a place where I didn't belong anymore. Protection; dignity; respect. That's what it was and is all about, and that's what was completely lacking. His family were already coming in the house while I was at work, though they promised with straight faces they would never do that, and combing through our things, and indeed took some things without asking. One morning his car was suddenly gone from the driveway, taken off to be sold. How long would it be till I came home from work one day to find a padlock on the door?

The spite, the malice, the contempt grew from day to day. By force of will, I had held myself together through all the making of funeral arrangements, that long, stunned first day of grief. When we finally got to see Cody lying in his casket in a private viewing, I suddenly broke down, couldn't control myself for a couple of minutes, crying and sobbing. His parents, his sister and brother in law, their adult children and spouses, eight close relatives were all right there around me. And not one of them moved to comfort me, embrace me, lay a hand on my shoulder, or say a single kind word. Not one of them.

I asked very politely if I could put my husband's wedding ring on his finger, after the funeral, at the very last moment before the casket was closed so no one else would see. They refused me, point blank.

We had never worn our rings, being "good boys" and not wanting to "embarrass" the family. I started wearing mine, now that he was dead; what could it matter now? But I was ordered not to wear that ring. Of course, I kept on wearing it.

I was ordered not to cry at his funeral. Of course, I behaved with all the dignity I could muster--but because it was the right thing to do, not because of them. When I couldn't help weeping, I covered my face with my hand; but not because of them.

The Sunday after he was buried, I asked the preacher at our church to let me thank the congregation from the pulpit for their kindness to me and "my wonderful Cody." The family weren't there that day, but before the day was out I got a blistering phone call, reprimanding me for making a public statement of affection like that, and ordering me never to do such a thing again in "their town." Which apparently they thought they owned.

You can see that this situation could not last. Cody had been treated the same way after his first partner died; and so have many other gay Texans. This, and much worse than this, is typical, not unusual, for Texas families--the very same ones who are so proud to be Christians and Americans, as their church signs all say.

Fortunately, it just so happened that by the time Cody died, I had somehow managed to accumulate a little money in a savings account. After the funeral, when the ugly, ugly confrontations and conversations with his family began, it didn’t take long for me to get the drift of where that situation was going. So I thought, better to make a clean break and leave before they got the sheriff to set me on the curb with only the clothes on my back.

So I packed up the truck with my clothes and computer and other necessary things, and with only our little dog for company – and technically, he was not my property, they could have taken him away from me too – we left in the middle of the night, in the freezing cold, driving miles and miles through the darkness to another town, another county. Just a few days before, I’d gone to sleep in our bed, in our home, thinking all was right with the world; suddenly, my little dog and I had no home – we belonged nowhere now. There was no one anywhere to take us in.

Before dawn broke, we holed up in a motel, nowhere to go, and I felt just like a homeless man with all his belongings balled up in cardboard boxes and garbage bags. I’ll never forget that feeling of being all alone, save my faithful little dog, without friends, without resources, without protection. Invisible in the eyes of the law, and at the mercy of an irrational, self-righteous bunch of Christianists.

Twenty-four hours later, I returned with a moving van and a crew of hired movers--thank God I had a little cash on hand--who in just four hours packed, stacked, and loaded all my possessions and got them out of town. I followed shortly with my own truck loaded again with the very last pieces of our life together. On the way out of town, I passed a church with a big sign out front: “A Christian Family Is A Treasure.” The irony was not lost on me.

Well to wrap up what is not, after all, a terribly dramatic story to anyone but me, I was lucky enough to find a nice little house to rent, with a big fenced yard for the little dog to play safely in; and within 10 days, we were settling in to a new home and a new life without Cody. It’s a shorter drive to my job from here, and it pays me well enough to live a quiet, modest life with a few bucks left over at the end of the month: so I have all I really need, and a few of life’s small luxuries too. For all that, I’m grateful.

Though it was a horrifying, deeply upsetting experience for me, fortunately, nothing truly terrible happened – except the realization that there is no American Dream for a gay couple in Texas; there is no life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, no equal justice under law if you are queer in the Lone Star State. They can’t lock us up anymore, thanks to the momentous ruling in Lawrence v. Texas, 2003; but as far as 3 out of 4 Texans are concerned (the number who voted for a state constitutional amendment banning all forms of gay unions in 2006; and actually 9 out of 10 in these rural counties), our relationships are no more important than a dog’s or a cow’s. They simply don’t exist, legally or socially. We gay people are lower, in their estimation, than blacks, Indians, or Mexicans – and that’s saying a lot. Trust me.

I’ve had a lot of time to reflect on all this since Cody died; and I am quite certain that nothing less than equal marriage will ever change this state of affairs; because people here, and anywhere else you care to mention, simply Will.Not.Respect. anything else. There is just no substitute for equal dignity and respect, and nothing less than equal marriage will bring that to pass. I remember vividly the rigidly segregated South of my childhood, the separate drinking fountains, the separate bathrooms and entrances and schools and libraries and neighborhoods, all of it. None of that would have ever changed, if the laws had not been changed first.

As it was with African-Americans, so it is with gays. Change must come; and though it may come too late to make a difference in my life, it will make a huge, huge difference in the lives of many millions of gay men and women in the generations to come. I hope I live to see the day when Texas sheds its hateful past and truly embraces the real American Dream: liberty and justice for all.

Sunday Drive: Grace Happens

"Wherever You Are" by Mary Chapin Carpenter

Cody, 1998

My sweet cowboy

We met online ten years ago tonight. From a thousand miles away, his voice came through the wire like a warm rain, a familiar embrace, an old friend. A lifeline; I was sad and alone, drowning my sorrows and running out of gas on a dark and unfamiliar road. We both had loved and lost, tragically so; not much reason remained for going on.
 

But somehow, against all odds, we found each other in the darkness; we held on tight, and we never let go. Tonight, all those years ago, my life and his changed for better, for worse--forever. Oh yeah, we had our ins and outs like every couple; as my mama used to say, you have to take the bitter with the sweet--but the good parts were very, very good. We fit together, like a pair of comfortable old boots. After so many false starts, so many dead end roads, finally--finally--we found the way home.

We had five years together; a great loss, a big big hurt when he died, all unexpected. But some people never get that much. I'm glad we did.

So what was the point of all that? Perhaps just this: in a very needed way, it healed me, it healed him; two lost, lonely travelers pulled out of the bar ditch, put back on the pavement. Grace.

We were brought together in that time and place for a reason, no one can tell me different. How and why, I can't say, can't explain. All I know is this: grace happens. It just does, sometimes, some places, some people now and then, and that's all the theology I'm sure of anymore.

Grace happens. When and where are not of our choosing. Road maps and explanations not provided; we have to figure it out on our own, learn to enjoy the gift of this particular moment, every moment we are given in this short, short life. And give what you have to give, without holding back. With all your heart.

Even the smallest kindness counts. That's why you're there; to do that small deed of love, of grace.

Gratitude; gracias; grace. Something you just have to live through to understand.