HOW CAN IT BE THAT YOU ARE GONE?

Forty-nine years ago this month a broken winged bird was carried half way across these States to a new life where unconditional love and healing allowed me to grow into the woman I am.  At moments, the energy consumes me like it was yesterday,

So how can you be gone?

How can you be gone when the morning sun invades my room, I still find myself reaching out to feel the warmth of your body and can at times still catch the smell of your sweet skin?

Standing by the shores of a lake I see you cast a shadow on the lake from your fishing boat, as I wait by the shore for the signal to bring in the trailer to load the boat.  How can this be when you are gone?

When doubt fills me, I am suddenly embraced by your voice letting me know all will be okay.  Oh, how can you be gone?

I see and hear you in our children, the way they live, love and play, so tell me how can you be gone?

Watching them live their lives is like watching reruns of ours.  How can it be that you are gone?

At moments when I do something dumb I still hear your voice call out, “Marlena!!”

Life has gone on since you passed.  But fall fills me with the memories of both the beginning and end of the time we had together.  The vibrant colors of fall take me back to that trip East through the Pennsylvania mountains a bloom with the brilliant red, yellow and gold of autumn and to that Thanksgiving Day with the last of the fall colors fading from the trees and the sun warming us through our sweet wedding day.  I ask again, how can you be gone?

It all went so fast.  This Thanksgiving brings our 49th wedding anniversary, along with the 4th year that you entered Hospice Care and I still ask, how can you be gone when I feel you around me so strong.

And again I ask how can you be gone?

Because you are.  And I thank you for the sweet memories that continue to fill me and remind me of our love.

NO MORE GAY MARRIAGE

No.  Today, it is simply—marriage—and all that it brings with it.  Just that simple.  People much more eloquent than I will write about the events that have taken place today.  But for me, today is the first time I believe that we have fulfilled our promise to ourselves, “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Oh, I am aware of those around me who are filled with as much angst over this as those around me who are in celebration tonight. I hear what they are saying, but to be honest I don’t understand their inability to accept the idea that everyone deserves to be happy and to be treated equally.

I am today, thinking of those in my family, who, for the first time in their life, can be treated as normally as anyone else.  The decisions they make in life do not have to wear a cloak of defiance, for today they have won the right to reach for their own Life, Liberty and their own personal pursuit of Happiness.  

As I think of the children who suffer such pain wrestling with the idea of their differences that today, maybe, with compassion and love, the world will allow them—encourage them to grow and become great and wonderful people.

As I think on those in my family, who hid who they were from us, for fear we would not love them or accept them, because society made them believe they were evil…this day is for you.  I celebrate with you!  I and the family have always known what a wonderful person you are, and when you found the courage to share yourself with us, you gave us a chance to show you.  Thank you for trusting us with you!

I am not naive to think that this ruling wipes away prejudice.  Not by a long shot!  But I have lived long enough to see how with time, prejudice can be lessened and we can be open to those who are different than we are.  I dream. I hope. I believe in the goodness of mankind.