My Dad was born 100 years ago today.  I only knew him for 12 years before he died. We made many memories during those years, and I’m sure we would have made more had he lived longer.  He was a diplomat, an exceptionally intelligent man, spoke 22 languages and loved all of us kids so deeply.  Gosh, even after all this time… he died 41 years ago… I still miss him.

So this is just a note to say, “Happy Birthday, Daddy!”  I hope I turned out okay. Your legacy leads me in many ways, both professionally and personally, and I am grateful for having you in my life, even as short as our time together on this earth was.

For those of you who still have a Dad — give him a call, go pay a visit, and let him know you care.  You are fortunate to have the ability to do that, as I do not except through prayer.

Life is short:  remember those you love and show them that you love them.

When I went to my state capital yesterday to talk to some elected officials about a same-sex marriage bill pending before our House of Delegates, I was joined by six siblings, 22 nieces and nephews, seven great nieces and nephews who got out of school with a note from their parents, and 24 — count ’em — 24 cousins!  This all came about by the action of my twin brother who lives in France. He sent an email (without my knowledge) to the family and look who showed up to support me!  I was completely flabbergasted. An “army” — literally — of my family makes a formidable presence! Grrrrr!

Here is how I discovered the family entourage:

Since public parking is not available anywhere near the capital building, visitors are directed to park in a remote parking lot and take a shuttle bus into town. When I parked in that remote lot and walked to the bus shelter, standing there were 10 of my family. Huh? Where’d you come from? Why are you here? “We’re here for you.” I tell ‘ya, tears began to well up.

When the bus dropped us off in front of the Capitol Building, I saw more of my family. I turned around and there were even more walking toward me. The next bus rolled up and more of my family got off that bus. My family is not the political-action-oriented type, but there they were.

It was crowded and ugly on the streets of our state capital yesterday. Hundreds of people had been bussed in from out-of-state to lobby against this bill. Okay, wasn’t it in yesterday’s post that I was waving the flag and saying how great it was to live in a messy Democracy? Yeah, that may be true, but I get hugely annoyed when people who do not even live in our state are brought in to try to influence legislation that affects residents of our state and not them. It’s downright unfair. It’s legal, but unfair.

Well, anyway, my family asked me, “what do we do now?” … off we went to the House Office Building, through security, and then knocking on doors of the offices of our respective Delegates while dodging negative noodles everywhere we went. I swear, one guy was speaking neanderthal-ese, he sounded so confusing and his bigotry was only exceeded by the vile hatred dripping from his nostrils. Ugggghhhh….

We had our say… with as many of our Delegates as we could see, or their staff if the Delegate wasn’t available (or not interested) in seeing us.

Despite the negativity surrounding me while I was there, I still had a very positive charge about my family being there to support my partner and me. I’ve said it before and I will say it again: I have a large family and even though we have had our differences, they show up when it counts. They support us and by being there yesterday, they showed us that they care. Their passionate pleas are not self-serving as my pleas could be interpreted.

How blessed I am to be embraced by such a warm, wonderful, thoughtful and caring family. Especially by my twin brother, who lives far away but is always closest in my heart.

Life is short: show those you love that you love them!

I have mentioned before on this blog that I have a large family.  Larger than most, and very involved with each other.  We truly try to help each other out when we can.  Not only my siblings, but also my cousins, nieces, nephews, and greats… literally, hundreds of ’em.

This past weekend has found me involved with family up to my eyeballs.

Friday night featured our regular family dinner.  About 40 of us gathered at a sister’s house to enjoy a meal, lots of talking, banter, and familial camaraderie.  I only go for a couple hours — pretty much only enough time to eat and chat for a little bit.  But seeing my family once each week really means a lot to all of us. I rarely miss a Friday night with the fam, unless I’m away on business travel.

My partner and I spent most of Saturday cleaning up and cleaning out my aunt’s apartment (the aunt for whom I cared for so many years and who died three weeks ago).  I promised her sons — my cousins — that I would do that.  It was a lot of work, as my aunt had more stuff squirreled away in places that I never knew she had — and I thought I was very familiar with her small apartment.  Nonetheless, the place is empty, and it matches the hole in my heart.

During dinner Saturday evening, the phone rang.  I seldom answer the phone but the caller ID showed that it was from a cousin who rarely calls, so I thought something was going on.  Turned out that my cousin’s son had fallen and he was alone at his parent’s house.  His parents were away on vacation to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary.  I ended up taking my cousin to the emergency room for an x-ray. He broke a rib.  The doc gave him prescriptions for pain meds and sent him home.  I took him back home, and did not arrive at my home until 1am on Sunday.

Sunday all day involved more family stuff.  It began by going to church to see a couple “great-greats” get baptized.  These children, actually, are grandchildren of first cousins, so technically that makes them first cousins twice removed.  Whatever… I spent time with another branch of this large family tree.

Then I did a short presentation that my boss asked me to make and had been pre-arranged.  After that, I returned home and prepared lunch for my partner, then took off to attend not one, but two birthday parties for more “greats” (grandchildren of a brother and a sister who are twins, and these grandchildren are twins… pretty odd, but not all that unusual.)

How was I dressed? Casually — boots, jeans, and leather jeans throughout the weekend. Nothing different or unusual for me. I did wear a nice pair of slacks to church and to make the presentation on Sunday, and wore a good pair of dress cowboy boots. But when I returned to “my own time,” casual wear returned to leather.

My family is important to me, and I spend a lot of time with them.  I feel that to be part of a large family, you have to spend time with them.  And believe me, in MY family, there are always opportunities LOL!

Life is short:  love your family!

Today, September 20, marks the end of a string of a dozen birthdays in my family that began on my twin and my birthday, August 16, and ends today on my little sister’s birthday (as well as a niece’s birthday, too.) After all, a dozen of us are Christmas presents and New Year’s surprises.

It’s been one party after another for the past five weeks, but enjoyable each time I get to see my wonderful, robust, raucous brethren. It is truly special to be part of a family of 15 kids, zillions of nieces, nephews, and “greats.” Unlike so many drama drivel shows on TV, I can honestly say that we all love one another and care for each other. I am truly blessed that my family remains close, caring, and loving. I know there are families out there that are not, when some families make an issue of a sibling who is gay. I am glad I am not “the gay brother.” I am “the brother who happens to be gay.”

Pictured below is me with two of my sisters. See? Can’t tell that we’re related. The sister on the left had me convinced that my “real” father was the milkman.

Happy birthday, “little” sis! I love you, always.

Life is short: cherish your family.

The stresses of this week have built to the point where a chronic health condition of my own reared it’s ugliness, requiring a visit to the hospital emergency room for treatment. I have mentioned before that I have a very restricted diet. Almost anything I eat can make me sick, and when I’m stressed, it all comes out — literally. I remember that I ate a salad with a variety of tasty veggies… oops. That’s what tipped my intestines over the edge.

I was treated and released in four hours. It’s amazing what an I.V. and some drug to kill the intestinal spasms can do. I must remain on a liquid diet and see my regular doc next week, but for now, I am resuming my attention to my beloved aunt. She was released from the hospital yesterday, and I have arranged 24/7 home health care for her, though it took quite a bit of doing in a short time. Fortunately, my senior pals rose to the occasion to help me again, and after a long, long day, it was all arranged.

Life is short: keep moving on.

This is a philosophical question that I often ask myself, “could I have inherited my spiritual feelings from my mother’s distant parental lineage?”

Where I am coming from is that I grew up in a religiously divided household. My maternal grandfather was a Methodist missionary who went to Oklahoma to “save the heathens,” and married a full-blood Choctaw (Native American Indian). She converted to being Methodist, and that is the religion that my mother observed.

My father was Roman Catholic. He grew up in a strict Italian Catholic family. He was required to bring up his children Catholic in order to get permission to marry. However, by the time I came along, they sorta had forgotten that. My oldest nine siblings were baptized in the Catholic Church, and the other six of us are a mix (some are more observant of organized religion than others. For example, my twin brother eventually went through training and became Catholic. I was not baptized in any church, nor have an interest in doing so.)

I attended both Methodist and Catholic churches until my parents stopped forcing me to go. Growing up in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood, I also attended a number of Jewish religious services (Bar- and Bat-mitzvahs and weddings). I had always questioned what religious leaders said about certain things. Later in life, when I acknowledge that I am gay, I had a lot of trouble listening to the statements made by the Catholic Church about homosexuality.

I love my man. I am no less in the eyes of the God in organized religion because I love someone of the same sex. However, hearing all that negativity and being subjected to shunning by the UltraCatholic branch of my father’s family just drove me more away.

But that does not mean that I do not believe in a greater spirit. I truly think there is something bigger and more powerful out there that is guiding me. I can’t call this higher spirit, “God,” but I can refer to spiritual leadership.

As I was exploring my feelings of spirituality, I had some long discussions with some Choctaw Tribal Elders. I learned that how I think and feel about a Great Spirit is consistent with their form of Spirituality. I believe in the importance of maintaining harmony with nature and fellow humans. I believe a lot in the Light of the Sun, as the Choctaw do. What is odd to me, though, is that I was never directly exposed to any form of spiritual teachings from my mother’s People. I only knew my grandmother and some distant cousins. My grandmother had become an avowed Methodist before I was born.

I have been wondering for a long time, “can spirituality be inherited?” I think there is something to that, but I don’t know. Meanwhile, I will keep smiling, because I remember and continue to employ this quote by H. Jackson Brown, Jr.: Today, give a stranger one of your smiles. It might be the only sunshine he sees all day. Sunshine, be it from our nearest star or from light on another’s face, is clearly a major part of my spirituality.

My Dad would have been 98 years old today. Happy birthday, Dad! I know you’re up there thinking about me… and your family.

I didn’t have much time with him — not as much as my older siblings, anyway. Not because he didn’t spend time with all of us, but because he died when I was 12 years old.

My Dad was a diplomat, both at his profession and at home. He was quiet, but we knew what he liked, and didn’t. He liked his kids to get along… so my sister had to stop pulling my hair in the car as we drove cross-country. (Yeah, right… one reason why I drove with Mom more often.)

Dad liked order, but wasn’t rigid. For example, when it was time for dinner, all of us had to be seated, napkin in our lap, and wait until he served himself before we could serve ourselves, pass the bowl, make sure everyone had everything, then begin to eat. But the conversation around the table was loud, raucous, and we often talked over one another. Dad loved it when everyone asked questions, talked about the news of the day, added on to the other’s thoughts, and shared. I often remember watching him sit back from his chair at the table and just watch all of us be a family. I could tell he was very proud.

My Dad loved to get a small boat out onto the reservoir and pretend to fish. He had all the equipment, but it was evident to us if we got to go with him that he just wanted to sit and enjoy the serenity. “Don’t scare away the fish!” was a common expression to get us kids to shut up. I learned from that … what serenity was … and to be patient while being peaceful. That’s a hard lesson for a kid to learn!

I recall two incidents that mortified me, but later became the stories that the family brings up as adults at the most inopportune times. One was the time that Dad took a sister and me with an aunt visiting from Oklahoma to the reservoir, just to walk around on a nice Spring morning. He showed her the boat, and I hopped onto it. He asked me to get out, which I did. But then the boat began to float away, so I reached to grab the rope — and you guessed it — I overreached and fell into the water. Everyone was highly amused except me (at the time).

Another time was when Dad had docked the boat and asked me to lock it up. I did that diligently. Then he asked me to hand him the keys. I got cute and tossed the keys at him — and the keys went into the water. I never could throw anything. The car keys were on that ring. Oh gosh… what a mess. Dad tried fishing with a stick to find them, but no luck. It was getting dark, and we couldn’t see. He walked about a mile to use a phone to call his brother to bring us the spare keys. Man, I was in the doghouse for a week.

Being in the “doghouse” meant, to us, having to live with knowing that we had disappointed our father. It was a horrible feeling, because we knew how much he loved us, and how much he cared. He would never yell, scream, curse, or lay a hand on us, even if we messed up. He would just give us “that look”… and we knew. He taught us what “expectations” were, what “standards” were, and how to try to achieve having a good life every day by demonstrating how he lived to the standards he set for us.

Dad would read with us. He would speak in other languages with us, and encourage us to learn about the world. His world was huge. He even helped us have the most creative “show-and-tell” experiences while we were in school, with real people!

One more story about Dad, in closing. He so loved my Mom. I could see it in his eyes, in the way he looked at her, and in the many things he did for her every day. One night, after he thought we all were in bed, I heard some waltz music. I looked out over the banister, and saw Dad dancing with Mom, then gave her a big kiss when the song ended. Just the the two of them. Their love was complete, solid, and strong.

Well, Happy Birthday, Dad! I miss you, am thinking of you, and love you very much. I try today to live as a man that you wanted me to be. I always cherish your memories, your devotion to family, your solid work ethic, and most of all, your love.

Remember, life is short: if you are fortunate enough to still have your Dad around, let him know you care. Pay a visit, give a call. Show those you love that you love ’em.