Thoughts on Dying

On late Saturday, when I woke up from my two hour afternoon nap at 5 o'clock I had the feeling of "going down."  Ever had that feeling?  What is the feeling of "going down?"  I think you know, it's the feeling like you're going to die.  

At m age (71), when I see so many names in the obituary of the local paper with ages younger than mine.  When every year I attend my high school class reunion there are a few less members from my class of 1959.  When high school friends of mine who I am still close with are daily facing the challenges of failing health, death is something I think about more often.

Am I ready for death?  Yes, in my mind I am because I am convinced (98% anyway) that once I die either one of two things will happen:

Nothing
I will go to Heaven

I don't buy the man made religious propaganda of modern times that one has to fall on your knees every Sunday and "Praise the Lord" in order to gain entry into Heaven.  With all due respect to my friends, relatives and nice folk who read this blog who believe otherwise, I just don't believe it. Call it Free Will or whatever, but it is a theory that just doesn't make sense to me.

When my long time friend Bill B. tells me that the notorious murderer Ted Bundy will get to Heaven before I do because he "accepted Jesus Christ" before he was executed but the nice little old lady who never did anything wrong in her life will not go to Heaven because she didn't accept Jesus Christ....just doesn't make sense.  And as Judge Judy says "If it doesn't make sense, it's usually not true."  

So as I awoke from my slumber Saturday afternoon I felt like I was dying.  That's the feeling one gets when one is passing a kidney stone, you're "going down."  And if you're not going down, you WANT to go down just to end the pain.

I tried to work through it.  I walked around trying to convince myself I had gas but it just wasn't working.  I was going down, down and down.  I told Bill "I'm not feeling well."  I guess I knew I was passing another kidney stone (my 3rd) but I didn't want to believe that, especially after writing a blog entry about my ambulance trip to the hospital in 1959.  

I went into my home office and brought out a picture frame that I had purchased earlier in the day at Walmart. I took the glass out and was cleaning it when the urge to purge came up.  I ran to my bathroom and almost made it to my toilet and threw up.  Some of my tomato soup lunch got on the bathroom wall next to the toilet and some on the tile floor below (no pictures).  That did it.  I knew I was passing a kidney stone.  Damn!

I went back into the kitchen and told Bill "I'm calling 911 for an ambulance." He said "I'll drive you down."  I said "I can't do that because I'll just be sitting in the emergency room for hours and I won't last.  I'm going down fast.  I can't wait."

By the way, I wasn't talking calmly like I'm talking now.  I'm bent over and barely getting my words out, the pain was that great.  

The thought went through my mind "What if I lived way out in the country?  I would surely die if I didn't get immediate attention, or at least pain killers."  Folks, the pain make you go crazy.  I cannot emphasize how great the pain of a kidney stone is.  If our government knew how to harness this pain they would get every terrorist in Guantanamo Bay to confess to anything they wanted.  The power to inflict pain like this is a Dick Cheney dream.   But I digress.

But back to dying.  I hope when I die I don't go like the pain I experienced last Saturday when I was passing that kidney stone.  I hope I die like my cousin Randy who just died in his sleep this past March.  Randy is pictured at the top of this blog with his mother, my aunt.  Both are gone now.  Randy was six years younger than me and in good health.  He wasn't ill.  In fact, he was in better health than I am now.  So, you just never know. Randy's wife sent me a note saying that Randy had always hoped that he would die in his sleep and not like his mother, who lingered in a nursing home in the dementia unit for many years before she died at age 89.  However she said, "it was still too soon."  

None of us can predict when we die unless it is by our own hand.  However, one thing I do know, that when I die it will be a release not only from pain but from the never ending sadness I have from the sense of loss of so many of my loved ones, both relatives and friends and pets who are no longer here.  I may have gotten relief from the extreme pain of this past Saturday that was caused by my kidney stone passing but the only "relief" that I will get from the never ending pain that is always in my background now of the loss of my loved ones is the sweet release of death.  That is why I am not afraid of death itself, only how I get there.  

Me with my Mother and Father

In the meantime, while I am living I intend to make every day count.  No wasted days.  Also I will not waste my time on meaningless activity like arguing arguments that will not change anyone's minds.  Seeking friendships where there is none.  And trying to please those who nothing you do will please them ever, and not live my life according to someone else's definition of how I should live my life.  

What I will do is value, appreciate and reciprocate the friendships that I do have. I will make productive use of my time in activities that are meaningful, productive and appreciated.  What I won't do is live my life according to someone else's definition of how I should live my life.  

Me with one of my dogs who is patiently waiting for me in Heaven

An experience like I had this weekend is just another reminder of how fragile and valuable life is and how we should always treasure every day we have of good health and freedom.  And when our time has come to an end, and it surely will for everyone one us, we can go to the Great Unknown (and no one knows The Answer), with the knowledge that we have lived according to our own Truth.  If there is a Heaven, I am quite sure no one is going to be at St. Peter's Gate checking to see how many times you went to church or how many souls you saved.  Worry about your own self and let the others take care of themselves.  

If you live a life of kindness and respect towards others, those pearly gates should be open to you as well.  That's all that is needed folks for a life well lived.  

For a while this past Saturday night I was ready to go. And I can say with all honesty, I was at peace with myself and ready to go.  

Is There A Heaven?

That is the universal question we have all had at one time or another in our lives.  I would like to believe that there is a Heaven.  However, my common sense tells me that there is no Heaven.  I think that when we die, when our bodies cease to function, when the emptiness of death replaces the life that is in our faces; on that day there is nothing.  That when we die, our soul or whatever life force that inhabited our bodies for all the years we were alive; that spirit disperses into the endless vastness of eternity.

Of course it is nice to contemplate that some great reward awaits us for enduring this existence on earth.  I want to believe that there was a reason for my existence.  That my life had some purpose. I mean no offense to my friends who find comfort in religion but for me, I find the religious propaganda line that we exist for the "glory of God" and to "accept Jesus Christ" a fairy tale invented by man to control other men.  I've always believed that.  Even down to the point were Christians always refer to God as "the Lord" as in medieval times when real lords presided over serfs and justified their treatment of serfs with a promise of a better afterlife.  Sorry folks, I don't accept the precepts of any "man made" religion at all with perhaps the exception of what little I know about Buddhism.  Some of that eastern religion at least makes sense to me, some of it.

Smokey

We've all heard of the near death experiences in which an all enveloping bright light welcomes us into unconditional love.  Now THAT makes a lot of sense to me and I would like to believe that is what happens when we cease to exist in our human form.  Oh how I would LOVE for that to be our Great Reward for enduring this existence on earth.  When I think of unconditional love it is not something I associates with my fellow human beings.  Oh sure, we make friends during our lifetimes and even a few of us are fortunate in that we find someone we love during our human existence.  But let's be realistic, no matter how great the love or friendship, don't they all have conditions?  Sure they do.  The only "unconditional love" I know of is the love that we receive from our pets, specifically a dog.  Isn't it ironic then that "dog" spelled backwards is "God?"  When you look into a dog's eyes don't you see unconditional love?  I do.  Cats are good pets too but none of us can claim to look into a cat's eyes and see unconditional love returned to us, only a dog's eyes are capable of communicating that feeling.

Horace

At this time of my life, when I am rapidly approaching the end of this train ride called "My Life", I often think of what if anything awaits me when I enter my Eternal Sleep.  I know what I want to happen.  I want to see my pets again.  With them, during my life I did experience unconditional love.  I would like to see my mother and father again.  I would like to see my friends like Ron and Sal, my two Army buddies (Sal was in the Air Force actually but I met him when I was in the Army).  I would LOVE to meet my grandmothers, who I never knew when I was alive.  I also never knew my paternal grandfather; he died two years before I as born.  I bear a striking resemblance to him.  I am curious if our personalities are similar.  I also would like to meet all of my grandfathers, maybe there was a gay one (or two) back there during the eons that it took to produce me in November of 1941.

The way I see it, when I die it's all good.  Even if there is nothing and all is a void then I do have eternal peace.  As much as I enjoy life now and don't want to leave just yet, I do look forward to the day when all this comes to an end.  To me life is a constant serious of tribulations of just getting through.  Recently I have been somewhat depressed over the fact that two heartless frauds might actually be elected president and vice president of this country.  It is depressing enough that Romney and Ryan could actually be elected despite their obvious and blatant deceit and selfishness but what is even more depressing is that so many of my fellow human beings would believe their deceit.

My life as  is most others, has been one of survival.  At this time of my life I am barely surviving.  I just manage to pay my bills.  My weeks are punctuated with more frequent doctor's appointments to repair this 71 year old body so I can last a few more years on this earth.  Because of my old age, I am increasingly relegated to the corner of the room reserved for Senior Citizens, an object of irrevelence good only for whatever money or possessions that can be squeezed out of me before I pass on.

"Fuzzy"

Don't get me wrong, I've had a good life.  I haven't had to endure too many hardships.  In fact, for the most part I've had a good life in spite of the fact that I was born gay and lived most of my life the object of discrimination, hate, and danger.  I've had an easier time of it than most in my situation which I attribute to luck and my survival skills.  Life to me has been one of dodging potential pitfalls and trying to extract some measure of happiness out of it.

"Brad"

I've enjoyed most of my life but I can't say I've been deliriously happy all my years.  Oh sure, there were a few times when I was actually deliriously happy.  I can remember each one of the instances.  They were brief and they were with my amour of the moment, which was always another man.  Unlike the fellow in the video at the beginning of this post, if there is a heaven and I am met by my guardian angel, he better be a man.

Near Death Experience #2

Me (standing far right) and my brothers John and Isaac - 1947

Continuing with my near death experiences (and ignoring the Republican Convention in Tampa, FL), my second brush with the Grim Reaper happened when I was eight years old.

Almost every Sunday my  father would load me and my two younger brothers in the back seat of his Packard and visit "Ed and Mabel" (my aunt and uncle and my father's brother and his wife) for a home cooked Sunday dinner.  Our family lived in a second floor apartment building in Downingtown, Pennsylvania.  My Uncle Ed and Aunt Mabel lived in the country with their five children.  My brothers and I always looked forward to these weekly Sunday visits not only for Aunt Mabel's fried chicken and homemade southern biscuits but for a chance to run free and wild in the country.

Typical Sunday gathering of Tipton Family at "Ed and Mabel's) (I am fourth from right, front row, folded arms) - 1951

One Sunday in 1949, after a day of playing in the country topped off by one of Aunt Mabel's southern cooked fried chicken and biscuits meal (when I was seven years old), my brothers and I got in our seats in the back seat of the family Packard.  My father pulled out of the parking spot across the road from Ed and Mabel's where he always parked his car.  The parking spot was on the curve of the road.  As he pulled out with my Mom in the front seat and us kids in the back seat, another car comes careening around the corner and slams into our Packard, spinning it around 360 degrees!  My brothers and I were flung across the seats (no seat belts back in 1949).  We were shaken up but not injured, probably because we didn't have a chance to brace ourselves and thus suffer broken bones.  I don't remember how much damage was done to my father's Packard but I do know it was extensive.

Me (with my arm on my father's shoulder) and my brothers John and Isaac with the family Packard - 1948

There is a lot I have forgotten about my younger days but I remember being hit by that car as clear as if it had happened yesterday.  The impact was that jarring and the sound.....CRASH!  I wasn't aware of death back then but I knew something almost happened.

Thus, before I was ten years old my second of my nine lives was already used up.

Do Dogs Go To Heaven?

Horace - 1982-1999

Yes, I believe they do.

Do I believe in Heaven?  I don't know.  My common sense says there is no such thing as Heaven.  I tend to believe that when you die there is nothing.  A great void.  Black, dark.  Total unawareness.

However, and a big HOWEVER....some years ago I saw a Robin Williams movie called "What Dreams May Come."  The Robin Williams character died in an auto crash in the Holland Tunnel (what a way to go).  He died but he didn't know he died until he "woke up" in a colorful field of flowers in an oil painting.  At first he didn't know where he was.  As he slowly came to consciousness, he heard a dog barking in the distance.  He recognized the bark.  The dog barking was his long deceased dog "Katy".  "I must be in dog Heaven!" says the Robin Williams character.


Katy rushes to him in the field where Robin Williams is lying among the colorful flowers.  Very emotional scene and I get choked up every time I see it.

They embrace one another.  Katy licks his face.  They both walk off towards the beautiful waterfalls in the distance.  That's when Robin Williams realizes that he is in the REAL HEAVEN, not just "doggie Heaven."

Folks, Bill and I have had five dogs (all Pomeranians) during our time together.  Our last dog died in 1998. His name was Horace.  His death was so devastating to us, we haven't had a dog since.  I would get one but Bill couldn't take another loss of one of our pets.

Horace was special to me.  Horace was my "buddy."  Growing up our family had dogs.  Sure they liked me but they were always my father's dogs.  Of the five dogs we've had, four of them took up with Bill.  Sure, they liked me but when push came to shove, Bill was the one they went too.  Horace was the only dog in my life that CHOSE ME.

I don't know exactly why.  Maybe because I rescued him from a pet shop window during my lunch hour one day when he was being overwhelmed by the bigger dogs in the window.  I had no intention of buying a $300 dog from a pet shop in center city Philadelphia on that August day in 1982, believe you me.

The mistake I made was going in the store to inquire about the price of "that doggie in the window."  Of course you know what the pet shop owner did (the sly salesman he was).  He said "Here, I'll get him for you and you can hold him."  Oh oh!  What was I going to say?  What could it harm?

I swathe salesman pick up the little orange fluff that was Horace as a puppy and hold Horace away from him while he sprayed him with something (which I later found out to be a deodorant because Horace stunk when I got him home - puppy mill and all that which I didn't know at the time, naive me).

He hands Horace to me and I hold him to my chest.  He didn't stink when I held him (or at least I didn't smell the stink, that came later when I took him home).

As I cradled Horace to my chest (he fit real good by the way), Horace looks up at me as if to say "Please take me away from here."  Well, it doesn't take a genius to figure out what happened next.  I bought him on the spot!  Oh yeah, I BOUGHT HIM.

Now here was a problem. I had to go back to work and now I have this stinking, three pound orange fur ball in a cardboard box with handles to take back to work with me for the afternoon.  What was I going to do with him?  Good thing my bank operations manager position provided me with a desk back in the corner of the third floor of the Morris Building on Chestnut Street.

I returned to work and put the Box With A Dog In It behind my desk.  Of course several people in my unit asked "What's in the box?"  I forget exactly what I said but I don't remember telling them it was a dog.  I didn't want everyone back there "oohing" and "aching" and creating a distraction.  Just get through the afternoon Ron.

Horace was quiet.  Them there was a whimper.  I put my hand in the box on top of his greasy orange fur.  He stopped whimpering.  I did that every time that afternoon when he whimpered.

Next stop, the commuter train home.  I didn't know if they had a rule about pets on a train but I wasn't going to take any chances.  I wasn't going to go to the train with a dog on a leash.  Horace stays in the box.  So there I go to the train station with my briefcase (the Big Deal Businessman from the Big City) and a cardboard box with handles and three pounds of stink in a box.

I get on the train amongst my fellow commuters.  I find a seat in the back away from most of the other commuters.  An occasional whimper emits from The Box.  My hand automatically goes in the box and the whimpers stop.

After we're on our way for the seventy minute commute to my home in Downingtown, the train conductor ambles by to punch my commuter ticket.  He pauses and looks at me and casts a casual glance at The Box. I'm holding my breath praying that Horace doesn't whimper because I don't want to HAVE TO EXPLAIN WHY I BROUGHT A DOG ON THE TRAIN.  In retrospect me having a dog on the train probably wouldn't have been a problem but I just didn't want to GO THERE.  I had visions of being thrown off the train somewhere near Paoli and having to call Bill to pick me up and then explain to Bill why I was thrown off the train.  Oh no, I still had to think of what I was going to tell Bill when he picked me up at the train station in Downingtown.  He didn't know I BOUGHT A DOG.

The crises pasts with the train conductor and me moves on.  Another thirty minutes or so left on my commute.  I kept my hand in the box the whole time remaining.

Horace a few days after his arrival at our home

We arrive in Downingtown.  I disembark from the train, looking to see where Bill parked his Jeep Wrangler.  I see him.  He sees me.  He sees I have a package.  I knows I'm a shopaholic.  With some bemusement he asks "Well, what did you buy this time?" 

As I'm placing the Box With a Dog in the back seat I nonchalantly tell him "A puppy."  Hey, I'm not one for beating around the bush.  Just get out the news and deal with it.

Bill says "What did you say?"  I said "A puppy."  He turns around and looks at me to see if I'm serious and says "You have GOT TO BE KIDDING?"  That's when I turned around and took the Box With a Dog off the back seat and put it on my lap.  I pull out the Stinkball that is Horace.

Bill's eye just about popped out like the Roadrunner's when he sees the "BEEP-BEEP" bird.  Bill couldn't believe it.

The rest of the ride home Bill bemoaned and groaned and said "You'll have to take him back!" I knew that wasn't going to happen once I let Bill hold him.


Bill was a goner.  We had a new dog in the house.

Now as I said before, we've had dogs before.  In fact, we had just lost another dog (also orange like Horace) a few months before.  Bill at that time said "Never again!"  As I said before, Bill just can't take the loss.

Well, once he held Baby Horace (which is what he called him at that time - the name "Horace" is a subject for another whole blog posting), he (Bill that is) was a goner.  Horace now had a new home.  '

Horace - at home

Bill with one of our other dogs - Sparky - they always choose him

Now here is the interesting part.  Horace had "picked me."  Horace had bonded with me.  All dogs we had before always bonded with Bill.  We got two dogs since Horace and they also bonded with Bill.  But Horace "picked me."  I was Horace's sun, moon and reason for being.  I think what did it was me putting my hand in the box that afternoon and on the train.

From that first day in the house Horace wouldn't let me out of his sight.  When I went to work Horace had stay in my bedroom (Bill and I sleep in different bedrooms) and spent the day lying on the clothes I wore when I was home.  He wanted to be near my scent.

For the next sixteen years (which is a long life for a Pomeranian toy dog), Horace was my "buddy."  He loved to go for rides with me.

You never saw a more pitiful expression on a dog's face if I left for someplace in a car and didn't take Horace with me.  He LOVED riding with me.  I would often visit my Mom.  Horace would have to go.  At my Mom's I would open the car door and Horace would jump out.  I never had to use a leash with Horace, he always kept me in his sight.  Here is Horace with my brother Isaac and my Mother.  Notice how he is keeping me in his line of vision.




From 1982 to 1998, friends and family rarely saw me without Horace.  It was always "Ron and Horace."  We were inseparable.

Me and the older Horace during one of his last rides

Then Horace got hold. He muzzle turned white.  He started to lose his mental facilities.  He started to wet the floor overnight.  He always acted so ashamed when I came down in the morning and saw the wet floor.  I didn't mind, I cleaned it up.

Horace's favorite spot - my lap

Even though his bodily functions both mental and physical were beginning to fail him he still knew who I was.  He still looked to the door in anticipation of "a ride" whenever I headed towards the door.  He knew.

Then came the day (and it's hard to write about this even now, so many years later) that he couldn't get up. I came down to take him out.  He was still in his basket.  His eyes were open and he was breathing.  I waited for him to get out of his basket.  He couldn't move.  He had a blank star in his eyes.

I lifted him up. He was as limp as a rag doll. His head dangled down from my arms instead of resting in them like they had for the last sixteen years.  It was Time.

Me and Horace, Christmas 1984 - totally bonded - inseparable we two

I made the hard decision then and there that I had to end his suffering.  The last few months I noticed that he was rapidly going downhill but that morning his body finally gave out.  Horace had spent the last sixteen years as my devoted friend.  Now was the time for me to do the right thing.

Old Horace - closer to the End

I called my vet and told him what happened.  He told me to come down right away.  I took Horace for his last ride.  He rode in my lap instead of having his front paws on the driver's window like he always did.  He seemed to know that this ride was different (so hard for me to write this now).

Horace about a year before he died - 1997 - old but still with it

I took him into the vet's office and was ushered in right away to a side room.  Dr. Pollack (the vet) came out of a side room with his equipment.  He asked me "Do you want to be with him?"  Of course I said "Yes."  I got Horace when he was just a young pup and I would be with him now, at the end of his life.  That was the least I could do.  I would not leave him now. (So hard folks, these memories, tears in my eyes).

The end was quick and painless.  I left with Horace's limp now dead body wrapped in his afghan blanket that he always slept on.  Bill was waiting for me in the car.  He was crying (Bill can't handle these situations).

Bill drove home, I had Horace in my lap.  At home we placed Horace's body in a freezer chest (we bury all out dogs in an air tight freezer chest).  Bill dug a hole out in the flower garden where our other two dogs were buried.  Horace had outlived them all.  One was "T" who was a blonde Pom and Bill's devoted dog.  The other was their puppy "Babydoll", the offspring of "T" and "Horace".  Horace and T only had two pups.  One we sold (which we always regretted, that's why we never raised any more Pom pups).

All right, I've been through five tissues so far in writing this blog.  I don't know what's the matter with me but I get more emotional over a loss of a pet than I do people.

The pain of the loss of Horace, the only animal friend who "chose" me, was almost unbearable.  When I went to work the next week every time I would think about Horace I would choke up and the tears would flow.  Thank goodness I wasn't crying out loud.  I don't think I've ever had a loud cry in my life, I usually just tear up real bad and choke up.  I'm telling you folks, it took me MONTHS to get to the point where I could even think about Horace without choking up.

These days when I'm looking at The End for myself I often think, will I wake up in a field of flowers (I love fields of flowers) in Heaven one day and hear Horace barking and running towards me?  Now folks, that truly would be Heaven.

Me and my Buddy for Life (and in the Hereafter) - Horace

What Happens When You Die?

Man's fanciful image of God - Michaelangelo style

I don't know.  Okay, that's my post.

Oh yes, I have more to say on this subject.  This morning, after eating breakfast and bushing my teeth, I positioned myself before my iMac 17 inch big screen computer, all revved up to finish posting all my Lewes Presbyterian Cemetery photos to Find a Grave.com.  

I click on the Find a Grave icon on my toolbar.  Nothing.  I click again.  Again, nothing.  Okay.  Next step.  I reboot my computer.  Maybe I have to clear out my cache (look it up).  Then I click on F.A.G. grave icon again.  Still nothing.  

Then I search the Internet to see if Find a Grave's website has crashed.  Nothing except complaints about Find a Grave and all the "drama" (whatever that is).  

So here is my backup activity plan for this morning.  I'll write a blog post about what happens when you die?  I don't know.

Perhaps I should expand.  What I am pretty sure of is that when we die we don't ascent to Heaven on giant white feathered bird wings, dressed in a gossamer white nightgown to meet God sitting on a gold throne int he clouds.  You all know God don't you?  He looks like Charlton Heston (in his Moses "Ten Commandments Days", not in his Right Wing, "pry my cold dead hands from this gun"  days).  God, a white haired and bearded old man dressed in a white over one shoulder toga which displays his massive triceps, THAT GOD.  Oh no,  you're not going to meet HIM.  

Here is what I THINK happens.  NOTHING.  Yep, a BIG NOTHING.  Just a big deep VOID.

Oh sure, I'm all for folks having a "belief" (aka "faith") in what happens.  If that what makes you comfortable and able to get through life, then I'm all for it.  I'm not one nor have I ever been to foist my beliefs on someone else unlike many others of "the faith", whatever religion.  I've always said "If that is what works for you, then go for it!"  But by the same token don't get all sanctimonious and issue your "I'll pray for you" condescending remarks to me.

Joan of Arc being burned at the stake because she didn't Believe

I imagine death to be like the time I was given anesthesia to knock me out before having a colonoscopy last year.  Actually, that was quite a trip.  I don't even remember going out nor do I remember waking up.  Sort of nice actually.

To me the worst part about death is getting there, not actually when you die.  Dying is the release from our bodily form. This overcoat our spirit inhabits while we're on this earth.

I remember the first time I saw a dead person, in person.  It was at my Uncle John Tipton's funeral. My Uncle John died in 1962 from burns he suffered from getting his coverall pants on fire from spilled turpentine and a carelessly discarded cigarette butt.  Ironically he had survived World War II in spite of being captured by the Germans and held as a prisoner of war.  Uncle John as a paratrooper who was captured behind enemy lines in Holland.  He escaped twice from the German prisoner of war camp only to be recaptured twice.  Uncle John survived World War II but didn't survive a cigarette butt.

John Hannum Tipton 1922 - 1961

I was in the Army at the time of his death and called home to be a pall bearer at his funeral.  I remember going past his open casket and looking at my 39 year old uncle, who was so vibrant and full of life the last time I saw him.  I looked at his body and realized I was looking at a shell.  He wasn't "there" anymore.  His body in that open casket could just as well have been an overcoat with his name on it.  

Since that funeral I have seen other dead bodies at funerals, including my Mother and father.  I've always had the same reaction...there weren't "there" anymore.  I had no feeling at all for their shell.  They were gone.  Only their memory will stay alive.  And what keeps their memory alive is a memorial that the family leaves behind.  Thus that is why I believe in funerals, cemeteries, headstones and any other kind of memorial. 

So where does the essence of that person go when they die?  Again, I don't know but the only thing that makes sense to me is that the "essence" is dispersed throughout the universe.  We are not somehow magically transported in our bodily form or spiritual form with our memories intact to another place.  Just doesn't make sense, faith of not.  

So to all of you who have the faith, more power to you.  I'm happy for you that you have that comfort and don't have to think about what really happens when you die which is nothing.  

Now for those of you who doubt me, I can only say one thing.  Prove it to me.  As far as I know God and Jesus only talks to people like Pat Robertson and the Pope.  He doesn't talk to regular folk like me. 

Does He talk to you?  Tell me about it.

Dreams - Mom is Pregnant!

A fellow blogger in a recent post mentioned a recurring dream he had.  His post got me to thinking about dreams I have.

I used to dream a lot when I was younger.  By "younger" I mean when I was a teenager with raging hormones.  I dreamed a lot about my fantasy boyfriends and what I would do to them.  Dreams baby, dreams.

Once I became an adult and was able to make my dreams a realty I ceased to dream as much.  Oh sure, I would have the occasional dream that I wouldn't remember when I woke up but I never had those sexual fantasy dreams anymore.  In fact, these days it would be impossible for me to have a sexual fantasy dream, my hormones are done gone.

Me and Mom 1941

However, occasionally I still do have dreams.  Most often when I eat chocolate.  Either in a chocolate cake for a chocolate chip cookie. Not the Toll House cookies, those chocolate chips are too small.  I have the dreams when I eat those chocolate chip cooks (which probably should be called "chocolate chunk cookies") that I get at BJ's.

So when I read that my fellow blogger was dreaming I thought I would take a little trip to Dreamland myself.  When I got in from work last night, I devoured TWO chocolate chunk cookies.  Guaranteed dreams right?  Well, I wasn't disappointed.

Here is what I dreamed.  I dreamed that my 86 year old Mother got pregnant.  Yes, this is the same Mother who died in September of 2010 at 86 years old.  All I can remember about the dream is "how in the hell did she get pregnant?!" and "what are we going to do now because she was so old?"  WHO IS GOING TO TAKE CARE OF THIS BABY?

Like all my dreams, when I wake up I'm in a sweat and exhausted.  Man oh man, let me tell you I was really exhausted on this one.  What in the world triggered this dream?

So I tried to analyze it when I woke up.  Yes, I did remember this dream.  Not all the details (we still didn't find out how she got pregnant, my father died in 2000 and that was the only man she was ever with).

This is the way I figure it:  I think I'm in Groundhog Day.  Yes folks, I think I'm about to DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN!

I'm not a religious person.  If anything I believe in reincarnation in some form.  Wouldn't it be a cruel twist of irony if I had to live my life all over again?  Wow.

Me and Mom 1942 after I popped out - I was a happy baby then (with a droopy diaper yet)

So How Am I Doing Now?

So how am I doing now after learning of the potential news that I may be down the road to prostate cancer?  Pretty good actually, which surprises me.  This is new event in my life is just another challenge that I have to meet.  I don't feel the dread that I thought I would feel.  My main worry was what would happen to Bill if I wasn't around anymore.  We had a talk last night and we pretty well resolved that question.  I feel a lot more comfortable now should I go down that road after jumping through all the hoops that await me now because of my high PSA score.

I thought I would have trouble sleeping last night but I didn't.  I slept like I usually do, totally out.  When I wake up in the morning my mouth is dry as dessert sand (I must sleep with my mouth open) and I feel like I have arisen from the dead.  For the past two or three years I've been sleeping these really deep sleeps.  Nothing wakes me up and I mean nothing.

This morning I was going to get up early and take a walk on the boardwalk in Rehoboth Beach.  But I didn't wake up until 7:30, which is too late to go to the beach.  I usually get up at 5 am, wash up, shave and have breakfast and am out of her by 6 am.  I'm usually back here by 7:30 so this morning's walk was out of the question.  Instead Bill and I did our Saturday Morning Thrift Shop Tour.

We usually visit the Beebe Hospital Thrift shop and the Encore Thrift shop during our tour. The Encore Thrift shop is run by a local gay theater group.  Their "junk" has a flare that is right up my alley.  I always find something there.  This morning was no exception.  As I was checking out with Wayne and his spouse Stefan I told them that when I die that ALL OF MY STUFF is willed to their thrift shop.  Wayne said "I'll be gone long before you."  I thought to myself "Don't bet on it Wayne."  But I have left instructions in my will that I just had redone a couple of months ago that anything Bill doesn't want goes to the thrift shop.  Bill was so worried about what he would do with all my "stuff" if I should die before him.  The answer is Encore gets it all.  Of course they will probably have to get new facilities to handle all my stuff because I think I have more now than they have in their whole store.  It's all good junk so I don't think they will mind.

How am I doing mentally now?  Well, if my Mother was still alive I would feel very bad.  She always feared that her children would die before her.  My Aunt Peg has three children, two daughters and a son.  They ALL died of natural causes before she did.  My Aunt Peg died in her nineties a few years after her last daughter died.  She was living with her granddaughter's family and grandson.  My Mother always said "I hope I don't end up like Peg."  


Ron and Sal, two of my longtime good friends have been gone several years now.  My good friend Bob Mc. has dementia and hardly knows what day it is.  If I died tomorrow I doubt if he would remember it the next day.  I have other friends, one of whom (Lar) would probably miss me a great deal (as I would miss him should he die).  We were best friends growing up in Downingtown and after a thirty year intermission during our adult years, we renewed our close friendship after 9/11, in the aftermath of all the corporate downsizing when so many of us middle managers lost our jobs.  And of course Bill.  When I discuss this possibility with him he says not to worry because he "will take care of things."  I don't know quite what to think about this but I don't know what else to do.

My brothers will miss me.  I have many nieces and nephews but I've always been a distant figure to them ("Uncle Ronnie") so I doubt that my passing would be more than a blip on their screen of life.  That's okay.  Life goes on.

So this is how I'm doing now.  I feel a little other worldly, like I'm on the outside looking in.  But I don't feel devastated or panicky like I did when I was carrying two mortgages and couldn't sell my Pennsylvania house and was facing a financial abyss and the loss of everything I worked for my whole life.

Of course I hope all this heavy thinking is an overreaction on my part and when I take my repeat test for PSA levels next Friday it will turn out that everything is normal and I can go back to more important things like complaining about showing up at the Friday Night Dine Out Group and no one else shows up.  You know it's funny how that little episode in my life seems so silly now that I have this new Question in my life.

It's all about perspective isn't it?  Sometimes Fate slaps you in the face to bring you back to what is really important in life.

The Other Side

Taken this morning - the steps leading to my bonus room upstairs at my house

Last night I visited 'The Other Side' again.  You say "what is The Other Side?"  Oh, you know what it is.  Yes, THAT 'Other Side'.


When I went to bed last night a storm was passing through this area of the southern Delaware coast.  Here on the coast we usually are spared the brunt of such storms.  Through the noise of the howling winds and rain beating against my windows last night, I easily drifted off to sleep after watching episodes 3, 4 and 5 of 'Downton Abbey' on my DVR.  

Downton Abbey dinner with the Dowager Countess

Sometime last night during the night, while I was in my sleep induced coma  I visited to The Other Side again.  Lately I've been making a lot of visits to The Other Side.  Last night's visit was a pleasant one.  I awoke this morning feeling refreshed and full of anticipation that when My Time comes, a better place awaits my soul when I depart from this earthly body:

Clouds over Route 1 Southern Delaware

"Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth Of sun-split clouds-and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace, Where never the lark, nor even eagle flew - And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod The high, untrespassed sanctity of space, Put out my hand and touched the face of God."

The face of God?

I am not a religious person.  I do not believe in 'man made religion.'  However I do believe that we have a spirit or a soul that goes somewhere when we die.  I know this belief discomfort of varying degrees to those of my fellow human beings who find comfort and security in following their rituals and rules of their man made religion for which strict obedience is demanded by the threat of eternal damnation in the 'fires of hell' if you don't follow their man made rules.  

Hellfire and brimestone preacher

These are the religions who have tortured, maimed and killed countless millions over the centuries (and continue to do so to this day) if you fail to follow their interpretation of religion.  Organized religion has zero creditability with me.  Ever since I was condemned to hell when I was ten years old by a Pentecostal preacher because I was born gay, I knew then that organized religion or 'man made religion' as I call it, was a fraud whose only purpose was to control people.  

Accusing preacher - where is the love?

Organized or man made religion has no meaning for me.  However, unlike many of those who subscribe to organized religion, I do not condemn those who practice their version of organized religion.  They condemn me but I do not condemn them.  They express their sorrow of the 'loss of my soul'  but I am happy that they have found their Way.  I am very sincere when I say when I say that some of them are truly concerned about me and my soul.  However, what I say to them is "Do not worry about me, worry about your own soul."  For you see, I am the master of my own soul  which is what drives those who control organized religion to consternation, frustration and distraction.  But I'm getting off on another whole tangent here which I could write volumes on.  Besides, this argument has been made many, many times and I will never convince the True Believers so what is the use?  It's like pissing in the wind.  You feel good because you're relieving yourself but your piss gets all over you.

Structures for the Canal Front Park in Lewes at sunset

This is what I know.  Last night again I visited The Other Side.  Most dreams I don't remember the details but I remember the details of this dream.  I dreamed I was back at Girard Bank in Philadelphia in the 1960's.  I began working at Girard Bank in March of 1965 in the Trust Department.  All my life I wanted to work in a big bank in a big city and that day my dream was realized.  I was in heaven when I began working there because all of my dreams had been realized. 

A real luncheon that was held in my honor at the Bellevue Strafford Hotel 1986

In last night's dream I dreamed that a luncheon was being held in someone honor (I don't know who) and I was invited to come along.  I left the operations department and went downstairs to the Trust Administration Department with all the pooh bah's of the Trust Department.  As the head Mucky Muck was leading us to the dining room under glistening, crystal chandeliers and red velvet flocked wallpaper; I was having trouble keeping up.  I don't know what was delaying me but I couldn't keep up.  They eventually went on without me and I had to go back to the lunchroom that we in the operations department ate which wasn't near as glamorous as the Trust Administration lunchroom (which I never ate at in real life by the way).

Girard Bank - banking floor

Girard Bank Operations Department

Thinking about it now I think I know where the basis of this dream came from.  I watched three episodes of "Downton Abbey' last night which is another 'Upstairs, Downstairs' English series.  Some of the scenes in that movie took place in the ornate dining room under sparkling crystal chandeliers with bejeweled women and white starched collar men.  Then there were the servants who ate downstairs in basement at a plain table under harsh overhead lightbulbs.  Yes, I think this is what influenced my dream last night.  But even though I wasn't able to keep up with my 'betters' I do remember the feeling of exhilaration that I had when I woke up that I had experienced something good.  

Girard Bank - Philadelphia, PA

My Mother, who died September 16th of this past year, grew up without a mother.  She had a very hard life and when she died she was very paranoid about 'those' out to 'get her.'  She worked and sacrificed her whole life for her family and when she died she left us well cared for.  She also left my brothers and I the best parts of her character.  

Mom, my dog (and best pal) Horace and me - I will see them again some day

For the last couple of years before she died, she slept a lot.  She never told me what she dreamed but I'm sure she dreamed and visited 'The Other Place' too.  Now she is there.  And one day I too will be there.  


When Bill goes to sleep at night he often says "I'm going to sleep and get out of this world."  I often tease him by saying "You don't like me anymore?  You want to get away from me?"  He says "No.  It's not that.  You'll understand someday."  I think I do understand.  

All of the people on my blog roll are younger than me.  Some of them are gay men who have come out late in their life and are now writing about their regrets over what they have missed by not coming our earlier.  Some write about their day to day lives.  They write about their families; wives and former wives, kids, snow, trips, weight loss, jobs, political agenda, religion, et al.  While I find most of their blogs interesting, I haven't found a blog writer yet like me who is nearing the end of his time and is writing about his (or her)  impending departure.  I am curious to know if I'm the only 69 year old gay man who thinks this way or if there are others out there in the great blogosphere like me who wonder what's going to happen to them after they breath their last breath and go to the Great Beyond.

Me on a mountain top in Tennessee - close to "God"

Now I think I'll vacuum my house and plant those fertilizer spikes at the base of my holly trees that I've been putting off too long.  I'm not gone yet.

"Going Home"