What’s the best way to deal with a parent or relative as they age. My aunt, my mother’s sister, raged through her decline with anger, denial and increasing hallucinations. My mother has taken a different approach, always the optimist, she tries to see the positive. But like my aunt, my mother is strong willed. Often when mom says yes it really a secret no.
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Even though I had come out to my wife when we first met twenty years earlier and spent the early months of our budding relationship talking about my same-sex attraction, we had not talked about the topic for years. Continue reading
After so many years of progress for LTBTQ and minorities under President Obama, these last few years have been painful. The country seems to be fracturing, first from COVID-19, and now from the death of George Floyd, with cities exploding into anger and protests, and in some cases violence. It is hard to watch for too long without turning away.
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Trauma is a term we often hear talked about in communities of color and the LGBTQ community. There is an entire body of knowledge about how to support individuals who have had trauma. But what is trauma and how ordinary is it?
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My two brothers and I, with our children, have all descended on the Florida town where my parents are renting an apartment for the winter. My mother’s desire to take my father, who at 90 years of age, is wheelchair-bound, out of the apartment for meals, movies, and tonight for s’mores, knows no bounds. Continue reading
Whose life is this anyway? I went from living my new gay life with a sense of freedom, joy, and fun to caring for my wife who was dying of cancer, caring for my father who is dying of old age, caring for my college-age son who found himself accused of hazing and working with my siblings to clean up my father’s estate, which is a mess. Continue reading
There has to be a better way to grow old. Continue reading
I am flying home after a short trip to Florida to help out my aging parents. How did the weekend go? The answer depends on how you see the world. Mom says, “Doesn’t dad look healthy? He’s doing so well, except that he can’t walk.” My brother, who came last weekend, says, “He just needs more PT to be stronger and he will soon be walking again.” My sister, who has made multiple visits to help my parents, says, “Dad is declining fast.” Continue reading
On Tuesday my wife got a port put in her chest for the two chemo drugs she started yesterday to treat her cancer. The procedure, which took place at a local hospital, was expected to last an hour. My wife and her parents were at the hospital for six hours. When I heard how the day was going I offered to make them dinner so they could sit down to a hot meal immediately upon their return from the hospital. I knew they would all be exhausted. Continue reading
Last Saturday my partner came over to the house that I moved out of three years and nine months ago, to meet my wife and her parents for the first time. This gathering was a long time in coming and was driven by my desire for my partner and my wife to meet. The timing was precipitated by my wife’s increasing decline from terminal cancer. She soldiers on with a new chemo regiment that begins today, with the hopes of slowing down or shrinking the tumors that increasingly inhabit her abdominal cavity and lungs. These new drugs may only slow down the inevitable, but they will not stop cancer. Continue reading
