Survivor Journals

Bob of If I Die Before I Wake has invited nine journallers to participate in a Cyber Survivor Adventure.

Every couple of weeks, the group will be issued a "challenge entry". The site will post a excerpt from the challenge entries, as well as the link to the complete entry found on the journaller's own journal site.

After the challenge entry is posted, the nine journallers will vote one of the writers off the site.

The "ousted" journaller will actually remain on the site, but rather than posting further challenge entries, they will act as a judge and commentator.

The first challenge entry has been issued, and can be found at the Survivor Journal website. The actual entries should be completed by
October 1, 2000.

Please take the time to visit, especially once the challenge entries are posted. There is a message board to post your thoughts/comments and also a instant poll where visitors can vote for who they would want to see kicked off the site.

The reasons behind Survivor Journals are simple.

1. To try something new.
2. Increase the interaction of the journal community.
3. The challenge.
4. Increased exposure to all journals involved.

So take a look around, explore all the journals involved.

If you would like to take part in Survivor Journals, Year Two (around Nov/Dec 2000), let Bob know!

Diet Week #12

Goal :
lose 100 lbs.

Immediate goal:
the next 10 lbs.

Lost to date:
18 lbs
this number updates
on Tuesdays --

They will not be Forgotten

October 16, 2000

Today was Steve’s last day here. He hops a plane back to his husband Jimmy in the morning. So today was my last chance to sit him in a chair and have him watch the videotape of Paul’s performance of his monologue, Sedona, Arizona. It wasn’t that Steve hadn’t wanted to see it; it’s just that the time was never right.

So after all the e-mail was read, and the news checked, and showers taken, it was finally time for Sedona. Paul wrote this show as part of a series of monologue shows begun after David’s death. He was working through his grief at the loss of his baby brother and in this particular show, he talks about his passion to make sure that David didn’t get forgotten, that he didn’t become just "the one who died." The whole hour-plus show, which traces Paul’s search for spirituality, centers around not wanting David to be forgotten.

I hadn’t seen it in quite awhile and it still moved me to tears.

I’m sure Steve sat down to watch this video as a favor to me. But, as I hoped, he was blown away by it. It was far better than he expected and we spent a lot of time talking about the show and his ideas about it. It was very gratifying for me that a year and a half after Paul’s death his message could still have an impact...that he could still be remembered.

It reminded me of Steve’s song, "Save me a Seat," where he tells the audience that he realized when he was writing it, thinking that his death was imminent, that all he wanted after his death was not to be forgotten.

Sunday evening was the main reason for Steve’s visit here to Davis. He was singing at a Service of Remembrance honoring those who had lost their lives violently as a result of their sexual orientation. The service was sponsored by Sacramento PFLAG and Steve was singing two songs, one solo ("Gabi’s Song," which tells the story of 16 year old Bill Clayton, who committed suicide following a gay bashing incident), and one with the Sacramento Gay Men’s Chorus ("When You Care").

On the way to Sacramento, we stopped at the Paul Plaza. Steve took movies to take home to show Jimmy. I was again moved by this memorial to our son and I realized what a tribute it is to have a memorial. I never really understood this compulsion to put people’s names on things until our children died. The plaza will outlast Walt and me and it will ensure that for generations to come, Paul will not be forgotten. Oh, maybe nobody will know who he was, but they will know that at some time in this place, somebody cared enough to erect a performing area, install a plaque, and lay carved bricks in his memory. It was a humbling thing when I first saw the plaza. It’s still a humbling thing.

We moved on to the Catholic Cathedral in Sacramento, a huge building with many stained glass windows and curving arches and lots of gold gilt. There were panels of The AIDS Quilt on display in both the church and the adjoining hall, and the hall was lined with beautiful portraits of non-traditional families.

The service was a multi-denominational service, not only in the participants, who came from all faiths, but also in the service itself, which included passages from the Bible, the Koran, the Torah, the Tao, from the American Indian tradition, and from other faiths. Prayers were said, candles were lit, and the heart of the service was the reading of over 500 names of men and women who have died violently as a result of their sexual orientation, or their perceived sexual orientation. It was an emotional experience.

As the names were read, some familiar (Matthew Shepard, Billy Jack Gaither, Sacramento’s own Rev. Ed Sharrif) and some simply Jane Doe, Albuquerque or John Doe, Seattle I thought of those individual lives lost because of fear, intolerance, bigotry, hatred. I thought of the families of those people. Each of them was once someone’s beloved child. And yet, like Matthew Shepard, they were in the wrong place at the wrong time with people who were so fearful of something they didn’t understand that the victims were killed, almost certainly tortured beforehand as the anger of the attacker spun out of control.

The world is changing. Gay people are daring to come into the light of day, to say "there’s just no way I’m living in a closet." And in many places, they are being accepted, as the heterosexual world begins to realize that the only difference is in who this person chooses to love. But there are still too many "Jane Doe, Albuquerques" in the world. There is still fear and hatred and bigotry. Services such as we participated in today will help to ensure that these people will, like my own children, be remembered. In the time they were on this earth, their lives mattered to people who loved them. Perhaps in time the dividing line between gay and straight will disappear entirely and it won’t matter. Until that time we must remember. We must work to make the world a safe place to be...human.

This is Steve’s last night here. I just had to take a picture of him in our "Pepto Room" sleeping under the poster of himself. The room is more pink than even I realized. But doesn’t the rosey glow give him a deceptively youthful appearance? (Hey--I’ve adopted him as my obnoxious younger brother; I can tease him all I want...)

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