day of remembrance....

Ms Thistle is getting pretty gorgeous!

Hey Campers, we made it to Friday, again!  Gosh, I love me some Fridays, how about you? There’s such a sense of accomplishment at the end of the week!  We’re in for a glorious weekend here in the little town, too!  I am looking forward to my happy hour tonight, that’s for sure. 

I was pretty lazy yesterday.  After tanning, I took Miss Thistle for a nice little walk along the Klondike trail, just on the edge of town.  Although I took a jacket with me, I really didn’t need it. Thistle and I walked about 4 miles in the beautiful sunshine, trying to get her used to walking on a leash again.  It was pretty hilarious, at first.  She had been used to playing in the backyard by herself throughout both her surgery recovery and mine and pretty much forgotten how to “heel” with me.  The first ¼ mile was rough for both of us until she got it back in her head what all the instructions meant.  Luckily, she’s a very smart little girl, and by the time we turned around at the 2 mile marker, she was walking right next to me, not pulling or anything!  We’ll see if she can remember that again today.

I have a lovely morning planned before Thistle and I go walking later.  A friend of mine had given me a gift certificate to one of the other massage therapists (Cheryl Roth) here in town for Christmas and I’m just getting around to using it.  Since I already have a schedule with my own therapist every other week, I asked if it would be okay to use the certificate for one of Cheryl’s herbal body wraps, since they are basically the same price.  Cheryl had no problem with it so that’s what I’m going to be doing this morning!  I’ve never had one and I’m really looking forward to it.  When I set up the appointment, she asked me which herb mixture I wanted and we almost didn’t get to do it at all because both of the ones she had listed, contained strawberry leaves. I am very allergic to strawberries! I love the things and that’s how it happened, eating too many of them over the years, darn it!  She looked around, however, and found that she had a rejuvenating herbal mixture that contains lavender instead of strawberries, so we are back in the game!  I’ll have to tell you all about it next time!

Today, I’m going to be spending a lot of time by myself as it’s the anniversary of a dear friend’s death.  My friend, Dave Ruby, died today 12 years ago.  He and I were introduced to each other by my psychologist back east about two years after I got diagnosed with AIDS.  Dave was gay and didn’t know he had been infected until he ended up in the hospital with PCP pneumonia and a t-cell count of about 25, on death’s door. Frank, my therapist, introduced us because Dave not only had a problem with having AIDS but with being gay.  Frank was worried that he would die because of his self-loathing attitude and thought that my bright outlook might help him.  We used to get together at least once a week, just to talk about his feelings and what was going on his life.  Dave had parents that wouldn’t let him tell anyone about his disease, either.  Luckily, he also had a very nice partner in his life, who would do anything for him.  It’s hard to describe, though, the things he used to say about himself. I think he had more of a problem with being gay than with having a terminal illness.  Personally, I grew up around a lot of people who were gay and so it has always been a part of my life.  One of the things I truly credit my mother for is my lack of “judgement” towards anyone’s lifestyle.  She always told me that as long as they are good people, it doesn’t matter what other things they choose.  I don’t think anyone “chooses’ to be gay, I think they are born that way. I also think we are ALL created in God’s image.  I’ll never forget when my mom, Dave and I were sitting around the table once and Dave made a comment that he was “just a damn queer” and my mother got very mad saying she didn’t appreciate his use of that word, as she had both relatives and friends who were gay.  That’s the kind of self-loathing Dave had, though.

We became very close until I moved here to Wyoming in 1998, so we spent many years together, helping each other through a lot of scary times and close calls with death for both of us.  This was back when there were hardly any drugs for the virus and people were dropping like flies, including a lot of Dave’s friends. I went to more funerals than I can count back then.  When we moved to Buffalo, I was very concerned about Dave, so much so that I even asked him if he’d like to move out here, too. I really was pretty much his only support system.  He didn’t want to, though, as he still had a great job at Random House Books back in MD that he was trying mightily to hang onto, despite not even telling them he was sick.  We tried to keep in touch as much as possible after I moved but I heard less and less from him until one day I got a call from Frank, my therapist back there, telling me that Dave had passed away from Cytomeglovirus.  Dave had never told me on the phone or in his letters that he was even sick.

What really ranckles me to this day about the whole thing is that his family pretended that he died of a heart attack.  His mother called me to thank me for being a good friend and wanted to know if we could continue to keep in touch as she realized that we had a special bond.  The things that came out of that woman’s mouth about her own son still make me want to throw up. You’d think a mother could accept her own son for what he is, but not this lady.  I tried to be as polite as I could with her as Dave had just died but let me tell you, it took every ounce of restraint I had. She told me that she didn’t even allow Mike, his partner, to be there at the end with Dave. You can insert any expletive you wish here, I probably am uttering them now…  Needless to say, I have never written or called her back in all these years.  Every year, however, I set the day aside as a tribute to my funny friend. I only hope that Dave has now found peace.

So, Thistle and I are going to head up on one of the mountain trails this afternoon and I’m taking my last picture of Dave with me and I’m going to spend the afternoon remembering him.  The last time I saw him, we went to an all you can eat Crab shack in Union Mills so I could get my fill of MD steamed crabs before heading off to Wyoming.  Gosh, I must have eaten at least three dozen that evening!  When the waitress came over, she asked some question and I told her that I was moving and that this was my last chance at crabs and she looks over at Dave and says “So, are you going to Wyoming with her?”  and he says “No, she’s going with her husband” The look on the waitress’s face was priceless!  It was obvious that she then assumed I was having an affair with Dave!  After she walked away, Dave busted out laughing and excitedly said “OMG, she thought I was straight!”  He got the biggest kick out of that!

Anyway, thanks for reading this, there are so many people who are gone from my life now, thanks to this horrible virus.  I have to say, though, they are also people I would never had met otherwise and so at times, I have to say I am grateful for the experience. I went to the Capitol Mall in DC when they laid out the AIDS quilt for the last time because it was getting too big to lay out anywhere else, they now only send out pieces for exhibition.  That was one of the most humbling experiences of my entire life.  Seeing so many relatives clinging to pieces of quilts was just heartbreaking, the whole mall just one big flowing mass of tears. I found the 20 or so pieces that held the names of people I'd known myself and had a good, hiccuping cry, too. You know, some of our best and brightest are gone because of this horrible disease. Artists, actors, playwrights, even heads of state.... I hope you don’t think you are immune, either and you practice safe sex.

Have a wonderful weekend and I plan on doing the same.  We have a lot of living to do for those who are no longer able to.