We Must Be the Change

If I had known… 

Known that Rose would be gone by age 44,

Known that Ruby would be gone by age 55,

Known that Rene would be gone by age 66,

Known that Mom would be gone at 92,

Would it have made a difference? Would I have cherished our moments together with more joy? Or would the fore-knowledge of their demise have just created a fog of sadness and regret before I had even had a chance to celebrate them? 

For each of these precious people in my life, there is a deep void in my soul  that will never again be filled with their laughter, their smiles, their love, their essence…

I will never again be able to put my head in my mom’s lap after she made me my tea with just the right amount of sugar – one and three quarters teaspoon and feel the gentle touch of her fingers as she ran them through my hair making me feel like nothing in this world could ever harm me and that everything would be okay.

I will never again get to laugh with Rene as we reminisced about our most cherished (as well as traumatic) memories and antics from our childhood together. 

I will never be able to tell Rose I love her – because I don’t ever remember saying those words out loud. Even when I knew I was saying my last goodbye to her as she sat in her wheelchair, puffy and in pain from the cancer that had invaded her body, on her deck waving as I drove off. A lasting memory in the reflection of my rearview mirror. 

I’ll never again get to experience how special Ruby made me feel whenever I visited her in our adult years. Always putting together something special just for me- whether it was a special meal, or a special gift, or the words she would say like, “I’m so proud of you, Lude.”

Hold your loved ones close to your heart and soul. Cherish them every moment you can. Be present with them and tell them how much you love them, or even better, show them. Living with the regret of not saying the words… or of missing a milestone in their life… or of letting too much time pass between visits or phone calls…

I am… living with both the joy and sorrow of the last goodbyes.

It’s been eight months since you were granted your wings – beautiful, grand, and golden – the much deserved wings that I wish you could have spread in this lifetime and not have to wait until your after life.

I am, by the way, convinced you are living it up on a scale beyond measure – cooking and eating a feast with Mom (not too sweet because you don’t like your food too sweet – lol), dancing with Ruby and Rose, and even having a good laugh with Dad…

Ren, you could have played the prince in every made for TV Christmas movie ever broadcast. Your elegance, down to earth bearing, understated magnificence, and deep caring set you apart. People loved you and you didn’t even have to try to produce that effect because it was a natural response to your humanity and goodness. Everyone saw it and was attracted to your light.

I know that for your lifetime partner, Gail, life without you is practically unbearable. I can only imagine the devastating feelings of loss she deals with every day. Youʻll be glad to know that Tess and Nikki are there and they are holding it together.

Oh how I wish for secret Thanksgiving, playing by the creek in the woods above our house on High Street in Oregon City, sharing the attic room with you and reading in our self made, cleverly hidden reading den (no girls allowed!), meeting you at Stars in San Francisco with your famous chef friends, weekends in Monterey with you, Gail, and the girls, walking around your garden with you marveling at your beloved succulents, and Bali – can you say Bali?! Innumerable memories that unfortunately will not be enough to assuage the depth of sadness I still wallow in on a regular basis.

None of us was surprised by the outpouring of love when we held your celebration of life. The sheer number of friends who came from near and far to fête you and offer their condolences while eating and drinking into the wee hours at your cherished Strada was but a glimmer, a sliver of the huge swath of love and warmth you cut through this world.

So now, we push through every day to live as you would have wanted us to with an unstoppable joie de vivre. Your selflessness allowed each of us to thrive, aspire to be better. I, for one, will not disappoint you. Cheers, my brother.

Love you, Ren.

As the saying goes, make new friends but keep the old, one is silver and the other, gold. 

I have a gold mine. I’m sitting on top of a veritable gold mine of longtime friendships. Thirty or more years of connections with people who have enhanced my life in innumerable ways. 

I just lost some rare and valuable gold. Losing gold is hard. Each nugget is individual and irreplaceable. The gold I lost on the last day of 2023 was so precious to me I’m having a difficult time coping with the loss. 

It started with a phone call early on January 1, 2024. I saw the caller’s name and thought it unexpected but not alarming… “Happy New Year!” – all seemed good. Then came the overwhelmingly tragic words that delivered the blow – there had been a fatal accident and I instantly went numb. I was experiencing an alternate universe where only tragedy existed… and it wasn’t real. Or so I wished with all my heart. 

As the details unfolded I came to the realization that this nightmare was real and the unimaginable had happened. When I disconnected from the call, I disconnected from life as I knew it and am now still reeling with sadness, regret, a certain amount of guilt, and a huge void which will never be filled. 

You see, this friendship had endured over decades and had survived several moves on each of our parts, a  multitude of relationships,  partnerships and breakups, long distances, and communication challenges. Nevertheless, the emotional intimacy we shared remained strong. We shared our ups and downs, our joys and our sadness, our hopes and dreams, our aspirations and our failures. Basically we shared it all. 

And the generosity was incomparable. Any need expressed or unexpressed seemed to be fulfilled – like having a genie in a bottle. Nothing was inconvenient or problematic. It was always, “yes!” 

So now you may understand why I am feeling this loss in ways that cannot be expressed…

Gold is precious – it gleams and it shines. It makes you feel rich. It doesn’t tarnish nor grow dull. 

Take care of your gold, cherish it, nurture it and keep it close. You never know, for in the twinkle of an eye, it can be taken away from you. 

Throughout our lives, we go through transitions. Some are small and uneventful while others are colossal and life changing. Some we choose, others are chosen for us, and some just happen… Some are joyful, some can be devastating, some just are. But we carry on, not knowing what each day will bring. In some ways, this mystery is a very good thing. If we knew what was to come, how we would live, what would become of us, whom we would meet, where we would end up, why we chose one path over another, if we had the answers to all these questions in advance, would we actually live our lives differently? Probably not.

Most of us, by and large, are expert rationalizers. We are inclined to find very good reasons for our actions. Defending our positions with great acuity and righteously expressing our indignation with those who would oppose us. In the current world context, this may be more true than ever… But more about transitions.

Often we mark important transitions with festivals, parties, celebrations and the like. We celebrate the birth of a new life. In fact, we do this in advance of the actual occurrence with what I consider an awful tradition of baby name games, specialty cookies in the form of baby carriages, ribbons and too much pink and/or blue… in other words, baby showers. In all honesty, I’ve really only attended a few of them given that these have traditionally been all female events. Lucky for me and my gender association…

In our tradition, a huge milestone transition is the first birthday celebrated with much joy, food, family and friends – I think a remnant from a time when the infant mortality rate was much higher than it is today. The celebration is a perfect excuse to bring together a full community of loved ones into one place where differences are set aside and all can enjoy the moment ensemble. The one year old has little to say about it and no recollection of it – the only reminders being the photos taken and shared years later…

From there, it becomes a roll of the dice and where you were born into which culture, family, social circle, or economic circumstance may offer many benefits and advantages or throw up a solid rock wall barrier that must be scaled or tumbled down to move forward… The beauty of life is that though we may believe, for example, that being born financially wealthy is the key to a happy and successful future, we see time and time again, that wealth brings with it its own set of problems and issues that can actually cause great unhappiness, loneliness, and neglect. And on the flip side, being born into a family with a wealth of love and caring but modest financial resources, can lay the foundation for a purposeful and exceedingly abundant life. Transitioning between and among our own personal set of circumstances can be challenging, rewarding, frustrating and oftentimes exhausting, yet we persevere.

And we love to celebrate the “round number” birthdays – maybe with the exception of the American context of turning 21, the age when you are considered fully an adult with the rights and privileges of lawfully consuming alcohol. Strangely enough, by18 you are allowed to smoke cigarettes, serve in the military, vote in local, state and federal elections, and legally engage in many other activities, but having a federally sanctioned martini must wait for three more years. But more on the round numbers.

Thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, and so on and so forth if we are fortunate to go on and go forth… Each transition to a new decade of life brings with it new wisdom, insights, learnings, and problems. In our thirties and forties we often deal with finances, romances, and chances to do more, make more, work more, and experience more… These two decades provide ample opportunity for us to run amok with our poor decisions, become workaholics, enter and leave relationships, and burn the candle on both ends. All with youthful joy and energy built on a foundation of maturity we didn’t have in our twenties… Then we reach fifty and look in the mirror at someone whose appearance does not align with the image we hold of ourselves in our minds. The graying and thinning hair, a few more laugh lines around the edges of our eyes, the skin losing some of that angelic radiance and elasticity, another pound here or there… But we work at keeping it all together and in our transition to ‘gulp’ sixty, suddenly we find ourselves in what I call an alternative form of reality in which our bodies have aged but our minds are still stuck in who we were decades earlier. Something akin to cognitive dissonance which they say is good for the brain… hmmm.

All in all, as I think about the next transition to that next “round number” which is, by the way, still soooo distant, I can’t help but wonder if there will be a more harmonious relationship between my mind and my body. I’m pretty sure, though, that it may not change a whole lot. My mother who lived to 93 would always tell me she felt like a twenty-something mind trapped in a ninety-something body. “No one prepares you to be old.” she would always say. So I’m not preparing to be old. I’ll just slide into whatever it is life presents and celebrate the transition.

I don’t know how many times I have sent sympathetic texts and responses to pet owners who lost their animals whether to disease, old age, accident… So now we are grappling with what I believe are the last days of our chihuahua, Cisco. He will be 21 years old on October 19, 2021 but part of me doesn’t think he will make it that long. He does circles for what seems to be forever when he’s awake – a sign of doggy dementia. We have to hold his little body in place while he eats or he gets distracted and can’t find his bowl. He has a hard time sleeping except when he is on our lap, or swaddled in a blanket – otherwise he is so restless and agitated. At this very moment, he is sleeping soundly on my lap as I write this ode of love to an idiosyncratic, loving, ornery, happy, crazy, hilarious creature…

Cisco was about 6 weeks old when we got him in Honolulu, Hawaii. He was tiny and fit in the palm of one hand. He had a very dark muzzle and sweet brown, tan, black and white markings on his body. Marvin and he were inseparable for the first few weeks we had him. I was called away on a work trip and they bonded for life in a way that I can’t access… Cisco traveled with Marvin in a little carrier bag to work, in the car, and everywhere basically and I missed out.

In his younger years he was very athletic and would run and jump with great enthusiasm and vigor. He also learned to heel off the leash quite well for our strolls through the neighborhood in Greensboro. He went missing for about 12 hours at some point in our lives together and we were truly panicked. He literally disappeared from our yard and we suspected the worst. For sure, we thought, he had slipped into a drainage hole and was stuck and drowning. We posted Lost Dog posters with a reward all over our neighborhood. Then, at about 2am in the wee morning hours we heard a yip and a howl and we both jumped out of bed only to find Cisco at the front door seemingly unbothered by the whole episode. We still don’t know where he was for those unaccounted for hours…

Cisco is a traveling dog. He has lived in Honolulu, Hawaii; Greensboro, NC; and Atlanta, Georgia. For most of his life he ate the lamb-flavored small kibble Science Diet dry dog food and never complained. Early on, we had to take his toys away from him because he was very possessive of them and would snarl and bare his teeth if you tried to even get near one of them. The same goes for chew sticks and bones. Strangely enough, when it comes to his dog food, he enjoys it most when we hand-feed him from his bowl.

This final paragraph is being written about a month after I started this post…

Cisco’s health had been steadily declining over the past week and Marvin and I both knew how this story would end… On October 8th, eleven days before his 21st birthday, Cisco took his last ride in the car and we said our final farewell. The process was carried out with solemnity, kindness, and gentle care. He peacefully slept in my arms as he took his last breath. No struggle, no pain, just relief for his little body.

I’m sure Cisco will be with us in our afterlife as he was with us in this one, rambunctious, silly, playful, and crazy. He will be forever in our hearts, our baby.

“And now I’m glad I didn’t know the way it all would end, the way it all would go. Our lives are better left to chance, I could have missed the pain, but I’d have had to miss the dance.” The Dance – Garth Brooks

As we Zoom/ TikTok/ Instagram/ HouseParty/ FaceTime our masked way into the future during the worst pandemic of our lives (for those of us not around during the 1918 flu pandemic), we are offered an ideal opportunity to take stock of where we are at a very personal level of humanity and consciousness. The pandemic has forced us to stay put and face ourselves as well as those closest to us in sustained and profound ways. I’m certain there will be or are already in progress a number of psychological and sociological studies that will reveal the true impact of this isolating, social distancing phenomenon.

For the introverts among us (unfortunately, I’m not one of them), it may feel like a welcome respite from the incessant demand to socialize and interact with their fellow humans. Contemplation, meditation, alone-time, me-time, can all be more easily accessed for some. Yet others with greater numbers of household members may feel too much closeness when everyone is home 24/7. Will there be a post-pandemic population explosion or a statistically significant increase in divorce and separations? Perhaps some of both? Will introverts lament the end of this global apartheid (in its original Dutch meaning: separateness) that dictates individual isolationism?

For extraverts, like me (scoring 361 on an Introversion-Extraversion scale from -500: total introvert to +500: total extravert), this quarantined seclusion and social distancing have wreaked havoc on my internal sense of well being and self. I certainly enjoy my alone time as much as anyone, but this mask wearing, people avoiding new world order has, at times, taken me to deep moments of lonely despair which I promptly with regularity superimpose on my spouse (who incidentally began working full-time, 5 days a week in his chosen profession of nursing very soon after I retired. He had up until then maintained a much more laissez faire, part-time schedule, but that’s another story). Spreading the wings of my new found retirement freedom was heavenly, yet felt perversely sardonic and at times, a betrayal to my hardworking, immigrant roots that propelled me from lower working class status (read: poor) to the echelons of the solidly, financially secure upper middle class… and during what would become known as the beginning stages of COVID 19’s world domination. My solution? The creation of an inner-sanctum of safety inside of which could be found a small circle of trusted friends and friendships both fresh and old. Weekly couples gathering to play cards, eat snacks, share stories and protect one another from both the disease and forced solitude. Relationships were forged that would never have been developed without the extremes of the circumstance. So I am indebted to this virus for enduring bonds and ties cast in the unforeseen molds of seemingly apparent desolation.

There are still naysayers willing to call this worldwide pandemic a hoax (don’t know how many are left – but  ironically, I bet they were the first ones standing in line to get the vaccine!) despite, to date, 2.16 million deaths worldwide. To those who continue to refuse to wear masks in public and privately-owned settings because of their “constitutional rights”, I say please stay in your own communities, with your own values that disregard and don’t care about anyone but yourself or those like you. Your privilege threatens the health of heroes whose jobs and careers require them to conduct their work in a less isolated environment – healthcare professionals, emergency responders, law enforcement officers, teachers, grocery store clerks, restaurant personnel, among them, overwhelmingly, people of color risking their lives every day as they interact with scores of unknown persons. I wear a mask to protect them and to protect me.

It’s January 2021 and although vaccines have been created, they continue to be an elusive creature for those not in the priority groups. With the inauguration of President Joseph Biden, is it possible we may have access sooner than expected given we may actually experience national leadership to protect us from COVID 19? Time will tell…

As the eternal optimist, I believe what lies ahead will allow us to retrospectively look back with some portion of gratitude that we gave our world a moment to breathe easier, partially revive itself, cleanse the air and water…. and to renew ourselves and our relationships. Who doesn’t love a happy ending?

This morning I’m missing Mom so much! As I was getting ready to drink the tea I had just made for myself, an overwhelming sense of loss came over me. I added a little milk and it reminded me of the innumerable cups of tea waiting quietly and patiently for me on my nightstand… made by Mom every morning. Lovingly prepared by a mother of eight just for me. Lipton for Ludy, not the generic Red Rose brand from Fred Meyer’s because in Mom’s mind, I deserved the best. If the tea got cold because I woke up too late, [for many years unbeknownst to me] it was magically whisked away and warmed up/refreshed so I would be enjoying tea at just the right temperature. And this ritual didn’t end when I grew up… it continued even when I was in my 50’s visiting with my mom in her apartment at Belmont Dairy in Southeast Portland. It was love with skin on it as my pastor in North Carolina would say. Not many spoken words, the “I love you!” statements so characteristic of our adopted American culture. But an unmistakable joy in serving the ones she loved; love demonstrated through her actions.

Now what about the rice and semur ayam? As kids, we loved the sweet flavor of chicken stewed in onions, broth and black ketjap (Indonesian soy sauce) served with white rice scooped from a mottled gray enamel steamer. And three little birds, Ludy, Lorette and Michelle, would sit in a row waiting to be hand fed by our mom from a community bowl and one spoon. Michelle would chirp out, “Sauce only, no meat!” The other two just fidgeted in place with expectation and anticipation of our next delicious bite. I’m not really sure how old we were when this started nor when it ended but it left an indelible marker on my lifeline – yet another reminder of a loving mother and the unbreakable bond I have with my siblings. What might have seemed commonplace and normal when it was happening has become a cherished memory that invokes all its love and warmth by just picturing this scene in my mind’s eye.

So I’m writing down these memories and describing in detail these moments so there is no way Nancy Tency will ever be forgotten. The next generations need to know about this kind of old school, old world love from a different era.

More than a decade ago, my pastor, the Rev. Dr. Diane Givens-Moffett, led a bible study at St James Presbyterian Church in Greensboro, North Carolina. On a piece of chart paper, she drew a series of ovals lined up in a row. She said these represented seeds we plant during our lives. Most often, she went on to say, you will not see the fruits that are borne from these seeds but just know that by merely planting them, you are doing God’s work and they will contribute to the formation of fruit. That’s of course if the seeds are positive and loving. One could also plant other seeds – seeds of discord, seeds of malcontent, seeds of envy… these are the seeds I hope and am intentionally trying NOT to plant.

Pastor Moffett’s drawing has stuck in my mind for all these years and finally this year, it struck me that I had found my purpose – in fact, it had been revealed to me at least 10 years prior at that Thursday night bible study. It is to plant seeds as an expression of my faith. Seeds borne out of my own doubts, sadness, inner turmoil, struggles and fears, but that transformed into seeds of triumph and joy – not mine but God’s. All the bad seeds planted in my spirit along the rocky road of life by people and circumstances were no match for God’s grace, mercy, forgiveness and protection. Because God also sent many to plant in me the good seeds. The seeds of faithful family, friendship, caring, love in all its forms, stern guidance, preparation and goodness.

And so it is I am exploring what it means to plant seeds as an expression of God’s love. Sometimes it just means to pay attention and listen. As I’m learning to hear God’s voice, I find it’s hard to ignore the homeless youth sitting in front of the drugstore. And so I ask, “What’s your story?” By the simple act of showing some care and concern I witnessed an immediate change in his posture and being… he told me about his struggles and trying to get on the right path. I just listened and in the end gave him the money I had in my pocket. I have no idea where he may be today, but the moment we shared was a sacred one. The seed was planted.

I find myself looking for ways to plant more seeds. I want it to become an obsession. I want to find new and different ways to plant seeds. I want to start a movement. A seed planting movement. I want it to permeate every aspect of my life. I want it to resonate throughout my being. I want it to take hold in a world too busy and self-absorbed to plant seeds.

So I thank my pastor for planting the seed in me and apologize that it took so long for me to recognize it.

What seeds will you plant today?

As humans, we pray – pray for love, pray for change, pray for peace of mind, pray for protection, pray for healing, pray for acceptance, for prosperity, for loved ones, for the world, for all manner of things, we pray. Under dire circumstances, even people who might not consider themselves as having faith in anything beyond themselves pray in desperation, turning to a higher power when circumstances push them to the brink.

When we are especially hurting, longing for answers to life’s greatest questions, languishing in uncertainty, we pray. We can pray for years, sometimes feeling like God doesn’t hear us. Years of tears and pleading, yet, still no answer, just excruciating silence. We suffer under our own cares and woes, under our feelings about ourselves and who we think we are.

But be careful what you pray for. The world has sold us a pack of lies; like how we are not good enough, how we don’t really deserve what we have, that we are not worthy of God’s love because [fill in the blank]. But God has never said such a thing. God is a God of love who keeps calling us and will not let us go. God knows our deepest darkest secrets and in spite of our own hurts and self-loathing, God reaches in and tells us – “I love you – you are my child.” When we are inside our own heads, we are unable to hear that message, no matter how often God sends it to us through people, experiences, songs and other signs and counter signs. So we continue to think God is silent, unresponsive to our most fervent prayers.

In my early years of struggle with myself, who I was, how I fit (or better said, did NOT fit) in this world. I prayed. For years I prayed a prayer for God to change me. “God, how could I have these feelings and thoughts that I’ve been told are sinful and will send me straight into the fires of hell? Please change me. You can do anything so how hard could it be?” And this went on for a very long time – just me, my guilt, God and silence.

I don’t even remember when I finally heard God’s voice in the silence. Some time in my late 30’s or even early 40’s, God said, “I have not been silent. I have been with you since you were conceived. I have had you in my hands lifting you up, protecting you, loving you. For decades I’ve been trying to tell you, I can’t answer your prayer for me to change you because you’re praying the wrong prayer. You assumed my condemnation of you and that you needed to be changed. I don’t want or need to change you because I love you as I created you. All I ever wanted from you was for you to love me and love yourself and others as I love you.”

And in one fell swoop, I realized that I was enough. No change needed. Society, government, religious people, friends, church, family, everyone told me that being gay was not compatible with my Christian faith. They were all wrong. God was right and God told me so.

In the 1958 film, Auntie Mame, played by Rosalind Russell, one of my favorite stars from that period, declares to the boorish banker, “Mr. Babcock, knowledge is power!” This in defense of her young nephew, Patrick Dennis, who is preparing said banker the perfect martini and states that he has learned to “stir, never shake, bruises the gin…” and that “Auntie Mame says olives take up too much room in such a little glass.”  Mr. Babcock considers it inappropriate for little Patrick to have such knowledge. Ahhh, knowledge – who has it, who wants it, who is being denied access to it, who shapes and molds it? It comes in so many shapes, sizes, contours, and forms. Knowledge can be expansive or narrow, hard and set or fluid and malleable. For some it might be how to scale the tallest mountain in the world, while others would be content to “know” how to bake a cake or drive a car with a manual transmission, clutch and all. I almost want to talk about “fake” knowledge – but I think I will leave that for another post… Likewise, don’t get this blog post title confused with the original sin of eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. As a side note, knowledge and truth are not the same and philosophers, pragmatists and other deep thinkers have argued since the beginning of time about the definitions, similarities and differences of these two terms.

Knowledge has always been my nectar of life, my source, my rock. Knowing has been my defense, my offense, the solid foundation upon which I stand with steadfast and utter righteousness. Starting with the letter, “A”, my young mind, thirsting for knowledge, voraciously consumed the encyclopedia set bought one by one with green stamps from the grocery store. I was fascinated by this source of knowledge and what I thought of as the absolute truth. I think I reached approximately the letter “K” before the green stamps ran out. The set was never purchased in its entirety so I was left with a giant hole in my knowledge base that starts with L and ends with Z. So don’t ask me about zebras or xylophones. The sheer vastness of it was overwhelming and exciting and this decades before the Internet was invented by Al Gore. I’ve never stopped wanting to know, know more, seek out knowing, and be knowledgable.

On the flipside, “not knowing” is my kryptonite, my nemesis, the stuff that causes me nightmares and anxiety, throws me off, makes me feel vulnerable and extremely uncomfortable. Faking it is not an option for me… In fact, acknowledging and being very transparent in situations where I find myself in a state of ” not knowing” is also a way of avoiding that sense of dread that I experience. However, I have also come to some self-realization that I am the last one to ever ask for directions (even when I’m lost) or make an inquiry about something that I clearly should know already… In other words, I fear that I build a lot of my self-worth, esteem, sense of self, and pride on knowing.

THE POINT: Knowledge opens doors. As Auntie Mame says to Patrick, “I’m going to open doors for you… doors you never even dreamed existed.” I am an example of how the unrelenting quest for knowledge has afforded me opportunities… opportunities I never even dreamed existed. In many ways, I believe knowing has allowed me to transform my poor, immigrant, non-English speaking youth into a solidly, dare I say, upper middle class professional life. Knowledge is power. And given I have spent my entire professional career in the Kindergarten to Grade 12 education space, this is what I hope and want for every young person who walks through those doors, the opportunity to develop an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. The love of learning cannot be legislated nor taken away from you by anyone. Once acquired it sustains you for the rest of your life. And it’s a good life.