After breakfast with a friend, I stopped at the closest Kowalski’s to me to pick up some salsa. I intended to do a lot of fiction editing this afternoon and really, editing goes best with chips and salsa. It just does.

As I approached the front of the store, I saw two parents gently arguing with their kid, maybe four or five years old. He was holding on (both hands) to a fairly unremarkable walking stick, something he had clearly picked up on their stroll to the store.

I should note that it’s a balmy 40 degrees today in Minneapolis, and with the sun grinning hard on everything in December, well, to Minnesotans, this practically counts as a summer day. Driving to the store, I passed hordes of joggers, parents pushing strollers, and hell, I think I saw a woman doing yard work. I do love that Minnesotans see the December sun minus accumulated snow and think, ‘Fuck it: I’m going rollerblading.’

Based on how they were bundled, this family had clearly walked to the store.

Dad tried to coax the stick out of his son’s hands, *promising* that the stick would still standing against the wall brick wall by the bike rack when they came out.

While his son said nothing, the pout and mistrust on his face revealed his faith in Dad’s words.

The stick! This stick is everything!

You’d think I spent 10 minutes watching this drama unfold, but all this occurred during the twenty seconds it took me to approach and pass this family, entering the store. I had the fleeting thought ‘Oh, just let him carry his stick inside’ but when I saw the carefully piled apples, jars precariously arranged, and piled stacks of Christmas candy, I realized the parents’ wisdom.

Stick disaster lurked in every aisle.

As I searched for my salsa, I reflected about the time in my life when a treasure like a good stick was everything.

I once owned a small cedar chest, a cheap souvenir from when we visited Mt. Rushmore on vacation. It contained a feather, two unique pennies, the back of a cub scout pin which had broken off of something meaningful. I think I remember a piece of string that I intended to use for some future invention. Yes, I once owned treasures.

In the grove across from our childhood home, I would find amazing sticks from time to time and always relished my good fortune. Holding it in my young hands, I would marvel at how the stick was so straight, so powerful! Not a single knot or irregularity! Only the luckiest boy in the world could find a stick like that. I could use it for ninja fighting or when I played pirates with some of the other neighborhood kids.

“Where did you get it?” I imagined other kids would say with ill-concealed jealousy.

“Oh this?” I would reply casually, twirling the stick over my head and catching it with ease. “I found it.”

When I left Kowalski’s short moments later, I saw the stick propped against the brick building. Mom and Dad had won. At that moment inside the store, their son was fretting, worried that someone might steal the one treasure he owned in the world, the one possession he could say was truly his.

I got in my car, strapped myself in. Thought of my writing day ahead and reflected how much I love salsa. Wondered if I should have gotten cheese to melt over the chips.

I also thought about how lucky I am to not be shopping for Christmas presents today. I’m remaining in Minnesota for Christmas, the first time ever, and while I will very much miss my Huntley family, I need this break from traveling and gift-buying. My best friend is visiting. We will stay up late gossiping. We will reveal sad stories. Eat amazing food.

My many Minnesota friends are eager to celebrate with Ann, so with these friends we will make fires in my fireplace, laugh until we can’t breathe, and become friends all over again. I will try to force everyone to drink egg nog, though most people I know hate it.

I have treasures in my life.

I hopped out of my car and approached the stick.

I carefully positioned four quarters around the base of the stick, arranged in a pattern so that the boy would know some stranger didn’t accidentally drop these coins. No, the boy is right: the stick is truly blessed.

I remember a time in my life when a quarter meant riches.

And four quarters?

Well, that was like Christmas.

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The last of the Trick-or-treaters have retreated, though we were still handing out Ron’s shitty sour patch candy not long ago, at 9:30. By 9:00, I had exhausted four giant bags of candy, so Ron dashed to his car for an over-sized bag of Sour Patch Kids. Gross. Who wants Sour Patch Kids? I gave him shit about it.

Ever since a monster and his princess sister showed up around 5:30, we’d been tossing candy into orange, plastic pumpkins, pillow cases, and flimsy, crinkled bags.

We cheered on their costumes, howled with fear when appropriate, and expressed deep shock and awe when two Incredible Hulks (possibly twin brothers) lumbered up the front steps. On the short breaks between ‘treaters, Ron and I lazed on my couch telling Halloween tales which morphed into stories of stupid things we did as kids.

Each doorbell buzz made us jump and grab a fistful of chocolate. Over the evening, we handed out hundreds and hundreds of candy bars.

Best moment: Ron would sometimes put on the gorilla claw and while I handed out candy, make clawing motions at the kids. A young Superman shouted, “YOU DON’T SCARE ME.” While I handed out candy to his brother and two sisters, Ron turned around and put on the gorilla mask and jumped back toward Superman, prompting the man of steel to scream like a 10-year-old girl. Then he composed himself and yelled at Ron, “I’M NOT SCARED.”

Some didn’t participate much, older kids who looked at us with a surly expression, demanding in a bored voice, “Trick or Treat.” But most kids were amazing, bashful and stumbling, terrified to say the catch phrase, but once the goal was accomplished, they looked back in awe that this worked, these magic words, and only then they shouted with glee, “HAPPY HALLOWEEN.”

I love the Spidermans with puffy chests, Batmans who struggle to see out their mask eyeholes, and shy vampires. We got several variations on the Scream movie ghoul, including one with blood that dripped down the face. I yelled, “Holy crap that is scary!” and our temporary guest giggled and squeezed the bulb that made the fake blood spill out. I yelped again and he giggled again, delighted to be able to scare someone bigger than him.

It was a good night.

Like most people, I love Halloween.

The orange and black, the chill in the air, the mysterious other worldliness, and simply being scared. I mean, a little scared, not cancer scared. Blair Witch scared.

There’s enough to seriously terrify me these days, politics and the economy alone, forgetting momentarily about environmental disaster, crazy-spreading diseases, and the fact that CSI can have two or three spinoffs. Can there really be that many serial killers out there? I sometimes lie in bed wondering, ‘What will the world be like in a year? Will I even survive it?’

The enormity of this future overwhelms me quite frankly, so it’s fun to be a little scared of ridiculous things like zombies and ghosts. They’re easier to take these days.

Last weekend, I baked Halloween gingerbread cookies and delivered them frosted and decorated to my Illinois family. They loved the giant leaves and ghost cookies, but my sister pointed at the star-shaped cookies and asked, “Why stars?” Rather than admit the simple truth that I don’t own many Halloween cookie cutters, I shrugged it off by saying, “They’re haunted stars.”

We spent a delightful October weekend together. I mean, delightful. Yes, we do not share the same values on many issues. But we genuinely love each other. The more of us family gathered in one room, the more love we feel.

It’s harder to generate that happy glow with one of our key founders missing. Some days, thinking about my dad is like stepping on a tack, which means I don’t burst into tears in Target and curl up in a shopping cart, but rather, I say, Ow, dammit, ow. Fucking hurts. And after a minute of feeling sorry for myself, I drift into some better memory of him, and it’s okay again.

Saturday afternoon, Mom, Eileen, and I changed the over-sized storm window, the big pain-in-the-ass window we have been changing every Spring and Fall my entire life. As a kid, I watched Dad stride across the steeply-pitched roof tiles with billy goat agility, carrying a damn heavy glass window, while simultaneously yelling at me to go meet him on the other side, reminding me to take a screw driver.

He impressed the hell out of me.

But he’s not around; we had to change that window. Ow, dammit, ow.

The three of us managed to launch me up to the steeply-pitched roof and with a Phillips I unscrewed the little wood blocks my dad invented to secure this ancient pane. From this vantage point, the rich afternoon sunlight hit the thick, yellow leaves everywhere, making me feel golden inside, loved and happy and free. The world is messed up, but we are creatures of love. We will figure this out.

While screwing in the storm, I couldn’t help but notice that all the roof gutters were crammed full of leaf sludge, black walnut water and cold, greasy mush.

Completely and utterly revolting.

I absently started pulling out a few clumps with my bare hands. Each handful felt like tearing eggshells, rotten green beans, and tangled wet hair from the kitchen drain. I don’t even have long hair.

After the storm window chore, I had planned to go for a perfect-October-Saturday-afternoon walk around my home town but the sun was already threatening to crash in an hour and these gutters weren’t going to clean themselves. I argued with myself, claiming it was ridiculous to clean them, as clearly they’d been packed with squirrel vomit for months without incident. Why not wait for another weekend?

But in the middle of each new argument, I would reach in and pull out more sludge. I kept thinking about how much damage these packed gutters could do to the roof. I feel like I could see the ghost of my dad standing on the lawn grinning up at me, yelling, “View’s not so much fun from up there, is it?”

I am my father’s son, so I spent the next hour cleaning out the gutters by hand, then swept/raked up the black goo with a wet broom. Filled up a giant garbage bag. From the ground, Mom and Eileen figured out an ingenious way for me drop the goop without the bag bursting like a balloon.

The gutters got cleaned.

But I missed my October sunset walk.

Some days, I do not care for adulthood. (The more adolescent me would have used the phrase ‘fucking adulthood’ but see, I’m more grown up than that.)

I don’t want to retake Algebra and endure pimples again, but I want to spend quality time focused on obtaining free candy and obsessing over my costume details to make sure I am super tough-looking, or the perfect sour and scary.

Later that Saturday night, I did take my walk through my hometown, down the dimly lit street lights in Huntley. Each time I visit, I love this town more, cherishing the charming, dark streets where I have so much history.

I walked to Bernice Heinemann’s house and marveled at the force she was in my childhood. I’ve never met anyone kinder, not ever, and she had no good reason to be filled with such grace. Bernice lived a hard life. Both of her sons died in the same plane crash. And yet when she spoke to us kids, her eyes sparkled with joy. We loved her so much that we made her an honorary grandmother and we loved explaining this to her, repeatedly. She seemed to like it. She made Rice Krispie treats layered with a perfect chocolate. They were exquisite.

She’s gone.

None of you will ever meet her. You may appreciate her story, but I’m telling you, she glowed with love. Glowed. Every time I seriously doubt the existence of God or the Sparkling Spirit or whatever, I think, ‘Well then how do you explain Bernice?’

Continuing around town, I ended up in front of Grandma Hemmer’s home and studied its contour, recalling a few dozen of our hundreds of visits. Grandma Hemmer’s cookies arrived weekly with her Monday’s laundry. We’d endure the pecan sandies week, love the frosted molasses raisin week, but lived for the far-too-infrequent chocolate chip week. The cookies, her stories, the treasures we found in her purse. Her scary attic with dolls whose eyes opened. She watched us whenever we were sick and listened to our moaning without complaint. That woman loved the shit out of us.

She’s gone.

It’s Halloween night and I sure hope the world is full of ghosts.

I wouldn’t mind if they drifted into my living room sometimes and let me see the worn, soft eyes I miss so much. I want to see my Dad’s irritated scowl and hear his easy laugh that made other people laugh. I want to hear Bernice’s high, crisp voice telling a pinochle story, how someone overbid their spades. I want the ghostly apparition of Grandma’s knuckles rapping on the kitchen table like they did when you were taking too long, in her opinion, to play a card.

So, you know, ghost me up, Pops.

Now that we’re both adults, Bernice, I’d really like to talk to you again. I’d really to understand how you radiated joy after all the hurts you lived through.

I should admit that I do fear these ghosts. I sometimes fear they might be disappointed in me, that I am not living up to the examples they established. In my defense, these people set the bar pretty damn high. Other days, I am confident they adore me still and instead I fear forgetting some small nuance of personality or gesture erased in me due to years of absence. I try to remember Grandma’s under-her-breath humming. Bernice’s crooked gait.

But I will do my best to face those fears. Like Superman himself, I will screech out, “I’M NOT AFRAID” even when I am. And perhaps in that moment, the costume becomes real, and I will not be quite so afraid.

Thank you, little Superman.

Happy Halloween.

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As prophesized by others who knew more than I, once I joined Facebook a slew of high school friends emerged from the cyber-ether to ask a simple question: “Friend me?”

Although I knew great people in high school, high school was not great for me. I know my high school years were better than many; I do not seek sympathy for imagined teenage wrongs. I also know how easy it is to blame high school, when in fact it’s more about Teenage Me not having the courage to be fully me. I get that. But who was ever that authentically themselves? I forgive myself, blah blah blah…What’s done is done.

When I came out at 22, my parents, despite being awesome, were deeply ashamed and asked me not to tell anyone in our hometown. I had already told myself that high school years weren’t my ‘real life,’ so without much trouble I acquiesced and shrugged off my Huntilian roots.

(Many years ago when “Scoop” O’Brian ran The Huntley Farmside out of his ramshackle home across from the sewing machine factory, the newspaper referred to the townspeople as ‘Huntlians.’ I always liked being a Huntilian; I like believing that our town’s great secret is that we are all half-reptile.)

When I joined Facebook a few months ago, I made a conscious decision to end this decades-old shame agreement. I broke it. My life is here in Minnesota so perhaps I need Huntley even less now, but gosh, I don’t think anyone actually gives a rat’s ass that some graduate from the class of 1985 is a homo. Who fucking cares?

So, bring on the Huntilians! I will friend you, my half-reptile brothers and sisters.

The invitations came.

I found myself genuinely happy to see many of these names and remember a time in my life when I saw these faces so regularly that I would merely nod a bored hello as we passed in the hallway for the eighth time that day. Names appeared before me that I had almost forgotten. And by clicking a simple YES! I get to marvel at pictures of their children and read details of their lives. I love it.

One former classmate now living in Minneapolis suggested we actually break bread, so last Saturday night after almost 20 years of separation, I slurped down King Zombies and chomped Pad Thai with a former Huntilian thespian. (Wow, now I’m thinking half-reptile with a long forked tongue.)

As a junior, Holly played Dolly (of Hello Dolly) and beyond the rhyme, she fit the part perfectly. Energetic, effusive, and already skilled in both grace and polished conversation, Holly was always three-parts college sophistication and one-part high schooler, even while we stupidly chased each other in cars at night. Holly was a gifted singer but as this was pre-American Idol, we just nodded to each other and said, “Oh yeah. She’s really good.”

Holly now performs and teaches at the Guthrie theater. She has six CDs out there in the world. So, yeah, she’s really good.

We were always great pals throughout high school (as much as I let anyone in) but even more so after I played Horace Vandergelder to her Dolly Levi.

Well, I played Horace Vandergelder and Head Waiter.

Because the two boys competing for that lead role were both seniors and both had participated in the theater department for years, our high school principal waned to give us both the shot. One performance weekend I was Horace Vandergelder and the next weekend, he was. On the alternate weekend, we also shared the role of Head Waiter who has the important task of taking Dolly and Horace’s dinner order and presenting a refurbished baseball trophy after the dancing waiters’ number.

It’s hard to believe that Mr. Skomer would put up with so much hassle to give both of us a chance to shine, but he was that kind of man. Can you imagine putting up with two idiot high school boys sharing the same lead, both having hundreds of lines to memorize but mostly spending their non-stage time attempting to give each other the meanest possible titty twisters?

He had to walk us both through the staging twice, repeat every instruction twice, double the headaches…If I were in that situation, I’m sure my practical, adult response would be to say, “You, over there: you’re the lead and other guy? You’re not. Sorry, man.”

I forget the immense gift from my small town upbringing, that perhaps I got more opportunities to shine than I remember. Thank you, Mr. Skomer. If it’s not too dorky to admit this, I kinda miss you.

Anyway, the weekend I played Head Waiter, I remember tip-toeing through the over-stocked prop room looking for the Dance Trophy when I heard my cue to appear on stage boom through the sound system. My head snapped straight up as I realized I was faaaaaaar from the stage and already an ominous silence was settling on the faux diners who just discovered that ‘awkward improv’ was now on the dinner menu.

Poor Holly! Poor other Horace Vandergelder with his sore nipples!

I listened to the silence in horror, unsure if I should run full speed and appear on stage gasping for breath. But even at my best speed, navigating the crowded prop room and then backstage scaffolding could take another three minutes. While frozen in indecision, I heard Holly boom out in Dolly’s voice, “WE’LL HAVE THE CHICKEN!”

The audience roared with approving laughter and spontaneous applause.

They had been holding their breath as well.

Over our appetizer, I reminded Holly of that moment and she laughed her wonderful laugh but didn’t remember. I couldn’t believe it, because I had immortalized her in that moment, her gift of finding just the right solution that kept character and acknowledged to the audience, ‘Yeah, this is a fuck up. Moving on.’

She has always been a force-of-nature.

We didn’t reminisce much, not like I thought we might. Instead we spoke of surpises in life, some of them unhappy. We talked about disappointments and what has been hard. Life wasn’t as perfect as we imagined it would be when we were unstoppable teens. We have illness, death, and broken expectations, but here we are, and we can still laugh and share joy, so that’s something.

Holly got quiet and explained she wanted to tell me about one of her biggest regrets. I was amazed to find out that I was involved. After a quiet breath, she explained that she always deeply regretted she did not accept my invitation to prom. I tried to brush this off as beneath her notice but when I saw the grief in her eyes, I understood that this haunted her. The story of why she made this decision is not mine to repeat. But we felt her sadness together.

I suggested that perhaps deep regrets force us to open our hearts, to say ‘yes’ to the next important moment, because the inconsolable sorrow of reliving a deep regret is too high a price to pay. I’ve accumulated a few deep regrets and wondering if my heart is more open is the best solace I can wring from the experience. We talked softly about regrets and opening your heart to sorrow and joy.

While I nibbled on her green curry, she showed me a picture of her husband and two kids. I was amazed to discover that even in a Smart phone picture, all three of them radiate light. I could see the intense openness in their expressions, remarkable in a mere photo. She beamed as she discussed each of them and I know she pours her effervescent love into each one.

After a minute or two I said, “If it’s any consolation, prom night probably wouldn’t have gone anywhere.”

She chuckled and said, “Oh please, I knew that. I knew that back then.”

A thrill raced through me as she said this. She knew before I could barely admit it to myself! And she loved me anyway.

Perhaps it’s time for me to rewrite the script in my head about those high school years.

And really, how much has changed?

Didn’t we all run around the hallways saying, ‘Friend me! Friend me!’ acting in whatever way we thought would get us the right kind of attention? Friend me, jocks or smart kids! C’mon cool kids, friend me! Facebook is like a high school do-over where we can finally be ourselves, let all our weirdness just hang out there and yet still ask the most vulnerable phrase a person can ever say aloud:  Friend me?

And if that person says yes to our vulnerable question, we waste no time gushing, “Oh my gosh, guess what I had for lunch? Oh, and you are never going to believe what Carl and Tracy said, it is just crazy. Look at this link! And check out this picture of an apple from my back yard. Isn’t that gross?”

I have enough life regrets. So if asked this vulnerable question, I will open my heart and say ‘yes.’

After Holly and I had chatted non-stop for three hours and hadn’t even begun to exhaust the nearest topics, a giant ceiling tile, soaking wet, slammed down on the empty table next to us, completely splashing us with, uh, ceiling water, I guess. Broken air conditioner tube or something.

Instantly we both burst out laughing, howling, eyes wide at each other. At that second, we had been discussing why people leave organized religion. While neither of us believe that God punishes people that way, the timing was admittedly hilarious. All around us, shocked patrons gasped and said things like, “Oh my gosh…can you believe what just happened?”

We howled. Tears streamed down both of our cheeks.

I missed her laugh.

“That could have landed on you,” said an elderly diner not far from us. I could tell by his expression that I wasn’t taking this seriously enough. “On your head.”

“I know,” I could barely squeak out as I wiped my eyes.

Holly patted the ceiling water out of her hair with an unused napkin and surprisingly, made it seem graceful. Once again, she had to improv her way through dinner, and once again, in her loud and fruity laugh, she remained exactly fully in character. This time, of course, she was playing herself.

For the life of me, I can’t remember why we ever stopped being friends.

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Another Gay Pride Sunday draws to a close and I find myself thinking, ‘Missed another one.’

When I first came out, I gleefully attended the big parades, wow’d by all the drag queens, leather guys and the entire spectrum between and beyond. I drank cheap beer (with pride) in some nasty parking lot tent and I danced my ass off with glowy things around my neck. Back when I lived in Chicago, one year I marched down Halsted Street with the Northern Illinois University’s Gay Lesbian Union celebrating rural farmland homos, passing out vegetables chanting, “CORN-FED BOYS! MILK STRONG GIRLS!”

So, you know, I prided.

But today I mowed the lawn with my crappy, sputtering lawnmower and bagged up my trimmings. I did some laundry. Bought much-needed sneakers. I half-thought I might go to the post-parade festivities, but I instead spent my afternoon at the Geek Squad working out my computer pride.

Over the course of the day, I realized that the concept of ‘pride’ doesn’t quite appeal to me anymore.

As I understand it, Gay Pride is pride in survival. I made it. Fuck you world, you tried to crush me and here I am, with a feather boa or my big macho boots or perhaps my, I dunno, cyber-goth piercings over womens’ lingerie. I do like the idea of celebrating survival, because despite progress made socially and legally, we’ve witnessed enough gay teenage deaths in the past few years to know that the world can be quite shitty at times.

But Pride seems arrogant to me these days, and that ‘fuck you world,’ doesn’t really help. It’s no longer ‘us’ against ‘them.’ It’s us against us. If all of us damn people don’t figure out how to love and accept each other, well, I think we all know how this turns out for humanity: we’ve all seen Planet of the Apes. Make no mistake, those chimps are just biding their time, chatting in yahoo groups about the imminent takeover.

Instead of pride, how about gratitude?

I am grateful to have survived and my lonely teenage years. When I think of the friends who loved me after I came out to them, my heart swells.  Over and over, I did not just survive, but thrived, and my experience of love in this world continues to expand. I have amazing friends! My family of choice loves the shit out of me! I can now love people who irritate me and even appreciate their giftedness.

But I never did it on my own, not once, so I’m not sure ‘pride’ is the word I would use.

Years ago, a member of my biological family cheerfully explained how some religious writers said it was okay to love me, because gays were a bruise in the flesh that is humanity. This cultural bruise was caused by America’s surplus of weak fathers and overbearing mothers, which meant it wasn’t my fault that I preferred reading Charles Dickens to playing football.

This person felt pure amazement that “I took it the wrong way,” because the entire point was that bruises can be healed, which meant God could heal my gayness and make me healthy again. Normal.

The conversation crushed me and this family member and I did not speak for over a year.

I was not healed by pride.

The powerful healing that allowed me to love this family member again and move beyond ‘the bruise conversation’ was facilitated by a straight man. During this session he facilitated, I wept in the arms of another man, also straight. Around me in a semi-circle stood men and women, gay and straight. These people didn’t have any special healing powers for gays, their only giftedness was that they loved me.

They loved me.

They opened their hearts and dared me to open mine, to let deep grief pour out of me. Even while I sobbed, I remember worrying that a new friend, a gorgeous Indian woman, would somehow judge my outburst with disgust. When I could finally see through my tears, I found her hand on mine and her soft brown eyes staring into my face. Without a word she communicated that bruise or not, she really, really loved me.

Leading up to that great healing event, how many nights did Ann comfort me over the phone? How many times did Heather tell me softly, “You’re part of our family now.”

Tonight on my back porch, basking in the glow of my twinkling gazebo lights and inhaling the scent of freshly-cut grass, I will celebrate my own flavor of Gay Gratitude. I give thanks for those who loved me in spite of being gay, for those who loved me because I’m gay, and for those who don’t really give a shit that I’m gay, they just love me because, what the hell, they think that Edmond Manning is worth loving.

I am grateful for Stonewall queens, for my friend Ankha who led a radical gay group in the 70s, a group that was forced to hold secret meetings. I am grateful for AIDS activist in the 80s, and equality activists in the 90s who realized that we already had many, many straight allies. They recognized that the ‘we’ in Gay Pride needed to be more inclusive. And thank you Jebus, for those gay marriage advocates.

For my gay friends who believe in and love the big Gay Pride weekend, go for it. I hope you wore your shortest shorts to the parade, marched for Rainbow Families, and what the hell, made out with a hot stranger behind the port-a-potties by The Saloon. (Ahem…not that I ever did that.) I am grateful for the big gay parade for those years when it spoke to me, and reminded me I had survived.

And I’d like to tell my straight friends two things:  first, I love you. Secondly, you really are supposed to buy gay people a gift on Gay Pride weekend, like a lawnmower.

Preferably the Black and Decker MM1800 Electric Rear Bag Mulching Mower.

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During Sweeps week on any given dramatic show, you can count on a main character’s parent showing up to announce, “I’m dying.”

It’s funny, because we never hear about that parent before the episode when the main character is suddenly jubilant that ‘my mom, my best friend,’ is showing up. And you can bet they’re coming either to die or announce a divorce. If it’s a death, then there’s an inordinate amount of time spent on that parent’s final blessing, the last words imparted to their beloved child: a final forgiveness, sage advice, look after your sister, and occasionally (like on Falcon Crest), where to find the secret stash of gold.

I probably watch too much TV, but I must admit that I wondered if my father would have a final blessing for me in his last days. Maybe some sage advice that put our entire relationship in perspective with just a few words. And hey, maybe he hid a pirate chest’s full of jewels and gold somewhere. It could happen.

Still, I thought a ‘dying-parent’s-final-blessing’ was one of those fake TV things. A tear-jerker for ratings. I didn’t realize that it was real and could change your life if you let yourself believe.

Three days before he drew his last breath, his words were sparse and conversations consisted of only a few sentences before he drifted to sleep. I walked into the den where we had set up his hospital bed.

“Who’s there?” he said.

“It’s me, Edmond.”

I took his hand in mind and stood over him. He faced the wall and I held his hand and watched him breathe.

He said, “Hi, honey.”

I got choked up and say, “Hey, Dad.”

Then he said, “It’s been a pleasure.”

He drifted away to sleep.

My heart broke.

A pleasure?

It’s been a pleasure?

I would describe our relationship with many adjectives, some of them flattering and some, well, not. We laughed together quite a bit. We shared books. At the end of our phone conversations he started saying, “We love you from down here (Illinois),” and I would reply, “I love you from up here (Minnesota).” We had beautiful moments, he and I.

But we also owned the matching set of father and son baggage, compounded by my being gay, his not loving that, my leaving the Catholic church, and you know, me being a loud mouth who felt it necessary to call him out on his shit. I’m not proud to admit this, but I’ve raged at him on the phone.

And yet, his final words to me were, “It’s been a pleasure.”

Even now, those words thrill me.

Weighing the disappointments I have been as a son, our conflicts over the years, the times (intentional and accidental) when I have hurt him or mom…and this is how he summed it up? Surely, he was disappointed that his big football-built player son never actually played football, the sport he worshiped. He coached football for many years. He played football for many years. He studied football every weekend. Surely he felt that disappointment?

But if he did, he never showed it. Never once said it to me.

I recall another final blessing, this one on a New Years’ Eve afternoon a year before I moved to Minnesota. I coerced him into helping me wallpaper a room. Since dad was skilled as a carpenter, painter, and all-around Mr. Fix It, I pleaded with him to teach me. Secretly, I had hoped the experience would go much like putting up storm windows when I was a kid, whereby I stood around with a screwdriver, sulking, and he did all the work.

Not so.

He expected me to measure, cut, hang, flatten, and essentially do everything. Despite this being completely unfair, nevertheless, I learned his tricks for lining up the pattern and how to seal the edges just so. I discovered a sincere pleasure in working side by side with this taciturn man until he announced he was leaving midway through the final wall, which included a tricky window.

“I should get home,” he said.

It was only 4:00 p.m.

I argued, “We’re almost done.”

But he was already scrubbing his hands in my bathroom sink, fixated on getting back to mom. Soon I crumbled into a chair covered in canvas, literally watching glue dry. Inwardly, I cursed his laziness for quitting before he finished, holiday or no. All he and mom had planned was to watch Dick Clark’s Rockin’ New Year and watch the that damn ball drop in New York. Couldn’t he see how little there was left to do? Didn’t he realize I didn’t want to cut paper around that last window on my own?

Suddenly it was perfectly clear to me that he did know these things.

He wanted me to finish on my own.

i do believe pops attempted to teach his thick-headed son a lesson in self-reliance that day. I marveled at how sneakily he made his exit, how he explained nothing as we hugged goodbye.

With snarky defiance, I decided to prove how misguided his faith in me actually was. Yes, I would finish the job myself, but the disastrous fourth wall would so badly wreck that seamless harmony of the previous three walls that visitors to my home would gasp and attempt to mask their horror. I would show him what could happen by quitting early.

But somehow, I did it.

It looked great.

I felt great.

His final blessing that day was, ‘You can do this without me.’

Today is the last day of May, and truthfully, I feel panic that it ends in roughly 20 minutes. My dad died on May 1st, and in just a few minutes, it will no longer be ‘the month that he died.’ Too soon it will no longer be the season he died and then the year that he died.

I imagine a future in which someone will ask me, “When did your father pass away?”

My automatic response will be, “Gosh, was that nine years ago or eight?”

I hate it.

I’m not interested in mourning non-stop for the rest of my life, but I’m not quite ready to let him go. Once again, he ducked out before I was finished with him. And once again, on his way out the door, he gifted me an amazing blessing.

Well, I have a final blessing too, pops.

I can do this life without you. I don’t want to, but you prepared me well. Thanks to your excellent fathering and generosity of spirit, I can do this.

Dad, it’s been a pleasure.

.

I know a quiet man who wonders where his passion is.

Did he lose it?

Did it somehow not ship with the original packaging?

He laughs like a ten-year-old and he listens like a man in his 80′s: head bent, silent, considering.

When he speaks he is often wise, not because he’s brilliant but because he speaks his whole truth.

(Though sometimes, he is brilliant.)

And unless it’s true for him, he remains silent. Watchful.

He often says things which must be spoken but no one else dares.

Where is my passion? he asked me last night.

He thinks,

when his passion comes,

it will shower down on him

like rain.

.

I don’t want to write this post, but last night, I promised a friend that I would.

One of my biggest complaints about New Warriors is that now when I make a promise, I fully expect to keep it. It’s that damn emphasis on integrity.

The word integrity means little in mainstream culture; free usage for anyone who sells financial services, car insurance, outdoor grills, and cheese in a bottle. Get the right marketing person and they can make your company sound like you invented the damn word. Hell, the second word in Enron’s mission statement is integrity, so, really, who gives a fuck anymore?

In New Warriors, the word gets scrubbed up, polished, and inside me I let it shimmer, even if I don’t always shine. Focusing on integrity does not make any New Warrior perfect. We screw up. Or rather, *I* screw up. (For me, integrity now includes owning my experiences as uniquely my own.)

But when a new warrior friend says, “I’ll be there,” I trust him. If he’s not there, he knows the next time we meet (even if it’s months later), I will look him in the eye and say, “We made an agreement and you bailed. Tell me the unflattering truth about who you were when you chose to break our agreement.”

And then, he does.

Last night I attended a staff meeting, where 30+ men focused on the concept of integrity, preparation for our upcoming New Warrior Training Adventure. During one activity, we stood facing each other in pairs. Every man was challenged to talk about a part of himself he resists, to name a part of his own personality he finds completely unacceptable. Let that guy out.

Our facilitator said, “Give that quality a name. First word that bubbles up, name it that.”

Despite no scarcity of shortcomings, nothing specifically came to mind. I generally like myself and have inventoried the parts I don’t, so there aren’t many surprises. (Though at times, I still struggle with those shortcomings’ ferocity.)

I decided that last night wasn’t going to be that big a deal, minimal intensity experience. In a warrior activity like this one, contemplating unwelcome parts of myself often feels like standing in the grocery store cereal aisle, waiting to see which one feels right in the moment:  Golden Grahams or Frosted Cheerios?

Only a few seconds later, presto, the name appeared: Fat Boy.

Despite saying I rarely get surprised, well, ow. Surprise!

I remember the exact moment from childhood, each hairy second: while playing Four square in the street with three male friends, a pickup zoomed toward us, forcing a temporary break in our game. I held the red rubber ball as we watched two men drive past, slowing enough for one of them to yell out the passenger window, “Watch what you do with that ball, Fat Boy.”

My friends howled with laughter.

And it was true: I was the fat kid. For years, those childhood then teenage friends would chuckle occasionally and say, “Watch what you do with that ball, Fat Boy.”

I’ve always been overweight, however you want to describe it: chunky, stocky, husky, meaty, plump, thickset, big-boned, or my personal favorite:  football-player build. No, I didn’t eat a whole box of Thin Mint cookies last night, I just play for the Green Bay Packers.

And yes, it troubles me.

I recently recommitted to weightlifting, healthy eating, and exercise. Despite years of struggle, I remain weirdly optimistic. I might actually love myself enough these days to transcend this ancient pattern.

Last night, I stood eye to eye with a warrior man I do not know well, Kevin. But I love him more already because while I told my Four Square story, his eyes grew wet with my grief. The facilitator guided Kevin (and half the room), question by question, through a conversation with that unloveable part. (Later, we switched so that everyone had a chance to tell their unloveable truth.)

I used to think of integrity as an medieval knight clanking around in cumbersome, gleaming armor. Sometimes that feels true: clunky, hilarious, and majestic. I like that feeling, loving the world enough to want to protect it. Yesterday, Kevin was a knight for me.

But sometimes integrity feels like an old grump sitting next to a fire, nodding to the space next to him. Come. Sit down. Shut the fuck up as we slurp down soup. Be here with me and be glorious or be broken, either one, just don’t try to bullshit a bullshitter. Reveal yourself during soup.

Kevin invited me, Edmond, to listen to Fat Boy’s deepest complaint.

Speaking for Fat Boy, I said, “Who helped you ignore anger? Who made sure you didn’t fall asleep lonely, just indigestion from two dozen Oreos? Me. I kept you invisible during awkward teenage years. In a world where male beauty is either Team Edward or the other guy who’s a wolf, I kept you safe and under the radar. I met daily adulthood challenges with daily rewards, often involving melted cheese. After a lifetime together, you now want to murder me on an elliptical machine.”

And it’s true: I have tried to kill Fat Boy.

I’m ready to lose the weight.

I’m in my 40′s and I’d like to continue through life heart-attack free. But last night, I touched it again, a deeper truth, expressed in how I act: I treat my inner Fat Boy as my greatest enemy instead of recognizing how this defense mechanism protected me. You know, in his own fucked up way.

The men who I respect these days own it: I am broken. I think dark, sad thoughts. I fear mundane things, which is rather silly because I am a man who kills spiders without flinching and I walk on the roof of my house. If I share my weaknesses, you would howl with laughter at my stupid vulnerability, while some slick cynic takes potshots from his pickup.

Of course, these same men own another truth, which on the truth scale, is more true: I am glorious. I have wisdom. My very presence is a gift to this world, a necessary light in dark, scary times. When I radiate my love, you dickwads in pickup trucks better watch the fuck out, because I will love the shit out of you. I will find the fat boy inside you, and I will hold his hand. Bring it.

To keep believing in love, I sometimes am forced to befriend my broken parts and say, “I do not need you as I once did, but I see you. You’re okay.”

My new pal, Kevin, leaned in closer. He looked into my eyes and said, “What can Edmond do for you? What do you want, Fat Boy?”

“Gratitude,” I said, and the word surprised me but I kept talking. “Even if you feel completely naked sharing this with the whole world, I want you to write about me on your blog, on the Gratitude page. Show everyone you’re actually glad that inside of you lives a scared, fat kid who sometimes goes home and cries when people are mean.”

Okay, Fat Boy.

I promise.

.

This article is featured at the Mankind Project Journal.

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Tonight, I must celebrate another facet of my Valentines Day: pure movie-quality horror.

Late Sunday night after six hours of driving, my car finally trudged down the dark, pot-hole-laden alley, and grunted to a stop at my garage. My garage door is broken, another irritation for the past two weeks. During bitter February, I have fought the garage door open and then fought the door closed, sometimes twice a day.

I’m not that strong, but whenever I pull the door open or command it closed, I feel like Sampson from the Bible, performing incredible feats for the shock and awe of others. I sometimes imagine an appreciative audience in the alley gasping at my strength. I’m not sure why they’re standing around in my alley waiting for a strong man to impress them, but that’s how imagination works.

Sunday night, I walked into the dark garage from the side door inside my yard, and without turning on a light, did my Sampson thing. Then, I parked the car inside, and flipped on a light because I had plenty to unload: clothes, extra shoes, uneaten blueberries, Mom’s spaghetti, homemade birthday cake, and a bag of newspapers I dragged to Illinois because I labored under the delusion I may spend time reading. (I travel like a hoarder.)

Before I actually moved anything out of the car, I looked up.

Right now, click on my Photos page and witness my homecoming. Seriously, go check it out now. This post will be here when you get back.

(Dum, dee dum…de dum…hmmm mmmhmm.)

You’re back? Great.

My first thought was, ‘It’s not going to like being hung like that.’ I am disturbed that my brain worried about the doll’s feelings. That’s messed up. But when you encounter a cloth, clown doll hanging from your garage, perhaps wondering about the horrific, supernatural implications is not unwarranted.

Immediately, I knew Dave and Don perpetrated this hanging because, A) I unloaded that clown doll on them at Christmas, B) Dave left two Sunday messages in a concerned voice just ‘checking in,’ which I now recognize was code for ‘did you see it?’, and C), it’s Dave and Don.

I suppose they didn’t care for how we last parted.

A week ago, we met at their house and enjoyed a delicious breakfast together, laughing our asses off. Before we dined, they gifted me Valentines Day peeps.

I said, “You know I hate these things.”

They said cheerfully, “We know. Happy Valentines Day.”

At an opportune moment when they left the room, I hid the Peeps inside their piano. But later, as I was hugging my goodbyes, Dave said, “Where are they? Don, he’s not holding them.”

“Gotta run,” I said, and I ran to my car.

As I raced down the sidewalk, Dave took off into the house, and I fumbled with my car keys, knowing I had only seconds before he found them and chased after me.

Hurry!

Found the unlock button.

Hopped in the car, zoomed the engine.

Jerked away from the curb, waving out the passenger window, watching Dave fume on the front porch, shaking the sugar-coated red marshmallow after me.

Ha ha ha ha ha hah.  I win.
And now, their revenge: the evil clown doll dangled over my car.

I was alone in the dark with that thing.

Yikes.

Moments later on my back porch, I discovered Revenge Part II: the red-sugared Peeps. They had been stripped of their packaging and ripped apart, artistically arranged in a snow drift, tastefully reminding me not to fuck with Dave and Don on a day dedicated to love.

Silently, I vowed to accept all future holiday Peeps.

I will say ‘thank you.’

I will take them home.

I will not eat them, but I will take them home and add to my growing collection in the basement.

There’s nothing like a little heart-pounding terror to help me forget sadness. And I must admit that I chuckled while trying to clean up the half-melted peeps, which had molted their red, sugar skin, and devolved into slippery bubbles of marshmallow. Seriously, who eats these?

Dave and Don’s grotesque gesture somehow sparked more energy into me. I decided to use this week to Get. Shit. Done. I organized piles of taxes and miscellaneous papers. Made a dent in those newspapers I keep dragging around. I committed to stopping caffeine. Called a guy to fix the garage door.

Dad came home from the hospital today and as reported by mom, was last seen napping in his big chair, a familiar hobby for the past 30 years. Tonight, I sleep better knowing he’s snoring in front of the TV, and mom’s half-dozing in the chair next to his, waking occasionally to worry about tomorrow’s dinner.

Today was a good day.

I was also pleasantly surprised to find that the Joe, the Garage Door Guy, installed the new motor. While admiring and testing the remotes he left behind, I noticed the evil clown doll sitting on a step ladder and realized I had forgotten to move it.

Huh.

Either Joe found and moved it (which is disturbing), or the thing really did not like being hung that way and un-hung itself (which is also disturbing). Perhaps most disturbing is that I couldn’t be bothered to remember that I had an evil clown doll dangling from a garage rafter. How do you forget something like that?

I have heard rumor that some people get roses on Valentines Day, or candy which does not repulse them nor melt into sludge.

I’d like to try that some year.

I might be learning to hate Valentines Day. But this isn’t a rant against singledom or the tyranny of Hallmark holidays.

Last year over Valentines Day weekend, we received news of dad’s stage 4 colon cancer, which had already spread to his liver, lungs, and other tissue. The prognosis was bleak. For a tense couple of months, our family waited to see if the chemo would work. It did. He lived, and thanks to mom, awesome doctors, family, and friends, (but mostly mom) he lived damn well.

We had planned a family party for this year’s Valentines Day weekend to celebrate our good fortune and my two sisters’ winter birthdays, but dad was struck down last Tuesday, exhausted and feverish, by an opportunistic infection that remains a medical mystery to those trying to diagnose him.

We’re back in the hospital for Valentines Day.

I hate seeing him in a hospital bed, requiring assistance to turn on his side. He needs help standing. His skin looks worn, used up, and his legs are pencil thin. My mind refuses to believe this is possible.

This is the man who strode across our steeply-pitched roof with a storm window in his hands and nails in his mouth while I watched, terrified, from the ladder propped against the house. In high school, he broke football records. Several categories. Decades later, as the school athletic director, he chalked the football field himself before Friday night games, then coached the games. This man fixes everything around the house himself or stores the broken item in the basement until he ‘gets around to it.’ (My parents’ basement is packed with ‘get around to it’ items.)

Despite his broken body, dad remains uniquely dad. He thanks the hospital staff profusely, and learns all of his caregivers’ names. He worries about mom driving home from the hospital after dark, and in a soft voice urges her to leave his side. She is always reluctant and sometimes ignores his pleas.

Sunday morning, when I arrived at the hospital to sit for the day, Clarice and Ed, his and mom’s best friends, prepared for their exit after an extended visit. I hugged them eagerly, because I like them too. They’re goofy and charming, great friends to my folks. When I asked Ed how he was doing, he responded confidently, “Almost perfect in every way.”

As they buttoned up their coats, I kissed Dad on the cheek and said, “You look good. You must have been energized by a visit from good friends.”

“Oh yes,” Dad said with enthusiasm. “But they left. Then Clarice and Ed showed up.”

Ed howled with laughter and as dad joined him laughing hard, he looked like my father once again.

I’m trying to be grateful, I really am.

Since last Valentines Day, we enjoyed another full year of Dad’s cheating at Wheel of Fortune and unusual culinary advice. We played card games, told stories, argued our traditional family topics. One summer night after evening meal, he explained that his oncologist explicitly forbade his helping with dinner dishes, as it might “undo” the chemo’s impact. As always, he turned to mom for confirmation. As usual, mom wrinkled her face at him and said, “I’m staying out of this.”

Last August, all six of us attended a joyful family wedding at the Ritz Carlton. We celebrated Christmas this year with hilarity. The previous month at our extended clan’s Thanksgiving, Dad led the prayer before eating. Many of us cried as he asked God to help us accept the death of a beloved, young cousin. Dad’s close-to-tears prayer helped us all feel that horrible loss again, and I remember thinking, ‘Who will bless our hurts when he is gone?’

Friday night, after hospital visiting hours concluded, I did his Valentines Day shopping: a beautiful card for mom and her favorite candy, the Whitman Sampler. On Sunday afternoon, we gathered around his bed to celebrate and as mom was presented with her wrapped gift and card, she said with some surprise, “Who did this?”

Dad said, “I have people.”

Inside the card, he had written in his own faltering handwriting: “My hand is shaky but my love is not.”

I think perhaps the point of Valentines Day is to remember love’s vulnerability. You can love someone, something, a time, a place, an age, a feeling – love it with all your love – and still, it ends. One of my warrior friends once told me, “When you think about it, all love ends in someone leaving. Even after 60 years of marriage, one of you dies and deserts the other.”

Okay, perhaps a little grim for Valentines Day.

But I get it: your heart gets broken in this world. I’ve been in love and it did not last. I’ve experienced friendships that end and it just fucking hurts. My childhood hero is in a hospital bed unable to turn over. Still, I’d rather bawl my eyes out than miss love’s vulnerable gift. So, I guess I’ll give Valentines Day another chance next year.

Between Clarice and Ed’s Sunday visit and our family celebration later that day, I watched him doze on his side. I studied his face, trying to remember every detail, every crease, the shape of his head.

He startled me by suddenly talking loudly into his pillow. He said, “Are you driving back to Minnesota today?”

I said, “Yes, Dad.”

I got choked up and said, “I’m sorry I have to leave.”

He grunted from the bed and said, “You can’t stay forever.”

Sometimes, I hate it when he’s right.

.

I sat in my upstairs comfy chair, watched fat snow flakes take their sweet damn time falling through the air, and read a book about zombies. Today, I’m grateful for fiction in its many flavors – epic tales by word masters, cheeseburger fiction, and zombie tales.