If the 17 year old me could see far off into the future, to a time in the year 2010, and she saw that the world was STILL driving it’s young people off the planet through hate and fear, she would wish for the strength to stand, but would most likely only collapse in pain and confusion.
I have to stand for her. And for my best friend who died when I was only a girl because he believed that this life wasn’t meant to last for a gay young man in the 1980’s. And I can’t believe he was right. That he left because he didn’t think it would get better. He couldn’t trade his life for something new or different– he was what he was – and holding onto what he was wouldn’t be possible without hurting his family and friends. So he left. The better to leave and not be a bother, not be a burden, not be left unwhole.
And his family probably still doesn’t know why. It’s a weight he carried alone, kept secret from the world and died holding tight onto so as not to let his loved ones suffer.
But they suffered. Suffered the loss of a son and brother. Suffered the lack of a note to explain why. Suffered with his friends, who were all experiencing the darkest tragedy of their young lives. We all stood there in the wake of his devastation without any reason to blame. There was no car crash, no cancer, no horrible thing to point at and say – “THAT is the reason he is dead.” Just a group of lost and weeping souls without anyone to blame but the boy we loved for making such a sad choice.
And for a long long time I didn’t put all of the pieces together.
But I know now that my friend died from hatred. From the small and cold people in the world who would judge him, his family, his partner, his friends, his career, and every other thing about him for the rest of his life because he was gay.
He died because he did not want to live in a world without love.
He died because there are hateful bigots in the world. 22 years ago. Still today. And 22 years from now unless we take a stand.
It is time for me to stand. For my dear sweet dead friend. For 17 year old me. For every person I know, and everyone I have never met, who happens to choose a partner of the same sex.
I have to stand because my children are watching me. And I refuse to let them grow up believing that anyone has a life that is worth less than anyone else because they make a simple choice based on love. The world used to be a place where my brown self wouldn’t have been allowed to love and marry their white father. The world used to be a place where their femaleness would have kept them the property of their fathers or husbands. I’d like the world to be a place where we used to judge and criticize and condemn someone for their choice of partner based on sex.
We are all here together, and this life is so hard already – such a tough, uphill climb and fight to the finish for even the overachiever and straight as an arrow individual. If you are even the slightest bit different the fight multiplies in on itself over and over and over again until it’s bigger than anything you can carry alone. It begins to look appealing to simply set down your burden and bid a fond farewell to the agony.
I get this all too well. Deep in my bones and on every level of my conscience. Sorrow and I are old friends – he has walked with me my whole life long – when humans and hope would abandon me, sorrow was always there with his arms wrapped tight around me in the dark.
I should have stood up a long time ago. I take the blame for not doing so. It makes me heartsick. I don’t deserve a life of simple and good love because I’ve never taken the steps to stand up for it, even when lack of it was tearing apart and killing those I loved. How could I not do that? I don’t know. Fear maybe? Fear of judgment from my conservative friends? Fear of doing or saying something different and being considered too radical? I don’t know. I only know that I didn’t do anything. And now there are 22 years gone and I can’t bear to think about how many lives lost that means. No more. I can no longer take part in that persecution. I can’t even passively take part. I must stand.
And I'm also asking those without hope to reach out. When hate and anger knock you down, get back up. You deserve to live your life in light and love - fight for it! Don't give up on the rest of us. We will get there, but we have to do it together and we need you to help us. Up until now I’ve thought that there wasn’t enough love. That was so very wrong. The love is there, and the people who are willing to give it have to have the freedom to do so without fear. They have to know that there is hope.
Suicide happens for one reason. One.
Lack of hope.
Please please please stand with me and give the future of our humanity a reason to hope.
Peacefully stand next to me. That’s what it will take. Hate won’t solve this – hate is what started this whole mess. Devaluing humans to be able to make them slaves to the power of the hateful. And I won’t be hateful anymore by simply sitting and not saying anything. I won’t raise my children to be hateful bigots. I won’t let them open their mouths in ignorance and ugly words. I won’t listen passively while my associates spread their hateful lack of understanding. I must throw myself in front of all that, catch the truth of love and let it reflect off of me in a brilliant bright light that floods the earth with the incandescent illumination of hope so that no one else has to die from living in a world without love.
Otherwise, they will continue to leave. And it will continue to be our fault.
Hold tight to your humanity.
Share your divine light.
And may love be free from fear.
I love you. Enough said. Krystie-
Posted by: Krystie Whillock | October 11, 2010 at 09:55 PM