Dear Anthony

Congratulations, Anthony
Jesuit Preparatory School, 2016

Dear Anthony,

Congratulations! What a job you’ve done! And look what lies ahead! I am proud to know you and your family. 
I want to share some things that were helpful to me in one way or another along the way toward graduating magna cum laude from Baylor.
Background: from middle school through high school and into college I was a terrible student. When I applied to Baylor, I had a 1.7 GPA – proof of my poor performance in school. The Dean at Baylor gave me a list of prerequisites and told me to come back if I could make straight A’s in those subjects. She was surprised when I showed up a year later with all A’s in chemistry, biology, anatomy, physiology, and so on! What helped:
  • Never missed a class, was never late, always sat up front, and paid total attention in class. I was unafraid to ask questions during or after class – or before the next class. 

  • As soon as possible after every class I recopied my notes (adding material from texts if needed to help me understand). In this manner, I heard the material, wrote the material, and rewrote and started integrating the material. It was like pre-studying for tests. I don’t know how I would interact with a computer or PowerPoint in this process – maybe read carefully back through notes and use text to add to them? I don’t know.
  • Changed my handwriting from scrawlish to as neat as possible.
  • Treated school like a job – I worked at it from 8am to 5 or 6pm. I didn’t take long social lunches, but I always ate lunch and didn’t study while eating. I also took other breaks and changed my study locations during the day when I started getting sleepy. In

    undergraduate school I took most of most weekends off; in graduate school I had to work harder – that was a 6-7 day/week job. 

  • Group projects are a fact of life. And there are always people who don’t do their part, are late, and are otherwise non-productive. Be assertive in identifying smart, motivated people (they’re often quiet people) and connecting with them to work together. This is an important skill.
  • Often studied with other people – again, choosing carefully. You’ll make good study connections over time.
  • Avoided situations and people who wouldn’t help in my journey. I don’t mean I didn’t help other people; I did. But I avoided people who were unmotivated, drinkers, stoners, gamers, and so on. I went out some on weekends, but it was not one big party. I actually had a very good time in school, and have been having a good time ever since. 
  • I recall seeing some legitimate research showing that students who worked part-time in college tended to do well – working apparently does not have an adverse effect on grades.
  • Always bought used books. If it’s such a great book and worth the high price charged for new, you can always get one later.

Garden at Road’s End, outside Fort Bragg

Being a good student is hard work and the rewards are many. You get to learn a lot, test yourself, spend time with smart people, meet new people, see new things, and open up your life in other unanticipated and wonderful ways.

School can be a gateway to an amazing life.

How Weird, hospice (the purpose), ports of call (Asia)

How Weird, 2016
How Weird is a street party in San Francisco – about 20,000 people, fragrant air, 10 stages, trance around every corner – BIG THUMP THUMP THUMP! 2016 was a good one! How Weird site
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I found this from days gone past (in the 1995 book): “The underlying purpose or mission of hospice/ palliative/terminal care is to facilitate an internal and external physical, psychosocial, and spiritual environment in which the patient and his or her loved ones have the opportunity for reconciliation with God, others, and self… to realize the purpose of life.” 
We took on pain, suffering, despair, emptiness… with knowledge, skill, commitment, presence…
In the Still of the Night, Hong Kong 5am
——————
Traveling in Asia… All those places…
(Links are to some – not all – posts from Asia travels)
Hong Kong – Home base, where we always spent at least a few days going to and coming from SE Asia. My first time there was in 1967; Leslie and I started going in 1978; our last time was in 2013. I love Hong Kong. “Urban compression!” 2012, 2005, 2008

(Ridicerous!), some photos, and 2013 (our last HK post)

Leslie’s favorite banh cuon lady in Hanoi
Hanoi – Walking in the “medieval streets” of the Old Quarter, Leslie said, “I love Vietnam. It’s fun. It’s clean. The people are nice and seem to be honest. And the food is unbelievable.” Nobody in the history of the world ever said all that together about Vietnam. Vietnam! Leslie! 2010, with David and 2008 (first time)
Sapa – A town in the clouds, literally; in the cool northern Vietnam highlands; kind of like Nepal. Sapa, 2013 
A lake in the middle of an island in Halong Bay
Tam Coc – In a two-person boat on the river running through rice fields, along limestone cliffs, through caves… Hanoi and Tam Coc
Halong – Incredible islands of vertical limestone rising mysteriously from the mist and a placid sea on a boat with about 20 passengers. One of them said, “I have, what do you call it – the sickness of the ocean. I want to womit.” Halong – a ship of (some) fools 
Hue – Beautiful Hue, my favorite city in the world (along with San Francisco and Berkeley). My first time here was in 1967. It’s raining, misty, tropical, mysterious, this city of ghosts. Hue (it’s raining) and Beautiful Hue
David and Leslie in the rain near Hue.
I love this photograph.
Hoi An – Narrow streets, few cars, old shop fronts, tailors, and tourists. Hoi An and Hill 55 (2005)
Danang – I spent 3-4 days/month there for six months in 1967. Leslie and I just passed through a few times. A place with a lot of memories, many of them good.
Near Battambang
Saigon – Oh hell, yes! Packed streets and markets (it’s a commercial rave scene), millions of motos, brilliant street food, countless narrow lanes, a place of many good memories since my first time there in 2005, 2012, 2006
Mekong Delta – The greenest place I’ve ever been, water, water everywhere, a beautiful place. 2006
Phnom Penh – The first time there it seemed ominous, but over time, opened up. David was there for a year working at the Hope Medical Center. Mony, Sophear, their family, Samnang – welcome! 2006 (includes Phnom Penh and Hope Hospital),  2005 (I never imagined visiting mass graves or torture rooms)
In Chiang Mai
Battambang – The heartland of Cambodia, slow-moving, deep into the countryside 5 minutes out of town. 2010, 2005
Siem Reap (Angkor) – Ancient temples, deserted for centuries, and we’re slow-walking into the empty forest around Angkor. 2005, 2006
Kampot – Sleepy riverside town where the river empties into the Gulf of Siam. Phnom Penh and Kampot
Poipet – (Cambodian border town) It used to be the dirtiest imaginable town with dusty, ghostly, ragged people trudging around; now, it’s full of casinos and brothels.
Curry – two with rice for a dollar or two
Aranyaprathet – Several times, actually. Once we were staying in a house way out in the countryside a mile or so from where artillery was hitting. We talked about where we would meet if the arty hit us and we were separated and Leslie was like, “Okay.” A very cool person. Khao-I-Dang – the refugee camp near Aran. Photos, words about K-I-D
Leslie in Burma, 2007 and Kathmandu, 1978
Bangkok – Southeast Asia’s main travel hub. To put it into context, the population is almost 3x bigger than Houston, but with waaay less urban planning. Leslie loved Bangkok and we had many good times there – The Miami, where as a gesture of solidarity with the prostitutes who weren’t allowed to use the elevator, Leslie always took the stairs. The Century Motel, Nansok’s, Boon’s, Drop Inn, Suk 11, Merry V Guesthouse, Stephan’s, Jean-Francoise’s, Harry’s… 2008, 2009 (rediscovering Bangkok) (also see You call it liver… below)
Kho Samui – In those days, just an overloaded ferry-ish boat. Little grass hut on the beach for about $1.50. Photo below.
Ayyutahya – Ancient ruins north of Bangkok.
Worship at Shwe Dagon in Rangoon
Chiang Mai – City of many temples, markets, festivals, good food, cheaper guesthouses and hotels, cooler temperatures, and happy memories. Our first time in Chiang Mai was 1978 and our last time was December 2013. “You call it liver; I call it karma” (2013), 2011, 2007 with David
From left: Paul, Charles, Leslie, Vera – in Mandalay
Luang Prabang – A UNESCO World Heritage city, which means that old buildings are preserved vs. new one built, small signs, many travelers (more travelers than tourists). Great times for Leslie, David, me – and a great connection to Ben and Magera. 2007 with David
Rangoon – We were here in the old days, when visas were for 7 days only, and in modern times when the city is (now) called Yangon and visas are for longer stays. There was one magical night in a government guesthouse. And magical days at Shewdagon – the great golden temple/paya. Photos from 1970s, Shwe Dagon 
A transgender trance dancer (pink top) in a nat
ceremony down a side street in Mandalay, 1980s
Moulmein! – “By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin’ lazy at the sea, there’s a Burma girl a-setting, and I know she thinks o’ me…” And I sat right where Kipling’s Burma girl sat, and I looked out to the sea and thought of her… Following written on the train from Moulmein to Rangoon:
Mountains above,
Padi below,
In mystic light.

Through a village in a forest,
A beautiful, graceful girl,
With thanaka on her cheeks,
And a basket on her head,
Walks out of a dark path among the trees.
Then another one!

Down in a small valley between green, green hills women bathing by a stream, sarongs up over their breasts. Children playing. How I wish, how I wish you were here. 
Mountains close by the road, clouds touching to tops and sunlight touching the sides with golden stupas glittering in the sunlight – like a hallucination. Smell of growth and wood smoke. Child with short hair and thanaka on her cheeks and nose. Some houses, but mostly hooches, some nice, some poor. It’s not too hot, but it is hot.
Somewhere along the way I lose almost all my commitments, except for Leslie and David and the mission. Moulmein and other places in Burma, 2007
At Shwe Dagon
Pegu – Home of the world’s most beautiful reclining Buddha and not much else – just an incredible small Burmese town. See photos and 2007 links above
Mandalay – More magic in this sprawling dusty village-like city. Leslie and Charles: they’d have fun anywhere! More photos from 1970s
Sagaing – a mystic town of temples and monasteries across the hills, in the mist. See photos and 2007 links above
Maymyo – A former British hill station, where there are miniature stagecoaches instead of taxis. See photos and 2007 links above
Outside of Kathmandu
Calcutta – Every block of every street had many, many people sleeping on the sidewalks, even in the street. There was a corpse right outside the gate to our hotel. Leslie’s dysentery got worse here.
Kathmandu – A hippie paradise framed by the Himalayas. On the plane out of Kathmandu, flying over the snowy mountains, Leslie said, “If this plane goes down (and that seemed like a possibility), what a place to die!”
Ko Samui – Leslie and our little hut


Food in Asia post

Coming home

I was reading in Archaic Revival: “The experience must move one’s heart, and it will not move the heart unless it deals with issues of life and death. If it deals with life and death it will move one to fear, it will move one to tears, it will move one to laughter…” Earlier, my friend Jean sent this message: “Magical it all is. Is it life or is it death that is a mystery? Perhaps both?” Yes, and everything in between.
So fine to find one of these little temples. Dry, strong walls.
What else could you want? Photo Kim Ki Sam 
Coming home
Near Lang Vei, where I slept with rats. Photo R. Merron
There was a last formation somewhere near Danang – 30-something Marines standing together where there had once been 180. The ones who were not there had been killed or wounded too badly to return to combat or wounded three times (it was a three and you’re out deal) orbeen too sick to fight (with malaria, etc.). All of us in that formation had been wounded at least once. We were what was left of C Company, 1stBattalion, 26th Marine Regiment, 5th Marine Division. We had all gone together as a landing force, first been truly blooded at the DMZ in Operation Deckhouse (Prairie), fought for months at Dodge City, fought on Highway 1, and ended up at Khe Sanh. I had also gone on TAD (Temporary Assigned Duty) with 1st Battalion, 9th Marines and several other units in the Hill Fights, the “First Battle of Khe Sanh,” Gio Linh, Con Tien, etc.
Resuscitation failing. Henri Huet
And now here we were, 30-something of us – sallow, skinny, nervous… real warriors – no muscled up or tanned or beer-bellied or tough guy REMFs (rear echelon mother-fuckers) in thisformation.
They flew us first to Okinawa where we did what we always did when we could – got drunk and so on. I had a moment of glory in a brothel when I hit some old REMF lifer (actually he was probably all of 30 or 35 years old) hard enough that he literally went through the wall and then somehow, I and my mate, Carver, got away from the Shore Patrol (military police). It was the perfect end to my tour of duty.

Cigarette! Photo Oliver Noonan

From Oki, they flew us to Camp Pendleton, where I drank endless glasses of cold, cold milk, ate chocolate cake, and those sorts of things. The mess hall for returnees actually had a juke box that was playing over and over again,
Groovin’
down a crowded avenue
Doin’
Anything we’d like to do
We’re gonna talk and laugh our time away…
Peace. Photo Associated Press
We were given the opportunity to re-up (no takers on that deal!) and processed out of the Corps. Adios mother-fuckers.
I flew to Dallas. There was none of the airport harassment one heard about. In my mind I was scary looking, but probably I just looked like a nervous, skinny guy who wouldn’t look anyone in the eye – because, in my mind, I didn’t want to frighten anyone.
Welcome home. 

MD Anderson moments, words seen walking around San Francisco (Viva la Vulva!), thoughts on Madame George

Castro Street

Photos are of words seen while walking around San Francisco – “the city without an end.” Click photo and drift on through the slideshow.
——————

Sitting in the lobby at MD Anderson Cancer Center (with a friend), a few feet from a baby girl about two years old, sick with cancer – like a poster child for chemo, like a flower, like a dream. People walking by, many with their own problems. They look at her and I’m looking at them and I can see some of them sending waves of love and sorrow to her and her Mom and Dad. Oh!
——————–
In the secret space of dreams
Where I dreaming lay amazed
When the secrets all are told
And the petals all unfold
When there was no dream of mine
You dreamed of me.
——————–
Somewhere else in the lobby a woman leans over. A lovely view. I smile at her, she at me. A break in the day.
——————–

MD Anderson is overwhelming. More hope and fear and love and and and and than can be imagined. And at the same time, a familiar and comfortable environment for me. I feel such pride in my students who work at MD Anderson, at Parkland, at Children’s, Baylor, Africa, India, all those places – saving lives, giving hope, feeding the poor, cleansing the lepers…
——————-
Last year the city installed plaques on Castro
honoring gay men and women of note

Walking along Castro, behind a couple sharing a vape. He was wearing a Humboldt State University Marching Lumberjacks jacket. A plaque set into the sidewalk commemorates a week in 1998 when the Castro gay community newspaper (Bay Area Reporter) had no obituaries. In the 1980s into the 90s there had been an average of 12 obits every week as AIDS ravaged this community more than any other.

The street is alive tonight. On the corner at Castro and 18th where the shrines are, a couple is singing and playing guitars and laughing. I put money in the guitar case. At the bus stop there was a car with trance going and I walked over by it so I could hear the music better. An older man in the car was smoking a joint… 

Then a little kid almost ran out in front of another car. A man standing at the bus stop said, “That was close” and I’m like, yeah! The man and I talked a little. He and his daughters were going to the Haight. He asked me if I know where the Jefferson Airplane house is. I said, I wasn’t sure, maybe Page, but somebody will know. I looked it up when I got home – it’s at 2400 Fulton. The little boy who lives in the other apartment on my floor wanted me to watch him ride his bike. This was his second day of riding and he got going pretty good. Another Saturday afternoon in The City.
When you fall into a trance… Madame George
On Market Street

There was a time, before “I Heart Radio” – gag, when sometimes you would turn the radio on and hear something like Madame George or Sugaree or Visions of Johanna. These are great songs from the past, but the point is, you can’t hear current corollaries to such greatness on the radio today – despite the fact that there is a whole lot of greatness happening today. I’ve been listening to Madame George for days now – this version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mceI44LrEKk

At the N (light rail) stop at Duboce and Church

I think I have some – some – understanding of Madame George (which, btw, was originally conceived as Madame Joy). It feels like it’s about us – all of us who came up in the strait-laced 50s and into the counter-culture 60s. And it feels like Madame George herself is a means of expressing ideas/feelings vs. a person the  song is about.

Lord have mercy, I think that it’s the cops!
Maybe it’s about you, me, Al, David, Leslie, my mate Jeff, your friend Janet, our times (times like no other, before or since).
And that smell of sweet perfume comes drifting through
The cool night air like Shalimar
Yes, Viva la Vulva!

As for Madame George herself, maybe she’s us, too, through time or maybe something else. It’s about what we had…

And as you leave, the room is filled with music, laughing, music,
dancing, music all around the room.
It’s about what we lost… and now we have to go… We have to go…
Say goodbye, goodbye
Get on the train
Get on the train, the train, the train…
This is the train, this is the train…
Whoa, say goodbye, goodbye…
Get on the train, get on the train…
(CK)
——————-

David Robbins (sent by Jean C.): “I could listen to Van Morrison’s “Astral Weeks” forever and never grow tired of it. Listening to it somehow connects me to a deep truth, old as the universe itself. I’ve more than once found myself listening to the album and falling into a reverie, completely lost in its time; weeping uncontrollably, grabbing my chest to slow my breathing. I don’t know what it is exactly about this album. I don’t think I ever will. I feel it so viscerally, that it has become me. I am a writer, who can often write about music with skill, but I will never touch even the outskirts of what makes “Astral Weeks” so timeless, and so majestic. There’s a courageousness in Van Morrison’s deep search into the slipstream. “Astral Weeks” flies headlong into love, finding a melancholy so true it rips your heart out. I’m bruised by the beauty of “Astral Weeks”. The world isn’t the same once you’ve really heard it. The album shows us how everything in this world is tinged with a meaning deeper than we can fathom, and that we need to embrace it. All of it: death, love, hurt, despair, elation, decay, passion, tragedy, nature, spirituality — and to ultimately find connection with all things”.

I came up out of the subway and was greeted
by this poster – I asked myself, How am I doing?

———————

Jean C.: To me, for now, this is what I think: Madame George is an essence, a very exotic phenomenon. She is both male and female but most of all she is someone whose nature encompasses us all. Like you said she is US. She is YOUTH.
———————
VM: Here is what Van said: “It’s like a movie, a sketch, or a short story. In fact, most of the songs on Astral Weeks are like short stories. In terms of what they mean, they’re as baffling to me as to anyone else. I haven’t got a clue what that song is about or who Madame George might have been.
Imbedded in F (street car) stop 

The original title was “Madame Joy” but the way I wrote it down was “Madame George”. Don’t ask me why I do this because I just don’t know. The song is just a stream of consciousness thing, as is Cyprus Avenue… Madame George just came right out. The song is basically about a spiritual feeling.”


Down on Cyprus Avenue


In a wall. Marilyn Chin is a beautiful romantic
With a childlike vision leaping into view
Clicking, clacking of the high heeled shoe
Ford & Fitzroy, Madame George
Marching with the soldier boy behind
He’s much older with hat on drinking wine
And that smell of sweet perfume comes drifting through
The cool night air like Shalimar
And outside they’re making all the stops
The kids out in the street collecting bottle-tops
Gone for cigarettes and matches in the shops
Happy taken Madame George
That’s when you fall
Whoa, that’s when you fall
Yeah, that’s when you fall

When you fall into a trance
A sitting on a sofa playing games of chance
With your folded arms and history books you glance
Into the eyes of Madame George
And you think you found the bag
You’re getting weaker and your knees begin to sag
In the corner playing dominoes in drag
The one and only Madame George
And then from outside the frosty window raps
She jumps up and says Lord have mercy I think it’s the cops
And immediately drops everything she gots
Down into the street below
F Line stop


And you know you gotta go
On that train from Dublin up to Sandy Row
Throwing pennies at the bridges down below
And the rain, hail, sleet, and snow
Say goodbye to Madame George
Dry your eye for Madame George
Wonder why for Madame George
And as you leave, the room is filled with music, laughing, music,
dancing, music all around the room
And all the little boys come around, walking away from it all
So cold
And as you’re about to leave
She jumps up and says Hey love, you forgot your gloves
And the gloves to love to love the gloves…
To say goodbye to Madame George
Dry your eye for Madame George
Wonder why for Madame George
Dry your eyes for Madame George
Say goodbye in the wind and the rain on the back street
In the backstreet, in the back street
Say goodbye to Madame George
In the backstreet, in the back street, in the back street
Down home, down home in the back street
Gotta go

Somewhere in Inner Sunset

Say goodbye, goodbye, goodbye
Dry your eye your eye your eye your eye your eye…
Say goodbye to Madame George
And the loves to love to love the love
Say goodbye
Oooooo
Mmmmmmm
Concrete graffiti on my street. And it’s true! 


Say goodbye goodbye goodbye goodbye to Madame George
Dry your eye for Madame George
Wonder why for Madame George
The love’s to love the love’s to love the love’s to love…
Say goodbye, goodbye
Get on the train
Get on the train, the train, the train…
This is the train, this is the train…
Whoa, say goodbye, goodbye….
Get on the train, get on the train…





Last love letter

This was the last love letter I sent to Leslie – just under three months before she passed away, more than 50 years into our relationship.
When we first started work with refugees
Dear Leslie
Written in the car parked in front Of Lucky Dog Books (Paperbacks+): I’m driving along through Hollywood Heights. Stopped at an intersection and flashed on someone running the stop sign and running into me. Listening to U2 – songs of mercy (who sings about mercy?), sorrow, joy, transcendence – Mothers of The Disappeared, Miss Sarajevo, One Love.
Leslie at memorial for Feather, hand in hand with
Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence at Duboce Park
Oh Leslie. I’m thinking how you and I have lived The Dream. Our whole lives working for a better world, for justice (you’re a warrior, no doubt), for suffering people, for beauty – living a world of love, navigating our way through what I truly believe were the most incredible times in history – civil rights, women’s rights, sexual revolution, psychedelic revolution, gay rights/marriage equality and the list goes on and we were there/we are here, together, each in our own way, making it happen.

January 2015, San Francisco
And now, whatever it is that’s happening is as mind-opening as anything that went before. I feel kind of like you’re taking us on a ride and I’m in awe. Not always an easy ride LOL. I feel zero need to label it or do anything other than experience it and I love thinking about it.
Leslie in a jeep in Burma, on the road to Maymyo
About the fact that he and I were warriors and then psychedelic, and now dancing beneath the stars, Jeff says in that hard voice, “There ain’t many in this class.” And I say about your and my individual paths and our paths combined where we did IT ALL, “There aren’t many in this class.“ Few have done it as fully as we have.
So I thought about a car slamming into me and I thought, if I die today, I AM fulfilled. And I thought, if we never have sex again, I AM fulfilled. I hope none of this happens for a long time, and I know, backslider that I am, I’ll be grumbling again before long. But the bottom line is – and I’ve said this before – Thank you for this astonishing life. It’s been everything I couldn’t have even imagined.
Beep-Beep! Here she comes!

Other people’s words… What moves you? Die knowing something. Do things that matter to your heart.

What moves you most in a work of literature?
Advice from my 80 year-old self
“What moves me is, I think, the trifecta of memory, love, and the passage of time. The close observation of character, of the moment as it passes – suffused with love. The writer who says: Here I stood! I loved the world enough to write it all down.” Sarah Ruhl in a NYT interview – http://www.sarahruhlplaywright.com/
—————-
“Stare. It is the way to educate your eye, and more. Stare; pry; listen; eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long.”
Walker Evans, who took archetypal photographs during the Great Depression (see one below)
—————-
I came up from the underground MUNI and there was this poster (Do Things That Matter to Your Heart) from an art project by Susan O’Malley: Advice from My 80 Year-Old Self: An Artist’s Bittersweet Legacy of Real Wisdom from Strangers Ages 7 to 88.
And I thought, “How is it going (Am I doing things that matter to my heart)?” And I answered myself, “Pretty well. Yes.”
Walker Evans photo
In writing about this poster, I found the following on the Brain Pickings site: “Just as the answers (posters like these)— some profound, some playful, all disarmingly sincere — began appearing across the San Francisco Bay Area in O’Malley’s public art installations, an unforgiving testament to the very premise of the project struck: One winter Wednesday, 38-year-old O’Malley fell unconscious and died a week before she was due to deliver the twin girls with whom she was pregnant; despite the emergency C-section, the babies also perished.”
Susan O’Malley’s words: “I started this project because I needed to listen to my 80-year-old self. At the time, I spent sleepless nights wondering, Should I leave my grown-up job with a paycheck and benefits to pursue my artistic passions? This ongoing dream felt terribly irresponsible, scary, and uncharted. But with the rapid illness of my mom, who was only in her 60s at the time, life suddenly felt too short not to take a risk. How would I feel at 80 if I did, or did not, make this choice? Before I had the courage to truly take the leap though, I turned to the words of strangers to help me navigate the way.”

Point Reyes, March 2016

———————

“This ain’t no disco; this ain’t no fooling around.” Talking Heads

A beautiful person (looking into her mind), beautiful people

“We are to love in deed and truth, not just word and speech … we ought to lay down our lives for one another.” Dan Foster
(Some of the below names are changed for confidentiality.)
3/19/2007 – An email from Leslie to Diane & Marisa
Hi friends,
Maryam was discharged today about 1:00. I saw her yesterday and had a long visit + began trying to make arrangements to have A____ (brother) admitted at Green Oaks as his condition continues to deteriorate. Maryam and Nabilah both want him hospitalized and put back on his meds but he has continued to refuse to go into the Baylor ER altho staff have assured the family that he would be admitted. I did not go to the apt today as they were waiting for the Hospice Nurse so I don’t know if Nabilah and her husband who arrived yesterday were able to take him to Green Oaks after I left yesterday- that was their plan when I left about 4:30.
Leslie in her office, 1982
So see how this sounds for a plan:
Tomorrow while Nora and I finish with patients and close the clinic, maybe the 2 of you could visit her and see that everything is in place with Hospice (I have the # for Vitas but don’t know what Social Worker and Nurse are assigned). I will plan to go on Friday and over the weekend. We need to visit whenever we can- she has begun to have increasing symptoms as the cancer spreads throughout her body. Two days ago, she began having severe pain in her right leg, a result of it spreading to the bones in that leg, and yesterday she began to have difficulty swallowing. So Min predicts that she has only a short time (when pushed for an estimate, she told me 4-6 weeks and maybe less). As the cancer progresses, Min says that she will decline rapidly so we need to schedule ourselves to go by any day we can. If we share and you take Thursday/Friday beginning next week, I’ll take the rest. It is a great comfort to both Maryam and Nabilah to have us so I think we must do whatever we can.
I’ll bring the phone numbers and address tomorrow and we’ll work out the details. Diane, Maryam loved the flowers that you brought and tells me often how much she loves us.
If either of you are praying people, now would be the time. My heart breaks for this family, scattered all over the world, who in the end don’t even have their Muslim brothers and sisters to support them. To my knowledge (and Min’s) there has only been one visitor from the mosque in Richardson and that was at least 2 weeks ago. Of course, we haven’t discussed the irony that this beautiful Muslim girl would die surrounded by a Jewish Dr., his Hindu Nurse, a fellow wounded soul from Burma and her Christian friends from Agape.
I’ll see you tomorrow. Thanks for your help.  

Leslie

——————–
We ought to lay down our lives for one another
Lay down our lives for one another
Lay down our lives
For one another

One year

On our front porch

It’s been a year. Oh, Leslie. I miss you. I’ve loved you all my life – since we were 16 – for 55 years. I can’t believe how lucky I am. My heart is full – full of love, full of gratitude, full of grief. I adore you. You are the best thing that ever happened to me. Oh, what a life we had. It’s hard to believe how good it was – how full of love, how true – nothing was undone, nothing unsaid, nothing unfulfilled. 

Our happy little family. You, me, David. Talk about love! Through deeply magical times, through everyday times, through hard times, you loved him and are loved by him in full measure. With a year of your life left, he gave you (and me) a whole city – San Francisco, the best city in the world. And now, he’s taking good care of me. You taught me everything I know about being a parent – a good father, thanks to you. Sweet Leslie, we have a Son for the ages.

How we wish, how we wish you were here.

With David in Beautiful Hue – our favorite place


I was thinking a few weeks ago that you probably thought adoration was your due. When the roses were in bloom, I would scatter rose petals where I knew you would walk when you got home, on the sidewalk, up the steps, across the porch and to the front door, and I think you were like, that’s about right – and so it was. 

I can’t say who – the announcement isn’t mine to make – but someone you loved is pregnant. It’s a girl(!) and her name will be Leslie. Someone you helped in elementary school is graduating from Jesuit and has scholarship offers (>$40,000/year) from St. Edwards and Baylor. I’m in touch with your friends and they are all doing well. Your Son and his husband are well. Your husband is doing better – after all these years I love you as much as I ever did. 

January 2015


It’s probably against the rules, so I’m not actually saying that we’re scattering your ashes in the beautiful National AIDS Memorial Grove, and on Haight Street where so many people were so kind to you, and at the magical 37 bus stop, and in the Castro – places that you loved and where you were welcomed. And of course among the roses and perennials at our home. 

About 10 hours before you passed away.
Edematous, but look at you – Hi Leslie!


We had a beautiful life together. And then, in the past few years, it got even better. There were times in those last few months when it got hard between us (I didn’t understand what was happening). Then, somehow, we both surrendered and love came down like a shimmering fall of beauty and truth. Real. And then, as our time ran out, we were pure – ahhh, Leslie, how we loved.

You died as you lived, loving and loved.

A new Leslie!


The pain is unbearable. Stabbed to death every day – and still grateful, still loving, still adoring. 











National AIDS Memorial Grove – in the meadow, on the hillside, among the redwoods. Leslie!


.

Keo

January – ceremony in Keo and Chouen’s bedroom

(Notes from my blog and what was written for the funeral.) Keo was born in Cambodia in the Khmer Rouge years. As a baby, she didn’t have enough to eat, no medicine, no home, so she was often sick. Her father was taken away by the Khmer Rouge not long after she was born. Through the miracle of her mother’s love, she lived through the terrible Khmer Rouge regime. Her mother, Roeuth and her grandmother, Lon carried her from Cambodia to Thailand. From there, they were sent to Utah, and from there to Dallas. 

Keo and Chouen were married in 1994. At first, she and Chouen lived with her mother and grandmother. Later, she and Chouen lived separately from her mother and grandmother, but still very close. Keo worked in several different jobs and everywhere she went, she made good friends, some of whom are here today. Keo and Chouen traveled to their homeland, Cambodia in 2005. Although there have been hard times in her life, she has lived a good life. She has loved and been loved.
Many people have helped and the family extends their deep gratitude. I want to also say the names of three other people who were long-time friends and with Keo until the end: Suasaday and her husband, Jimmie, and Suasaday’s Mom, Keo Thorn.


I made some notes over the past 6 weeks when Keo was so sick from the cancer. I hope these will speak to the question of who she was and what kind of person she was.

December 2015. Keo began talking… sometimes whispering, sometimes a little stronger. She talked a long time about her life as a poor refugee child – what it was like for her learning a new language and customs, going to school, helping her grandmother take care of neighbor children, struggles in school, and her hopes and dreams. 
Altar set up immediately after she passed away

She graduated from high school and passed the TASS. She went to work in a factory, where, being so young, she was given a hard time by older workers and had to fend off unwanted advances by other workers and supervisors. There were gangs in some of the places she worked and there were many problems.

These were gripping stories. She would start a new one and I would be kind of holding my breath, hoping that she wouldn’t be hurt and every time, she made the right decision. 

She also talked about visions she had – being baptized in the clear water by Jesus; being protected; making the decision to leave the gold behind. She said, “I was born this way.”

January 2016. Three weeks into seeing Keo as life slowly slips away from her body. Three weeks since she first said, “I’m ready to go.” 

I thought about Jesus’ agony in the garden of Gethsemane right before he was crucified. “Remain here… watch with me,” he said to his disciples. They didn’t do it. 

February 2016. Keo continues to waste away. A couple of days ago, I said to her husband, When I first started coming here, I think I was very helpful. Now… I’m seeing something beautiful (and so sad).

  • Something beautiful like with only a couple of exceptions, every time I come in, her husband is sitting or lying on the bed with her, massaging her legs, cradling her, wiping her lips, loving her. Her mother is there, too.
  • Something beautiful like seeing Chouen sitting against some pillows and Keo (she couldn’t weigh more than about 65 pounds now) propped up and leaning into his embrace.
  • Something beautiful like it’s all so clean, no smells, no tv, the altar moved from place to place depending on which way she’s lying (oh, so small now) on the bed… this is sacred space.
  • Something beautiful like love and faithfulness as real and palpable as the walls of this room we’re in right now.
  • Something beautiful like her husband and her mother touching her in ways I know are to memorize the feel of her.
March 2016 – ceremony in living room
She was born in hell – and her mother kept her alive through the Khmer Rouge years and across the border and across America and 39 years later here they both are on this bed in a room overlooking a playground.
————–
Keo passed from this life in March 2015. And in the end, the sum of her life is integrity. A lovely, sweet person, who loved and was loved.
Her husband and her mother were with her, holding her in her last moments – just as they did throughout her illness. 
Matthew 25:23 (the parable of the talents) speaks directly to what Chouen and Roeuth did: “His master said, ‘Well done, good and faithful servants!'” Chouen and Roeuth, In the most difficult times, you never gave up, you never quit, you never faltered. You were the embodiment of love and faithfulness.

Things I love, at the corner, dreaming, something beautiful, the Old Golden Land, I’m on the way, Beanie!

At the corner of Market and Church
Once again, some of the photos will have nothing to do with the text. I was thinking, what photos would I like to look at in a year or five years?
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I love (or like a lot)… babies, puppies, flowers (especially fragrant ones), parents being sweet to their child, pretty women, baking bread, San Francisco… At first I thought I would make an inclusive list, but stopped at what is here. Of course there are people, but I already write about them a lot (Leslie, David, John, Jeff, others). I love each one of you, named here or not.
————–
There was a woman on the cold January downtown corner near First Presbyterian. She had that skinny, jittery look of methamphetamine, complete with gurning around an unlit cigarette hanging out of her mouth. A man walked to the corner. He had tardive dyskinesia with tongue thrusting and grimacing (surely from too much Prolixin or Stelazine or whatever drug). I saw him give the woman a light with all the smoothness of a man in a tuxedo in some kind of old-time upscale night club.
————– 
Sourdough with currants, pecans, cinnamon

Yesterday I was listening to Neil Young singing about a dream his wife had – “It’s a dream, only a dream, and it’s fading now…” and I felt my own meaning to the words and was so so sad to think that maybe all this with Leslie was a dream. Now I think, if it was all a dream, what a dream! 
————–
My friend continues to waste away. A couple of days ago, I said to her husband, When I first started coming here, I think I was very helpful. Now… I’m seeing something beautiful(and so sad).
Something beautiful like with only a couple of exceptions, every time I come in, her husband is lying on the bed with her, massaging her legs, cradling her, wiping her lips, loving her.
Something beautiful like seeing him sitting against some pillows and her (she couldn’t weigh more than about 60 pounds now) propped up and leaning into his embrace.
Something beautiful like it’s all so clean, no smells, no tv, the altar moved from place to place depending on which way she’s lying (oh, so small now) on the bed… this is sacred space.
Something beautiful like love and faithfulness as real and palpable as the walls of this room I’m writing in right now.
Something beautiful like her husband and her mother touching her in ways I know are to memorize the feel of her.
She was born in hell (Cambodia 1975) – and her mother kept her alive through the Khmer Rouge years and across the border and across America and 39 years later here they both are on this bed in a room overlooking a playground.
————–
Speaking of vision quests, I recited/sang this to her yesterday:
Keep on walking where the angel showed
(All will be One, all will be One)
Traveling where the angels trod
Over in the old golden land
In the golden book of the golden game
The golden angel wrote my name
When the deal goes down I’ll put on my crown
Over in the old golden land
I won’t need to kiss you when we’re there
(All will be One, all will be One)
I won’t need to miss you when we’re there
Over in the old golden land
We’ll understand it better in the sweet bye and bye
(All will be One, all will be One)
You won’t need to worry and you won’t have to cry
Over in the old golden land.
(Robin Williamson)
—————-
Sourdough with currants, pecans, cinnamon

After I left their apartment yesterday afternoon, I went on to Baylor emergency for the abdominal pain that’s bothered me for about a week. Trying for a couple of days to decide if I should go. Then I asked myself, what would I say to someone in my situation? It’s a no-brainer: Go. I went. I have acute pancreatitis. Haha, I’m glad I went! Liquid diet for a few days, then small, low fat meals, no alcohol (no prob – I quit that 40+ years ago), those kinds of things. Way better than cancer of the pancreas!
Actually, I didn’t completely give alcohol up. A few years ago walking along a street in Saigon, Leslie saw a sign saying, Beer – 10,000 dong (about $.50). Let’s go in, she said. From then on, that became an evening ritual for us… in Saigon, Hanoi, Hue, Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Hong Kong, San Francisco, Dallas. Good times. 
Lying in the room, waiting for sonogram results, thinking, it was just a day ago that I was thinking about pancreatic cancer. And that now there is some chance I may have it (and relief that I didn’t). Sometimes Leslie and I would call one another Beanie or Cecil. Lying in the ED room, looking into the distance, looking toward the Old Golden Land, and I’m smiling and thinking, “I’m on the way, Beanie!”
In the garden

I may be a one-woman man.
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“I’ll try to be around and about. But if I’m not, then you know that I’m behind your eyelids, and I’ll meet you there.” 
(Terence McKenna)