Dearest Fellow Grievers,
Celebrating Thanksgiving ushers in the most difficult time of the year for me.
On December 9th it will be 4 years since I lost my partner to AIDS, and the grief at times is stilll overwhelming.
There isn't a single day that goes by that I don't think about and miss Ron.
As a gay man who has lived in both NYC and San Fran, I have lost numerous acquaintances to this killer disease. However, I never dreamed that God would ask me to walk my partner and the best friend I've ever had down that road, but God did and that journey is now part of the cross I pick up daily when I attempt to deny myself and follow Christ.
I recently rejoined Beliefnet after a long absence and I thought that this year I would share my sorrow, loss, despair, disbelief, shock and abiding love and hope publicly as a memorial to Ron.
Ron Tibbitts was a quadruple Cancer for those of you who know anything about astrology. He was the kindest, most honest, loving, nurturing, caring, "give you the shirt off his back" man I've ever known. No one has ever loved me the way Ron did and no one will ever replace him. No one.
On December 6th, I will order the traditional bouquet of white "memorial" lilies that I get every year in his memory, which I place in a clear glass vase next to his urn, which sits on a shelf in a bookcase in my bedroom. He is with me always and goes wherever I go. I was very fortunate that his brother and sister allowed me to have a portion of his ashes.
What are some of the things I remember most vividly about Ron?
I remember our last Halloween when he was too ill to help me pass out candy, but despite being nearly blind at that point, he still carved a jack o' lantern.
I remember our last Thanksgiving when he was too ill to even leave his bed and have a morsel to eat. He slept all day and I remember standing in the kitchen alone with a piece of pumpkin pie and really realizing and admitting to myself that my dear friend and partner was upstairs in his room dying.
I remember the morning I passed by his bedroom door, which was open, and seeing him lying on his bed with his legs over the edge, his head turned toward me and his almost sightless eyes staring in my direction. He couldn't move or speak.
I remember saying to him at that moment, "Ron, I know you don't want to go to the hospital, but I'm calling 911 because I have to do what I have to do to save your life." Even in that moment as I dialed the EMTs and heard the ambulance siren in the distance, I believed that it wasn't too late, that there was still hope that he could be saved.
He spent three days in the ICU and was then transferred to a private room. And I remember the day his doctor called me and said he had less than a month to live. I was so numb I was unable to go to the hospital until he was out of the ICU and I ache now to think that I was unable to show up for him at that point, that I left him alone.
I remember helping him make an "X" instead of his signature on the application for Medicaid because he couldn't see or hold a pen.
I remember the last day he was lucid and will never forget the day that he slipped into permanent sleep and no longer ate or spoke.
I also remember whispering in his ear that I would get him out of that "nasty, old hospital" no matter what it took. Ron had a terrible fear of dying in the hospital and of hospitals in general.
I remember one of the hospice nurses calling me and telling me that if I wanted him home, it had better be that very day.
Before his arrival, a hospital bed was delivered and several large oxygen tanks. I quickly made the bed up with his favorite sheets and soon the ambulance was in the driveway and Ron was being wheeled in a gurney (he could no longer walk he had "wasted" so much) down our front hallway.
As the EMTs wheeled the gurney past me, Ron suddenly opened his eyes and turned to me and I bent down close enough to his face that he could perhaps see just the shadow of my face and I said, "Welcome home." Almost as soon as I'd said those words, he closed his eyes and turned his head away from me again. It was the last time we ever saw each other. He never awoke or opened his eyes again.
I remember one of the hospice nurses telling me in the privacy of the dining room (Ron's bed had been set up in the family room) that he would probably die that evening or the next day. I had hired a care giver to come in at night and stay with him while I caught a few hours of sleep.
I remember the last words I whispered in his ear. They were, "Honey, I'm going up to bed for a few hours, but I'll be down again soon."
I remember awakening shortly before 4 a.m. and hearing the care giver standing at the bottom of the stairs say, "I think he's gone."
I remember running down the stairs and looking at him and saying, "Honey, did you slip away?" There was no pulse and I reluctanctly turned off the oxygen machines and then I removed the silver crucifix I'd given him several years before from around his neck and putting it around my neck. I have worn it daily since then.
I remember...I remember...I remember it all. The experience changed me for life.
I remember sobbing on the phone with a hospice nurse trying to explain to her that no one had prepared me for what it would feel like afterward, like I'd been sucker punched every single day.
I remember lying in our bed alone and sobbing and crying out to the walls, "Where are you? Where are you? I just want to know where you are and that you're okay."
I remember the following Spring, maybe 4 or 5 months after Ron passed away looking out the picture window that gave onto our back yard and being startled beyond words. There, behind a huge shrub, was a beautiful Easter lily in full bloom with three blossoms on it.
I recalled the day the Easter before when the plant was really quite lifeless and Ron took it out to the back yard and planted it. I snickered, like Sarah behind the door of the tent when the angels told Abraham that she would bear a son, and then just as suddenly my thoughts turned to one of my favorite Gospel verses: "I believe; help thou my unbelief!"
The Easter lily was the sign I needed to know that Ron was at peace and okay. I believe that he sent it to me because it never bloomed or grew again. It was just for that one time when I was still in utter devastation and so alone.
I don't think that the grief one feels when losing someone close, especially a partner or spouse, in an untimely way is a grief that one ever "gets over". One just becomes more and more used to that person not being physically present.
A dear friend said to me not long after Ron died, "What is remembered lives."
I will never forget those words.
I will always remember.
I love you, dear. Rest in eternal peace and perpetual light.
