just wanted to tell my story and hear yours

[maggiesmommy GayLee]

thanks lynn...its a good way to get to know pwople...just bare your soul....
Gay

[starboardlight]

your post really moved me. I don't think I can offer any more insight than what's already been posted. I just wanted you to know that your words really connected. the love that you have for your friend came through so palpably. you're both lucky that you crossed paths and came into each other's lives.

[Aussie Chris]

Hi Maggie, sorry for your loss.  What an amazing gift J left with you that you see and feel his presence when you close your eyes.  And what a gift that you give yourself that you feel that love and can share it with the world.  We are all blessed and fortunate for the existance of J, and the part he has played in bringing you to us.  Thank you for being you, and for sharing this touching story.

[maggiesmommy GayLee]

you all make me cry...i am the blessed one to have found you...not many people in this world even care to connect like that..their hatred and fears keep them from having any real joy...J freed me completely...and you are right...i hold him in my heart..and i can see him and hear him sometimes..his sister (my daughter in law) and I talk about him and remiisce...she and her family will be taking J's ashes to Key West this summer, and unlike Jack, he will get to be in the place he loved most, forever...
thank you for accepting me in and understanding,that that is the greatest gift of all...not sure if you realizze it, but there is reverse prejudice out there....you really have to win the trust and hearts of the Gay community...of course, this is only natural, seeing the things they have to suffer, but it makes me feel so good to be accepted and be understood to have no prejudice whatsoever and i don't....i really really don't , not since J and BBM...thank all of you, whatever your preference, for accepting me with all my faluts and flaws, into your "family"....
Gay

[kirkmusic]

The great thing is, Maggie, you really do get it now.  That is so beautiful, having come from where you did.

I lost my Dad to Viet Nam before we ever met.  According to Mom he was a great guy but might have been sort of like Ennis' dad when it came to gay people.  He was 20 when he died so he might have grown out of it.  Who knows?  At my most spiritually connected I believe that everything works out for the greater good of all concerned.  So maybe Dad was around long enough to give me life and then checked out so that, in death, he could be the father to me that he couldn't be in life.  (Whoa.  Had to stop for a brief crying fit there.  Didn't know that was still so strong.)

On another thread I talked about how, on the way to the costume shop at work to put a button back on a pair of pants that had been missing one for several months, a button had miraculously been sewn on while the pants were sitting in my backpack.  I get visitations like that sometimes.  What I didn't say was that, stylistically, that button had no business being on those pants.  That button looked like it had been put there by a young straight guy from the sixties.  If it hadn't been my Dad I don't think the message would have been so specific.  This happened the day before my first solo cabaret show.

My point is, J's with you.  He really is.  Whether or not he ever let's you know in such concrete terms.  After a profound friendship in life, he brought you to the movie which brought you here.  Heck, maybe he even brought you to my attention so I could tell you all of this.  I'd like to thank both of you for sharing your story, first with each other and then with us.  It gives me such a sense of faith to know that when people of true compassion are brought face to face with a reality that contradicts a rigid set of beliefs, that the beliefs will fall before human decency does.  You're an inspiration, love.

Kirk

[maggiesmommy GayLee]

Thank you so much. For seeing and acknowledging my total transformation. I struggle trying to tell people about this life change. Not many on the ouside see what i am trying to say and the magnitude of it. J ,,what a special person, and yes, even in death he is teaching me so many lessons about love, forgiveness and acceptance.  I learned that its ME that needs the accpeptance..not the other way around. He has brought me here, to finish and finalize the process...refine it, so to speak. And although i cant see him, I can feel him everytime I watch BBM...I would just LOVE to be able to talk with him about it...My dgrt in law and I had a long talk about it when she was here on Saturday..i was surprised to find out that she had not seen BBM...she said she was afraid to watch it, that all the feelings about J were too raw..I told her about the impact the movie had on me and so many others and she was surprised..she is so used to the mainstream response that all of this just shocked her...i told her about these boards and the people i have met here and she was really moved...i told her that i have the CD, so when she is ready we will watch it together. She cried and hugged me and i think we will be seeing it together soon...She said she could really see the change that the movie made in me..even moe that i was changing on my own..we both agreed that we wish J was there so we could talk to him...when she asked if I "liked" the movie..i told her she had NO idea how much more it was than just a movie...   

Death , curious as it may seem, is not the end. I know this, but that is all i know. I want so badly to believe that we really do go to a place of peace and love. I have a very hart time any more believing all the things i was taught, because that belief system has been so totally damaged of late, but I know there is something there..that we are still surrounded by the ones we love even though they are not right here to see and touch.  I so feel you pain about your dad.  I believe he would have accepted you and loved you.  I believe your "encounters" are him telling you just that..you are very fortunate to have the insight to recognize his attempts to "speak" to you.

Thank you for sharing your story with me..I will be more aware and open to seeing J's attempts to reach out to me...even in the little details of everyday life...

And thank you for seeing that i really DO get it, and that it is not just lip service....i have to look for ways to use this new found understanding and mind set, and every chance I get I tell people about it...you, know, you can only try to change the world one person at a time, and that is my mission for as long as i have breath...

Love
GayLee

[TJ]

maggiesmommy,

Thanks for sharing your story about your relationship with "J." I see that he became a member of your family of choice; although you were not actually related.

You mentioned his problem with substance abuse. I have known some people, not just gays, whose problems with substance abuse, drugs and alcohol, were actually related to a spiritual conflict in their lives. And, the spiritual conflict did come from being abused, directly or indirectly, by those who were supposed to be "Christians."

The use of drugs and/or alcohol eased the guilt trip that had been heaped upon them because of their being different or not being able to live up to the standards their families or their famliies' churches wanted them to live by.

Since my parents raised me to believe that just because a person said something was a sin and one should feel guilty if he did that sin, that did not actually make it a sin, especially if it was not in the Bible in the first place.

I can understand how you feel the presence of "J" at times. I just say that the loving spirit that a person had for his family and friends  before he died just stays behind with those whom he loved.

On occasion, I want to look over my right shoulder and say, "Yes, Ed, I see what you were talking about" when something reminds me of what he said. At the club, I usually stood directly in front of him with his left boot toe between the heels of my boots, so that we could talk and understand each other because of the loud music. In my memory of dreams, I can only remember one dream with him in it; but, I don't remember the details. I have a Westminster Chime wall clock which he paid for but we considered a joint purchase. It does not chime just like it used to, it's one of those battery wound clocks; but, sometimes the pendulum swings more than others or it does not swing at all. I don't understand that at all; it does still keep accurate time.

[maggiesmommy GayLee]

there is just SO much we don't know. I truly beileve we use a very small percantage of the gifts we are given in realtion to understanding all the layers of this life...
can you tell me more about Ed...i'd really like to hear about him...
gay

[TJ]

I have little bits and pieces about Ed in many discussion threads here on BetterMost.

If you know what Dennis Weaver, the actor, looked like, Eldred "Ed" Pursell looked a whole lot like him. Ed had no middle name and when he was growing up in SE Missouri as a teen, asked people to call him "Ed" instead of Ed. When I told him the Gregory Peck's legal first name was also "Eldred," he liked that.

Ed had been born in Alabama and after he grew up in Missouri, he married a woman who had a son and a daughter. They had known each other while they were growing up and he loved her as a friend; but, he should never have married a woman. One time, I met a gay guy here in Tulsa, while I was still living with Ed in N. Hollywood, and he said he also grew up in the same community as Ed but he was a whole lot younger than Ed. That guy said he had gotten married because in that area, it was just expected that a young man would get married, which he also did.

Ed did have a son and two daughters who were his biologically; but, his wife got pregnant by another man when they were separated one time. Ed's name was put on the birth certificate as the father. But, Ed loved all of his children and her children, too. Linda, the stepdaughter who was the eldest, told me that Ed was the only father she knew and no one could have been a better father than he was. She got married at 17 and apparently that was at about the time Ed got a divorce.

After Ed got a divorce, he moved to stay with one of his older sisters in N. California in 1967. That was about the same time I went to Vietnam, same year anyway. He was there for a while before he moved to Hollywood.

[maggiesmommy GayLee]

He sounds really special...and i think Dennis Weaver just go thotter an dhotter as he got older..!!!  And Ed is form the modwest!! a soul brother...
i know you miss him...was he ill?