On the Money

If you were at a Nepalese restaurant in Golden last night and wondering if the couple in the parking lot was drunk, rest assured that the kids got home safe. We weren't hammered, only laughing like we'd eaten a bag of weed. Somehow it came up one of my more humorous language mix ups in Mexico.

It was in 2005. We were with my mom on what would be her last big hoorah. We didn't know that, but after some terrifying mishaps we did find out that she had gone blind. So by the end of the vacation I was a little hyper about the caregiver thing.

When you don't know someone is blind, you panic much less than when you do. That's from a purportedly sighted perspective, but as compared to our leisurely vacation mode to the resort, our exit was a might more energetic. I wanted to make sure we left the country quickly, and with my mother. That sounds like an easy chore. But in her hard-headed will to do things on her own, my mom had walked straight out of our room and into a hot tub. And I don't mean a graceful entrance, one for which my mother had always been known, but in not being able to see she dropped right into the water feature. We were horrified, but still probably less than the family of Scots using it. They were unnecessarily apologetic, and showed doubts about returning the scraped and bruised lady to her half-naked, hungover and sol-fried son.

From then on I was vigilant. And with vigilance comes bravado, which is brainless forward motion disguised as confidence, aka "Manboob Momentum" for the forward-leaning assuredness typical of its middle-aged male possessors.

There are times when I know I'm wrong. Someone will correct me and I have to go sheepishly back from where I came. But there are also times when I'm so high on, I don't know, certainty I guess, that I'm beyond asking questions and all about throwing forth.

This was the case in our packing up and getting out of the resort. I would confuse the Spanish word for "suitcase". So instead of telling the bellhops, the front desk, the bus driver and all the help in between that I had three suitcases, I shared with everybody that I had three wallets. Here the Mexican populace is weary of Americans throwing their money around, and I'm shouting about my multiple billfolds.
This probably wasn't all that good for security, as a guy who has that many wallets could use to lose a couple. We got out of the country fine, but there's this picture in my head of the bewildered resort staff listening to the cocksure American. I was so proud of my sentence: "Yo tengo tres carteras!" Not only was I telling them that I had three wallets, but that they were in my room and I wanted someone to get them.

Who wouldn't rob that guy?

Somehow that incident came up in our dinner conversation and Sarah was laughing so hard that she told everybody she was going to pee her pants. The kids weren't into it. Quin asked if we were okay, as I guess it sounded like I'd hurt myself. And I nearly did in that gut-grabbing hilarity that has you both wanting it to stop and for it to never end.

But it gets even better. Even if I had three wallets I wouldn't have much to put in them because I come from a long line of people who don't like money. Well, I love cash, but I must say I don't in the same way a lonely guy says he's voluntarily celibate. It's not that I'm completely broke, but my wife must pain wondering in how much comfort we'd live if I didn't do everything for free.

So you can imagine Sarah's joy when her eldest son expressed interest in cash. We had to leave the restaurant and go to a grocery store to get money for a tip (they had a debit card issue). While I was in there buying 99-cent seedless grapes for cash back, Sarah explained to Quin what I was doing. Quin replied, "I like cash."

Sarah perked up and used the moment to foment a little fire about the advantages of money. She went on to say that a lot of people like cash, and cash is used for many things. Quin agreed and Sarah finished with something confirmatory about cash being good.
Quin paused and then asked, "Is cash a fruit?"

I felt some wind as I exited the store, and I believe that was Sarah's deflation. Looks like she'll be working for a long time. But if it's any consolation I've done a lot of jobs where people paid me in produce.

On the way home there was more laughter. Our carteras absolutely full of it.

Gallons and gallons of adult drinks and I still remember this

I got away with one. Quin likes watching ET, but Sarah doesn't want him seeing the traumatic parts. Well I got lazy and let the movie roll right on through and Quin saw all the drama. How did I end up winning? What did seeing his favorite Extra Terrestrial dried up and near dead in a ravine do to Quin?

Quin told me: "ET drank an adult drink and he got sick and doctors had to help him."

This is such a win/win that it's hard to explain all the benefits. First, Quin saw ET drink the Coors out of the fridge, and now he equates that do ending up sick in a ditch. Second, the scary part with the scientists bursting into Elliot's home has been turned into a benign house call. And thirdly, he'll never drink Coors.

Oh, and there's the part about his daddy ending up near dead in a ditch and daddy worried as all heck that his surviving only means there's payback in the kids.

But there's a lot of depth here, stuff that goes back to Sarah and my childhood.

Sarah is big on protecting the boys from nasty stuff on TV. I'm with her, but not as vigilant. And these days, with every football game showing up with a four-hour erection and a bloodlust for violent gaming, it's good to be on the remote control. My only hesitation comes with the fact that growing up without a TV made me, well, soft. I see even a preview for the latest creepy movie about possessed children and I'm lying awake certain she's going to grab my foot.

This is a cause and effect that has come with plenty of life research. I don't think Sarah was able to watch a lot of bad TV--her parents didn't even get cable until all the kids were gone--but she grew up in Baltimore. On the other hand, I had to drive three hours to see a homeless guy vomiting. I woke up to the crisp silence of cold mountain mornings, and went to bed with layers and layers of stars twinkling me to sleep. Until I saw Poltergeist and would hide under my covers wondering when a tree was going to burst through the window and eat me.

I kid you not, after seeing Poltergeist I didn't sleep for a week. My belief is that a world without horrific images left me pretty sensitive to even the meekest of scary fare. I'm sticking to this because it's the only reason I have for sleeping with my friends parents during his birthday slumber party.

It was 1985. As part of the evening's festivities we watched Friday the 13th part 1 and part 2. I was mortified. My heart raced with every chase, every machete hacking and pretty much throughout the entire thing. After the second movie was over all the other kids drifted off to sleep like they'd just seen Yentl. That left me alone with my imagination in a wide open living room lit only by an aquarium. I did an elbow crawl over to the wall and slid the curtains closed with my toes. For the rest of the night I stared at the window wondering if there was anything looking back. Well, for the rest of night up until I sprinted to his parent's bedroom and asked to sleep with them. They were caught off guard, but my overall desperation convinced them it was serious. My friend's dad went and found some other place to retire, and I unwittingly chiseled my name in Walden Elementary lore by sleeping with my friend's mother.

And by "sleeping with" I mean crying and needing to be held. It was not an easy time to be me.

So I'm just a little scared for my boys. I want them to be a little tougher. I want them to be seasoned just enough to know that the psycho killer in the hockey mask is just a desperate actor who needed a gig. And if either of them ever need to share a bed with their friend's mom, it's because she needs the comfort.

The old and the weak are the first to go

Otto never wants to be left out. Last night at McDonalds that obsession turned tricky when he followed his brother into the Playplace. He freaked out and I had to Shawshank my way around the hamster tubes to get him. I was a sweaty claustrophobic mess and Otto was pert near apoplectic by the time we crawled through years of accumulated kid germs to get out. At any moment I could die, or I may have been inoculated for several major pediatric diseases.

It's amazing how kids survive. There's a whole world of danger out there and that's just with their parents. Everyday after dropping the kids off at daycare I burst out of the double doors so happy to have escaped the chaos. And then I think, "But I left my kids in there?" Whatever, I'll go back in eight hours when they're tired. Not so. Never tired. And they pick up everything so you're always having to learn something new; some new way to communicate, to distract or discuss the potential for i-c-e c-r-e-a-m. Why for the love do we feed them DHA and teach them our alphabet? Why do we want them to be so smart?

This morning from down the hall Sarah could hear Quin and I bickering in the living room. Quin insisted it was an Allosaurus. I said the large carnivorous dinosaur tearing away rotting flesh from a deceased Pentaceratops was a T-rex. Tangling with Quin is a dangerous prospect. He's hard-headed like the Wannanosaurus, or even his bigger cousin Gravitholus.

Sarah joined us to see what we were watching and to provide a third party opinion. I was right, but I only know the difference between the Lion of the Jurassic and the King of the Cretaceous because we've watched the BBC series Walking With Dinosaurs everyday for the past year.

It is a little violent, and I think it's done Quin a disservice to his sensitivity, or lack thereof. We were watching football with friends and a Denver Bronco ended up injured on the field. Our neighbor asked what had happened to the player and Quin casually replied, "He's dead." He shrugged and walked out of the room. No doubt an Allosaurus would come along to clean up the remains. (Can you think of a better end to the season?)

Typically we'd never show them the raw reptile violence, but it's free on Netflix. The upside is that our children are learning English from Kenneth Branaugh. They'll be a little dramatic but extraordinary articulate.

Teacher: "Quin, you raised your hand?"

Quin: "Indeed I beckon you. For it has been millions of years, nay, millions of centuries, and evolution's blood-strewn battlefield bore the fittest, bequeathing unto us the strongest, spawning yet more strength, begetting the descendants of our collective past, and bearing forth the progeny of the present, which is where I sit, and needing to pee."

What I hope to do is market a whole series of documentaries with Sarah narrating them. In Walking with Dinosaurs Branaugh will narrate a horrific scene: "And the Gallimimus comes to a bloody end. It's offspring left to fend for themselves, an unlikely prospect in the terrifying world of the Cretaceous."

With the unfortunate dinosaur headless and bleeding from a run-in with a Velociraptor, Sarah goes to work protecting her own young. "Oh, that dinosaur is tired and wants to lie down. I bet the bigger dinosaur will say he's sorry. I bet he's really nice and they're just playing."

Quin knows all seven installments of the series pretty well and roots for the underdog to swim/run/fly/crawl to safety. It happens a lot, but beware of the "Cruel Sea" episode where the big-eyed fish trying to birth gets bitten in half by the "largest carnivorous jaws the world has ever known." As cute as morbid can be, Quin says, "ooooh, no!" as the severed tail floats to the ocean floor.

Sarah: "Oh boy, that owie is going to need a band aid. Have you seen your daddy juggle?"

Daddy: "What?"

One more thing to learn.

For those who live by the janky setup http://tinyurl.com/284ggto

They are, after all, here to replace us

I sat down with Quin the other night and told him, "You're a great guy, and I love you, but you're making me want to check myself into prison."

We were told by many parents that the 'Terrible Twos" thing was overrated. It was three that was lurking to destroy us.

About 90 percent of the day Quin is a very good kid. It's that other ten percent where you're wondering what's so wrong about kennel training. Just a little cage where they can be safe, yet wrapped in soundproofing and somewhere under the house. People say he's "pushing boundaries." If he needs more room the Alaskan Wilderness is very big.

I try to ignore most of the outbursts, but our reaction ranges from wanting to toss the child out the window, to laughing. It's hard not to burst into giggles when this little human you've let into your home insists that he doesn't need help, and then loses his mind when you don't help him. Or maybe it's vice versa. I don't know, it's so insane that if an animal acted that way you'd have it put down.

Tonight Quin refused to eat, and then threw and broke a dinner plate. I grabbed he and his chair and set him at the end of a dark hall. Sarah was certain I was going to shotput the whole package. And, to be honest, I wasn't quiet conscious until I found myself with nowhere to go holding a child on a dining room chair.

I'm not experienced enough to be doling out advice, but I'm pretty sure you shouldn't kill a child. Aside from that, I have two rules I try to stick to: say as little as possible and don't give them options. I'm always breaking my own rules and kicking myself as each self-inflicted infraction spirals the tantrum into something from Silence of the Lambs.

Limiting the verbiage is huge. When Q loses his nut, I just walk away and avoid him. Or I try, but often I get this inkling that it could be a learning moment, and that talking over the screams of a little person wearing nothing but Spiderman shoes is going to make an impression. It never does, and I always lose.

Choices. Screw them. Kids should not have them. Don't ask them what they want for lunch or what they want to wear or if they'd like to breathe. They love an opportunity to say "NO" and shove that parental authority up the chimney. But, of course, I get giddy thinking that I'm giving my child a chance to exercise his cognition. He does--not to make an educated decision about PBJ over roast beef, but to become one of the seven princes of Hell.

What really scares me is that right now he doesn't know how to storm out of the house and steal the car. I mean sometimes I feel so helpless that I want to fake a heart attack. What happens when they're big and pulling the same tricks? No, really, what happens?

And one other question: Is a Toddler Taser a bad idea?

Growing up I wasn't the bad kid, at least as far as my parents knew. My brother paved the road to poor decisions and back. I learned from his mistakes and found how to conduct most of my badness without inconveniencing the family with knowledge of it. Over Quin's yelling I've been able to shout at Otto, "Learn from this buddy and your life will be a breeze." I haven't made any mention about running carefree through school before starving on a meager diet of charm and deception on the cold climb up the insurmountable mountain of opportunity. But, you know, fewer words.

The thing is that after smashing an heirloom and igniting their father, both the boys bounce back pretty well. Although it's hard to take their hugs and "I love you daddies" seriously when it's clear they're preying on your weakness. Tonight, after his mother coaxed him from his dark exile, Quin came out to the kitchen and apologized. That's when you can't help but hug the bejesus out of them...while trying to squeeze in some important tips on saving everybody's sanity. "Quin, you know that eating two more bites is a lot easier and faster than twenty minutes of screaming?"

Of course he does. That's why he does it.

Decision Day 2002

Eight years ago tonight, on what was also an election's eve, I was sitting on the floor in a worker's union building. I can't remember which union it was, but they'd lent their space to the 2002 Democratic Coordinated Campaign.

There were many reasons why I was on the floor. I hadn't slept in two days. I was working three jobs. My wife and I had quit our careers, gotten married, moved to a different city and bought a house. That all took place in a month.

And our guy for US Senate was down in the polls. He's what they call in the biz "a good candidate". He is tall, handsome in an 80s Magnum PI sort of way, and he belongs to a major law firm. But the week prior he'd talked himself into a hole on national TV. I remember watching and believing he could pull it off, but every word fell deeper into a well of confusion. He was stuck trying to explain the three legs of America's financial stability. He'd gotten out two, but struggled deciphering the third. With is hands he gestured what looked to be the shape of a a leg, maybe one that belonged to a short stool. Accompanying the pantomime was a smattering of words, none of them really wanting to be together. It was hard to watch.

A few days later I would be talking to voters and one guy would say, "You've got balls. Didn't you see him on Meet the Press?" I tried to focus on the compliment part of it.

It was tough. Aside from the 80-hour-a-week campaign, I was writing radio copy for four stations and deejaying weekend evenings for another. My working hours sometimes reached into the 110/120 range. My new wife spent a lot of evenings at home, alone, and revisiting that "or worse" part of the wedding conversation.

But I wasn't sitting on the floor because of any of that. I was on the floor because I could no longer physically stand. Trust me, it would have been the best time in my life to be drunk, but I didn't have time for it. I was high on something else, if you can call it that. What I didn't know was that I was being killed by carbon monoxide.

You always hear how people go to sleep and just slip into their death. They have a headache but it's been a stressful day so they do what anyone would want to do: They crash. I had the benefit of being a "Volunteer Coordinator" for hundreds of people who in a few hours were going to fill the very hall in which I sat alone. This meant there was no sleeping until all the preparations were done. Dying couldn't get in the way.

And let me just say this about working for a campaign. It starts as just a job, or as something you'll just dabble in a bit. But soon you've forsaken sex and food for knocking on a stranger's door. You start to believe the rhetoric and, despite two hundred-plus years proving the opposite, believe that one person can feed the poor and make your nipples shoot rainbows. You really have no choice: if for one second you doubt the momentum, you'll fall off the treadmill and get trampled by five hundred people with Blackberries. Every third day or so, just when you think you can't tolerate another drop of coffee, someone you barely know tells you if you stick it out there will "be a spot on his staff." Rarely is that positive, but in politics staff spots are offered in lieu of money, and reality. Because he has to elected first, and that's why you must work harder. And you're off again, swilling caffeine and surrounded by doers and shakers and suspicious, fat men who buy you beers and swear one day you'll go somewhere. Plus there's media involved, and a spitting, blowing maelstrom of rumors and mud. When you're in the middle, in the huddle of camaraderie and like-minded hugs, you don't want to get out. So on some Saturday, when a boatload of hot, wealthy yoga moms are taking three hours to help you litter the town with your candidate's picture, and you're the frontman for a bevy of beautiful college kids all fresh faced and ready to devour your carcass, you soldier on.

On this day, my college kids weren't so hungry anymore. Three young women and a guy helped stuff fliers into bags and call potential voters. We were a good team until I found two of the three females lying on the floor.

"What's the matter?" I growled, trying to make my disappointment sound more like friendly sarcasm.

They had headaches. They were dizzy.

I told them to eat something and drink some water. They said they had. I was going to implore my cohort, the third woman, to motivate her friends, until I found her slumped over a desk.

"Sick?" I delivered the icy tone.

She nodded and got up. She and her friends were going to go home. I couldn't believe it. After they walked out I turned and rolled my eyes at Brian, the other guy. He tried to match my incredulity, but was busy crying.

To be fair, he wasn't Steel Magnolias weeping, but his eyes were watery and red. He worked a little bit longer, but things weren't going his way. He'd roll up an informational piece and, while reaching for a rubber band, it would unroll. Then he'd drop the rubber band while trying to roll up the sheet again. Finally he walked up to me. He kept walking until all the personal space was gone. A few inches from my face he blinked some tears and talked in slow motion about needing to leave.

I kind of took on a martyr role. I told him it was fine. I'd manage to get everything done. I stormed around the office, drinking bottle after bottle of water. I'm usually a thirsty guy, but now I was going to wash away my pain. And then, at some point, I sat down and started thinking about everybody going home. The two girls who were sick first were petite. And the third was just as thin. Brian was bigger, but at least eighty pounds lighter than me. I wondered if we all had the same thing, but because I was the thickest of the group, it was taking me longer to succumb. And then I crawled outside.

In kind of a plain rainbow, the bright florescent of the union hall streaked into the dim yellow of the street. I would have a hard time dialing 911. I got to my knees and took a deep breath of outside air. I closed one eye, and focused on the numbers. I wobbled. If I were to die, my final act would be drunk dialing emergency services.

Other than growing up in a wood-heated home where breathing smoke at least meant you were warm, I had never had any experience with carbon monoxide poisoning. It wasn't until the firefighters hoisted me into the truck that I realized how lucky I was to be alive. It helped that one of them actually said, "You're lucky to be alive."

One of the guys walked around the room with a CO2 detector. It beeped rapidly and he agreed. It was off the charts. I spent the rest of the early morning leading an ambulance around to find the other four. Turns out they all were OK, but Brian and I had to spend a few hours in the hospital for oxygenating.

One of the firefighters said that the building's exhaust had been blocked with a mound of old clothes. It was intentional, but I never heard any followup as to an investigation. I did however recall our candidate baffling Tim Russert by trying to finger draw furniture in the air, and I wondered if someone had done it to his house, too.

That night, at the big election party, I got a little recognition. It was Tuesday and I hadn't slept since Sunday. My wife was getting to spend some quality time with a sleepless prick at a depressing event for a losing candidate. On his way to his concession speech, the candidate stopped and pointed at me. He leaned into me and shouted against the noise, "I lost but you're still alive."

I'm pretty sure it wasn't spite. Like "oh god, not both!" I didn't want to ask him to try and explain. It was simple, it was true and it was as right as any politician had ever been.

I don't have anything purple, but i have this.

I picked at the grass like if I tortured it enough it might give me an answer. I picked at it hoping and waiting for an earthquake or massive sinkhole to swallow me up. It was only a matter of moments before I'd have to cave and tell the handsome, middle-aged couple from Colorado Springs that their son was gay.

Their son wasn't there. He had hung himself from my bunk bed. But three days before, he was alive and cracking jokes. He was funny, he was smart and he was carrying a burden so heavy it would eventually suffocate him.

Michael was everything a parent would want. He was a great student, he was neat and he was handsome. In a world that's far, far away from ours, being a homosexual would not be a disclaimer to that list.

It was 1993 and gay was everywhere. Gay was new to me. In my little hometown no one was gay in kind of the same way Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says no one in Iran is gay. There was denial, but perhaps like someone who doesn't want to come out of the closet in a conservative Muslim country, small town America doesn't exactly roll out the purple welcome mat. But I shouldn't blame small towns or even my town. In 1993 gay was everywhere because of big city politics.

It's ironic. Gay was everywhere not because homosexuals wanted to be, but because a group of self-declared non-gay folks in Colorado Springs forced it there. They put an amendment on the fall '92 ballot that was struck down by the Supreme Court as infringing on the rights of gays and lesbians.

For me this was all new. I was so clueless that the first woman I ever hit on at college was the president of the Gay and Lesbian Bisexual and Transgendered Alliance. She would say "no", and I reeled from the rejection until she presented to the class her role with the GLBTA.

So I wasn't at all presuming anything when I walked into my dorm room, and sitting on a well-made bed with matching pinstripe comforter, sheets and pillows was my new roommate. He'd organized his desk. It was simple and clean with a designer lamp, calculator and notepad. He hopped up, and in a button-up shirt and tie introduced himself. He also apologized for moving to my desk all the dirty clothes and empty beverage containers I'd left on his.

It was going to be a tough adjustment for me, because prior to school I'd had my own room for the three weeks of football camp. I'd gotten accustomed to my mess.

Michael and I were the prototypical freshman dorm dwellers. We started out as friends and ended with a bitter falling out. There was something about his stereo. It was broken and he blamed me. I was mad about him borrowing my car. He became messier than I was. I was loud when I was drunk. Those things add up and in a space the size of a handicapped bathroom stall. The fumes build and all it takes is one little spark. I can't remember the final straw, but I left a week before school ended. I'd found an apartment and was in the process of moving when I got the call.

A friend of Michael's walked into his room and found him. She was not supposed to go into his room that morning. He'd called the night before and asked that I pick him up so he could take me out for breakfast and we could fix our problems. I was on my way to my car when I noticed the apartment complex payphone ringing. For the heck of it I picked it up. It was a mutual friend desperately trying to find me.

Someone had seen Michael the night before. She said he seemed very comfortable. He was stoned, maybe tripping on acid, she thought. He commented on the stars and how pretty they were. She was out walking her dog and was taken by how calm he was, in bare feet, standing on the lawn outside the dorms. It seemed he had made up his mind, written his letters and made peace with his decision. He was going to die.

Under the same stars where we all live. On this same bit of dust floating through the universe. It's seems that we are insignificant, but in this small space, we are not. To each other we are the world. We are the meat between the morning and the night. We are the lovers past dusk and the comfort before dawn. We are the scaffold on which we all try to climb and the helping hand that can help us get there. We are all we've got. For a moment, imagine a world without heaven or hell. Without Harry Potter or magic or a fifth dimension of gentle, glowing ease. We can only be certain of what we can do for each other.

You can add a god if you want. But time still passes. And on a day in late April of 1993, I walked across campus in a daze. Kids were looking at me, talking. I was the roommate of the kid who had killed himself. Some of the less tactful asked if it were true that I got an automatic 4.0. I didn't.

In the distance there was a tree on a hill. It stood still as college kids walked past it. They would keep on walking, through school, internships, their trip to Europe and into their adult lives. The tree would loom in the background--perspective for perpetual motion. I got a chill knowing that I would one day leave campus and move onto other things, but Michael would not.

Screwed down to a microscopic focus so tight you've cracked the lens, there I was on the back lawn of a stranger's home. A friend of the family offered their Durango house for an informal celebration of life. Everyone was inside hugging and sharing the pleasant smiles and laughter that perforate the darkness of death. Michael's parents arrived from Colorado Springs and requested I join them in private. They wanted to know why.

They sat together. They were imposing and beautiful in the sun by the aspen trees. Middle aged but well kept, he had a full head of dignified silver, and she was gray, but put together like a Lego person. Sharp angles and sleek.

"Yes. Why?" she repeated. "We want to know anything you know about what Michael was thinking."

She looked at me, piercing. He joined her. They looked like they were posing for a political piece.

"We don't have our son, Jared," he filled. "All we have left are questions."

I looked down between my Indian-style lap and picked at the grass some more. I couldn't dig fast enough.

I like to be quick with answers but this was, apparently, an answer in lieu of their living son. I thought about the truth, or at least what I knew of it. I figured they should know it.

When "homosexual" rolled out of my mouth it didn't feel like word. It felt like a sea cucumber or mound of mud. I didn't know if I'd said it correctly. I repeated it louder and simpler: "He was gay."

I paused. His parents squinted like my vertical hold had gone.

I just kept going. I couldn't stop myself.

"I think he died because he was gay. He was gay and had no idea how to explain it to you or the world."

I could have set myself on fire and his parents would not have budged. They were paralyzed.

I went on to tell them about how I believed he'd come out, and then regretted it. Every few days we'd get a call from the GLBTA. A familiar female voice would ask for Michael and ask how he was doing. Often he’d be in the room but would refuse to get on the phone. One day, when he was gone, a professor called and asked for Michael. I knew the professor so asked if I could help. He'd been crying.

He told me that he'd just read Michael's paper. He said it was the most moving student piece he'd ever read. It was a story about the struggle of an oppressed woman.

Michael's parents cried. I cried. I don't remember much after that. The day smeared into a Monet of self doubt. I don't know how long I sat out there, but I fielded questions about a dead man's sexuality until my face was hot with sun burn. It was a small sacrifice compared to the shattered existence of a mother and father.

A few weeks later they would send me a letter. It said nothing of Michael's sexuality. Just that they missed him and they chose to remember him as they knew him. I guess that said a lot.

Not too long after that I ran into one of Michael's friends at a party. She said she could never forgive him for killing himself. I wasn't sure what to think. He's dead. All the kids he knew are going to grow up chase after their dreams. Michael won't get to do that. And I wondered if it was him who needed the forgiving, or a world that made him think he had no reason to live.