Dame Helen Mirren, actress extraordinaire. And, it seems, she’s an extraordinary human as well:
A young British boy who was recently given a matter of weeks to live wished more than anything to meet the Queen of England. When a visit with the real Queen proved impossible, actress Helen Mirren stepped in to give him the next best thing.
You can read the rest of this great story right here.
Donna’s eight album, released in 1980, was the debut of a new sound, on a new record label. The Wanderer, while still having certain danceable rhythm to many of the tracks said to us that Donna had left the Disco beat behind. While the album entered the Top 20, and produced one hit (the title track), it was not the success that Bad Girls had been.
While Bad Girls had a diverse sound, The Wanderer gave us an even broader range of sound.
There’s a bit of 80s pop:
A bit of soulful rock (Donna had rediscovered her Christian beliefs shortly before making this album, so this, and several of the songs have a spiritual context as well):
Some 80s rock:
And some 80s New Wave (I’m still entranced by this song, all these years later):
I wrote a post the other day, about watching my mom grow older, how frustrating it can be to watch, and, how, sometimes I get a bit snippy. Then, yesterday I made a long, rambling video talking about the same thing. It got me thinking that I’d sort of written something similar, on my old blog, so I was brwosing around for it, and came across the post, and thought I’d share it — not so much for repeating some of the same theme, but, to share the bit about the armadillos.
The unspoken motto here at Johnbalaya is: entertain, and provide random trivia.
So, reprinted, with kindly permission from me (as copywright holder of the old blog, I had to ask permission for reprinting… you know how publishing is), is an old blog post from August, 2, 2011
The original title was: Mom, Armadillos And Being Snippy
I’ve not written much about my mother over the past few months. It’s certainly not because I’ve not got anything to write about.
Take, for example, mom’s rather touching concern about the extinction of the armadillo.
The setting: the dinner table.
Along with her pork chop sandwich, mom was drinking a Snapple, and, on the bottle top there was the usual trivia, this one informing us that the litter of an armadillo is always only one gender – all male, or all female. This piece of information caused mom to wonder what would happen if they only gave birth to males: if all the armadillos, everywhere, only gave birth to male armadillos, they’d become extinct. The statistical probability of this happening didn’t seem to occur to her. Just that if they all had male babies, they couldn’t reproduce, and would die out. There was a pause while she considered this further, and I waited for more, but, she turned to another topic, and I found myself strangely caught up in this armadillo extinction scenario. How long would it take for them to die off? Would there be a chance to save them? Would there be…what the hell was I thinking?!
No, I seem to always have something to write about my mother. The issue comes from wanting to be sure that I write about her (and me) in the right way: I don’t wish to tell stories about my mom in a way that makes her seem silly or foolish, nor do I wish to sound as if I’m making fun of her; and, on the other end of the spectrum, I wish to write about her with the respect she deserves, and I don’t wish to make myself sound like a whiny, complaining, ungrateful son. Frustration can make a person write without thinking, and that is not my intent. Writing can be a way of expressing feelings, of giving voice to those thoughts that run around our minds, and can be a way of venting those thoughts. I don’t want my writing to be like that. I would rather it be thoughtful, as a way to help me make sense of it all – and, maybe it will even help me to grow.
Of course, that all sounds as if I’m ranting and frustrated all the time. I’m not. Just sometimes.
Like this evening.
Mom called and asked me to come help her find something. For most people, this would be no big deal – we all lose things, right? For me, it’s an almost daily occurrence. Today’s item: an envelope, addressed to the bank, with a blank check inside. “I put it in the holder with all the other bills,” says she to me. A five-minute search found it tucked away in a desk drawer. Last week it was a blank check that had been torn from her checkbook for some reason or another, and vanished, only to be found in the recycle bin. Over the past year it’s been a wide variety of things that Julian and I have searched for, from pens, scissors and letter openers to checkbooks, keys, cash and credit cards. Each search is accompanied by the same commentary from mom, “It should be right there, I always put my (pens, scissors, credit cards, etc.) in the same place (holder, drawer, wallet, purse, etc.) when I’m done with them so I can find them again.”
The frustration comes not from the obvious, frantic searching for the missing checks, but, rather, it comes from a sense of helplessness as I watch my mom growing older and more forgetful. The frustration comes from having to stand here, watching, unable to do much of anything. Sometimes it makes me so angry that I get snippy, and the instant I get snippy, I get angry at myself for my tone. When I get snippy, she tells me I sound just like her mother (my grandmother – who died when I was 9 months old, so I have to way of knowing if my tone is like hers). Considering that my mother cared for her mom for most of her life, and didn’t really like her mom, being compared to my grandmother is not exactly the nicest thing I’ve been called. I can’t claim that the words don’t hurt, but, I can’t claim that I didn’t deserve them. I suspect that I am mothering my mother, and while mothering can be nice, mothers all have that certain tone that pushes our buttons. I seem to have learned how to push my mom’s buttons. This is both satisfying and horrifying. Horrifying is the larger of the two feelings, which doesn’t make me feel any better.
Sometimes it’s tough writing about life with my mom because it means I have to write about myself, in as honest a way as I can. It’s easy to write about my mom, mostly. It’s the delving deep into my own being that makes it tough.
________________
Reading an old blog post has hidden dangers … like realizing that nearly two years ago I was writing about being snippy, and, two days ago, I was writing about having a tone in my voice… seemingly, in two years, I’ve not learned to get rid of The Tone.
Maybe I need to work harder on fixing this particular fact….
There’s not much to say about Donna’s album Bad Girls that hasn’t already been said. It’s the album she’ll forever be associated with, the album that pops into memory first.
If you were one of those who purchased the album, you’ll know just how diverse the sound is — it’s not just the disco beats of Bad Girls, Hot Stuff, Sunset People. There’s bluesy rock, r&b, soul, and a couple of incredible ballads.
Sure Bad Girls and Hot Stuff are fun songs, but, I think the best tracks of the album went unreleased as singles. So, if you didn’t own the album, you’ve never heard the best tracks.
If I had to pick just one dance track from the album, it would be this:
Though, I don’t think I could pick just one of the ballads — I’d pick them all:
And, then there is this — my favorite track of the entire album, proving Donna knows how to sing a soulful rock n’roll song:
OK, so having little video making experience, and little uploading to YouTube experience, I realized that I published the post before YouTube did it’s processing thing.
So, if you tried watching the videos, and they weren’t working properly— apologies. I was a bit too eager to get them out.
But, they are now ‘processed’ … and are viewable.
Sorry ….
First off… don’t be scared. My head is not quite as big as it appears in the video.
And, secondly… be forewarned …. it is a bit lengthy. So, you’ll need a few minutes.
Thirdly: Laughing at me is perfectly acceptable.
Back in the mid-1970s, Donna was Hot Stuff. Sorry… bad.
She was a maga-star of the discos, and, she released 7 albums in 5 years. We already looked at the first six.
Her seventh album was a live recording, a sort of greatest hits live, plus a few extras, called Live And More. Like her previous album, this too was a double album, somsisting of three sides of live concert performance, and one side of recorded music. The recorded music was four songs, mixed into one long track, known as the “Mac Arthur Park Suite”, and ran for just over seventeen minutes. Two of the four songs would go on to become hits: Mac Arthur Park, and Heaven Knows — sung with The Brooklyn Dreams (she would marry one of the members, Bruce Sudano, and have two children with him).
The live performances were mostly songs from her previous albums, with a few other songs added along the way. The first ‘new’ song comes half-way through side two, and is a medley of old standards:
I’d always hoped that maybe she’d do an album of old standards, but, it never happened, though, in an upcoming post, there’s a divine version of a great standard (stay tuned)
Donna also did a cover of a Barbra Streisand song:
And, she sang a song she wrote for her daughter (yes, alright, dammit… I get teary-eyed every time I listen to this one):
Mom: “Why are you yelling at me?”
Me: “I’m not yelling.”
Mom: “Then why are you taking that tone with me?”
Instead, I am contrite. I apologize. “I’m sorry,” I say, “I didn’t realize I’d raised my voice.”
I want to say that I don’t yell, as in scream. It’s more of an excited raising of my voice.
At least I hope that’s what it is.
This is an exchange that mom and I seem to have on a regular basis. I can’t say I’m proud of the fact that I speak to my mom with That Tone. And, to add to my shame, I am aware of it the minute I start, yet I am unable to stop The Tone from leaving my mouth.
Perhaps if she were doing something that made me mad, it might be different, my shame might be less. But, typically, she’s not doing anything that makes me mad. Well, okay, there are some things like: ordering all kinds of flower bulbs to plant, without regard to the fact that she orders things that need full sun, and our yard is quite shady. We go through this every Spring — a large box of things arrives: trees, bulbs, seeds. They’re to be planted around the yard. The only garden areas are against the house. Here’s where it gets tricky, and where the “I get mad” part comes in. My parents bought this house in 1960, and once in the 1970s, and once in the 1990s, termites were discovered, and exterminated. Now, termites like damp soil. So, my mom has been a “Don’t water close to the house” advocate ever since.
Are you seeing where this is heading?
No water against the house. Plants that are to be planted in the garden areas that are against the wall of the house. So, the plants get planted, because I get yelled at if they sit around. Then they die, because they can’t be watered, and she’s angry and swears to never order anything from such and such a place because they sell crappy product. Then, the next Spring another box arrives, and the cycle repeats. It’s a waste of time and money.
So, yes, there are some things that she does that makes me mad.
Generally, though, I am more frustrated than mad; more frustrated at my own sense of helplessness.
I’m frustrated because it saddens me to watch my mother get old.
I’m really not mad when it takes her a long time to get dressed; I’m frustrated at seeing this once vital woman, who could be up, dressed and out of the house in less than 20 minutes taking 15 to 20 minutes just to get dressed. I’m not mad at her when she asks me to total up the numbers when she balances her check book, instead, I’m frustrated that the woman who always amazed me by being able to add lists of numbers in her head faster than most people could add them on a calculator now needs me to double check her numbers because she’s added them up four times and has come up with four different answers (this has happened to me, this coming up with multiple answers, so it should be no surprise to anyone when I get old).
My mother has lived an active life (not necessarily “active” in the physically athletic sense). She was in the Women’s Army Corps during WWII, working on the bombing range. She travelled all over with my father, every time he was stationed somewhere new. She taught high school for 30 years. She built all the cabinets in one of the bathrooms, and stained/antiqued them. She was constantly working on something at our mountain cabins when I was growing-up: painting, tearing down, building up. Mom took turns with Dad, mowing the lawn, until I was old enough to start doing it on my own. I think of these things, these images of my mom as a younger woman almost every day: mom with a paintbrush, a hammer, on a ladder, sledding down the hill, swimming in the ocean, going for long walks in the mountains. I don’t purposely think of them, but these images flash into my mind when I see her struggling to get her socks on, or trying to open a bag of chips with her arthritic hands, or having to stop and sit down to rest after walking from one room into the next.
Three-and-a-half ago, when she had her heart-valve repalcement surgery, her recovery was quite long and tough on us all. Yet, as tough as it was to see her that weak, there was not much sense of frustration, as there were things I could do to help: I sat up with her when she was suffering from anxiety attacks so bad she could barely sleep and was afraid to be left alone; I cleaned her when she went to the bathroom; I shouldered her weight as we made our way down the steps into her bedroom. It was a time where she needed specific help, needed me to perform specific actions, and I was able to be there and do all that needed to be done. Watching her age, watching her slow down, when all I can do is watch, helplessly–it’s the toughest thing I’ve ever done.
There are moments when I am watching her, when my heart just breaks: watching her shuffle across the room, needing help putting her coat on, or having to struggle to get up out of a chair, or asking for the fourth time what I’m making for dinner. I look and I see traces of the vital woman I knew as a child, but she gets harder and harder to find with each passing year. No, don’t get me wrong — mom is still quite mobile and active for an 89 year old woman. I’ve known people in their 60s who were older in mind and body than my mom is at 89. She gets out, she drives to church and goes to breakfast with the other church ladies, she goes to visit her friend Pat, when Pat is in town, she goes around with Julian and I. So please forgive me if I’m making her sound older than she is. I don’t mean to. It seems that I just have trouble wrapping my mind around the fact that she can’t do the things she once did, and that when she needs me to open the bag of chips, or carry her purse, it’s not the fact that she’s asked me to do something that I get mad at. I’m mad at the loss, at the years that have gone by, at the time that slowly breaks us down.
I’m mad at the fact that I stand next to her, powerless to stop her from getting any older.
When my mom says to me “Why are you taking that tone with me?” I want to say, it’s because I’m standing here seeing you grow old. It’s because I’m mad that I can’t slow down the time, and I’m mad at the fact that time will run its inevitable course, knowing that all I can do is hope that we still have years left, yet also knowing that hope alone can’t stop time.
I wonder: maybe I should actually say that.
But, how?
Back in the day, if one was a hot enough commodity, one could release an album twice a year, instead of once every two or three years. Once upon a time, Donna was such a commodity, and, coincidentally, her second album of 1977 was called Once Upon a Time. While it’s still a disco album, there is a real diversity of sound here, due, in part, to the fact that it was a double album, so there was twice as much time to fill up. From pure disco songs, like Working The Midnight Shift, to this song:
The sound of that song one can see where the Bad Girls and Hot Stuff songs came from. They are still danceable, yet they aren’t just these ethereal beats with lots of repetitive vocals (Love To Love You, for example has a minimal lyric) — it’s much more of a full-fledged song, with a danceable beat, much like Bad Girls and Hot Stuff would be on her next album.
Then there’s this song… a sort of disco power ballad:
The album produced just one minor hit, (a song I happen to like very much):
Again, with that song, I think you’ll notice that the sound is more Bad Girls disco than Love To Love You Disco.
Finally, there’s the ballad. It’s a song that’s bluesy, and soulful, even a bit danceable…and I’ve always wished she’d done an album of songs with a similar feel:
Yesterday’s post was a look (and a listen) to a couple of songs from Donna’s first album, which was only released in The Netherlands.
In 1975, the year after her first album was released, her first U.S. album was released, and a career was launched. The first single from the album wass the infamous Love To Love You Baby, that long song that took up the entire side one of the album, ran nearly 17-minutes in length, and featured more than twenty simulated orgasms. There are shorter, edited versions available, remixes, remixes of remixes, and I’m sure you’ve heard the song once or twice. Sure, it’s catchy, and fun, but, really, it’s not one of my favorites — it’s a long song, with not a lot of lyrics, which, I suppose was part of the intent.
Side Two of the album had a rather different sound, like this song, Pandora’s Box, which sounds more like the songs from her first album:
In 1976, Donna released two albums, A Love Trilogy, and Four Seasons of Love. The Trilogy album was based on the same formula as Love to Love You Baby, with side one of the album being taken up by one long track, Try Me, I Know We Can Make It, a nearly 18-minute disco dancestravaganza, minus the orgasmic wailings. The second side contained five songs, one of which is a disco version of a Barry Manilow song (compete with a few more orgasms), though, omitted for this performance:
I include Could It Be Magic because it’s fun, yet, also to say the following: her next album, Four Seasons of Love, sounds much like this song. There are four songs, one for each season, telling the tale of the four seasons of a love story. I think it’s my least favorite album, as there’s no variety to it — the songs are pretty interchangeable. It was an album without any hits. So, we’ll just skip right by, shall we? (Sorry, Donna…. still LOVE you though!)
I Remember Yesterday, released in 1977 , is, probably, my favorite album of this period of her career. It’s concept was to look at music, past, present, future. For the past, a blend of musical stylest: one song mixes disco with a 1920s flair, and another mining disco with a 1950s beach-party music feel. Then, there’s the ballad — the first true ballad to appear on one of her albums. And, what a ballad:
And, then, there’s The Song. It’s the closing song of the album, and was meant to represent the future. It’s the song that got the whole world dancing, and changed the sound of music forever. Wikipedia provides an anecdote from David Bowie about the song:
According to David Bowie, then in the middle of recording of his Berlin Trilogy with Brian Eno, its impact on the genre’s direction was recognized early on:
One day in Berlin … Eno came running in and said, “I have heard the sound of the future.” … he puts on “I Feel Love,” by Donna Summer … He said, “This is it, look no further. This single is going to change the sound of club music for the next fifteen years.” Which was more or less right.”[5]
I mentioned this just recently, but, it’s my blog, so I’ll mention it again: as of May 15th, I’ve been six months sober. Six months without a drink.
Let’s count them, shall we:
November-December = 1
December-January=2
January-February=3
February-March=4
March-April=5
April-May=6
Six, yes, six months.
Maybe if you’ve not ever broken into a panic at the thought that you might not make it to the liquor store before it closes, or if you’ve never lovingly caressed a big, full-to-the-rim glass of Scotch of Whiskey, or if you’ve never counted the hours until you could have your next drink, then, maybe, six months without a drink doesn’t seem like a big deal.
But, to me, it’s a really big deal.
Though, in a way, it’s just a sad reminder that I’ve managed to kick yet another addiction.
I spent most of my teenage years, and my early twenties addicted to sex. I know there are those who think sexual addiction is just an excuse, a way to say “It wasn’t me who cheated, honey. I just couldn’t control it. It was like my dick was ruling my brain.” Let’s be real. If you’re a man, chances are pretty good your penis has an inordinate amount of control over your brain. This is not the same as sex addiction. Being addicted to sex is not just about the sex — it’s about the search for it, the conquest, the interaction, the act, the climax, the shirking of responsibilities because you’re too busy looking, conquesting, having, climaxing. Sex addiction is just like any other addiction: it’s using something to deaden the pain. For me, it was about feeling loved and needed, even if it were only for an hour. I’m not sure that I overcame this addiction, it’s more like I just stopped. Suddenly having sex in cars, in bathhouses, in the bed of someone you’ve known only ten minutes, suddenly it all seemed to lose it’s thrill. Maybe it was just the realization that having sex with someone doesn’t mean they need you. Or love you. Once I realized that the guy could be having sex with anyone, that I just happened to be in the right place and the right time, that it was convenient and that I was more than willing, well… what was the point after that?
Then there was the gambling. That one was tough to kick. My then partner and I wracked up nearly $90,000 in credit card debt (ahhh… the good old days, when credit cards just showed up in the mail). Now, not all of that money was for gambling. There were computers, antiques, books (the one addiction I’ll never break), some home repairs. But, I think it’s safe to say that at least half of it went into various slot machines around the country. That addiction was easier to break once my partner and I spilt up — together we fueled each other’s need, apart, I was able to control my impulse better. It wasn’t easy. Even now, the sounds of a slot machine can make me reach for my wallet. But, I know when to stop.
Cigarette smoking has been the toughest. Sammy Davis, Jr, used to say something along the lines of “I’ve kicked the coke, and the booze, but, the cigarettes just won’t let go.” And, that’s so very true. It’s been almost ten years since I quit smoking, and not a day goes by that I don’t want one. Forget the bullshit people tell you about how good they feel, about how much better food tastes. Lies. All lies. I felt no better, and food tastes the same. Maybe we just have to lie to ourselves sometimes, claim to feel better, in order to convince ourselves not to go back to the habit.
I feel like I should say that quitting drinking was tough, that it was the roughest thing I’ve done. It wasn’t though. It was not fun. I felt like I wanted to die for the first few days, and felt like shit for the next few months. But, I never felt the need to have ‘just one’ to take off the edge. I think, in the past six months, I’ve had maybe four or five real cravings for some Johnny Walker. But, the craving didn’t last long. I do feel better, though, I still don’t sleep — my doctor thought that giving up the booze would make sleep easier. I sleep better once I get to sleep — but, I think that’s the anti-anxiety medication, rather than the sobriety. But, easily going to sleep at night–that one still eludes me.
The one thing that is different about having quit drinking is, compared to after quitting the others, I do, actually, feel better. This particular blog post may not be the best indication, but, I feel as if my creative brain has awoken from it’s slumber. I feel not just the want, but the need, the desire to write, something I didn’t feel much like during most of my drinking days — though, I will admit, that when one writes after having a few drinks, one feels as if they’re writing the most brilliant shit ever. I feel a bit more energetic, though the anxiety pills make me groggy.
My thoughts make me groggy too. If you were reading along with my adoption series, you’l understand that I’ve got some issues, and, writing about them brought them to the surface, scratched open some wounds, though, I’m not sure they were ever healed — just scabbed. And, being sober, and being on pills that make me not so anxious and uptight, many of the thoughts I was trying not to think about when I was drinking (drink is a great thought suppressor), have floated back to the surface.
I’ve been thinking about the anger I feel about still being alive. That’s weird, isn’t it? But, as I’ve said a few times before on this blog, I discovered my HIV status back in the early days, the days when we all assumed we were dead men, that it was just a matter of time. I’ve watched many people lose their fight, but not me. I’m still here. I’m still fucking here, and it makes me mad. I figured I was going to be dead long before I was this age, so I never planned. I never thought about growing old. I never saved for retirement. I never developed job skills. Why waste what little time I probably had by doing such practical things? There were things I wanted to do, books I wanted to read, naps I wanted to take, before I got sick, before I began my long decent to death — one does not die quickly, or easily from AIDS. So, enjoy what time I had while I was healthy, because I’d be sick soon enough.
And, guess what? It never happened. I’m still here.
I’m still fucking here.
I want to get a big WTF tattooed to my forehead. That’s how it feels. Most everyone around me that was infected is dead. But not me. And, now I have to face a middle-age as a man with little skills, little career prospects, and little chance of amassing enough money to live comfortably in my old age. In my twenties, after learning about my disease, I was afraid of dying (not death–never death). I lived with the fear of dying — not death, that’s simply the end — but the dying, the long, slow, agonizing AIDS death I saw so many go through. Now, in my forties, it’s not dying, but living that terrifies me.
Since I quit drinking, I’ve been thinking about all those things I’d been trying to avoid, hiding in one addiction or another. I mean, who wants to think about all the issues that stemmed from my brother being unadopted and sent away. Who wants to think about having been molested as a twelve year old. Who wants to think about the dumbass schemes, the people I hurt and tossed away? Who wants to think about all the anger, guilt, fear, terror, sorrow, rage, devastation, and loss that floats around inside me. For awhile, after I first quit drinking, I was wondering why I started drinking. After a few weeks, once my body stopped aching from the alcohol withdrawal, I started remembering why the drinks always tasted so good.
No, no… don’t worry. I should reassure: there’s no drink in my future. I don’t care to go down that path again.
I joked about my new addiction to notebooks, poetry books, pens, crayons, art supplies. It’s not a serious addiction. I think it’s my cry of help to myself.
We look for magic pills, things that will make all the hurt, anger and pain go away. The pills don’t make those things go away. They just mess with the synapses in your brain to keep you from dwelling to long on any one thought.
It’s time. Not for more running, hiding in another addiction.
It’s time to just empty my brain … and, maybe this new found creativity will help me rid myself of some of these demons.
So, maybe, if you are a casual, social drinker, going six months without a drink makes you say “So what?”
But, since it’s my blog, I’ll say it again, and maybe one more time again:
It’s been six months since I had a drink.
Six months sober.
Six months.
Happy It Is A Big Fucking Deal Day to me!
Last year, on May 17, Donna Summer passed away.
She was still young: 63.
And, she was still fabulous — and always will be.
I wrote a tribute post of sorts last year. It’s what fans do. We may never have known the celebrity in life, except through their work, but, still, their death can feel as if we lost a best friend.
Donna was my best musical friend. There was something magical about her voice. I think it was joy. Whatever she sang, you knew that she was having a great time.
Sadly, I think she was under-rated by the world of commercial radio. It happens to many artists — after your first hit or two, you’re expected to sing the same type of song for the rest of your career. I don’t think Donna wanted to be locked into the role of The Queen of Disco forever. But, that’s what the record executives wanted, and what the radio crowd wanted, so when she resisted, and tried to branch out, her radio hits stopped. But, for us, her true fans, we were along for the ride, whatever musical direction she took. We just wanted to hear her sing, wanted to get lost in that rich, beautiful voice.
Last year, when she died, I shared a few of my favorite Donna tunes. I think I’d like to do that again. So, for the next week or so, I’ll post a couple of songs each day, as a remembrance. Though, I’m not going to focus on those mega hits, the one’s that made her a star: Bad Girls, Hot Stuff. I’m sure you know them, I’m sure you could sing them without much help. No, I want to share some of the songs that I think should have been hits, but weren’t (though there might be one or two hits, and one or two you might recognize, even though they weren’t big hits). I think I’ll also try to keep this reasonably chronological — though there is one post, at least, that I’d like to group by a theme, and the songs will be a bit out of chronologic order in that post. For the rest, though, I think it will be interesting to watch her musical evolution.
I’ve been listening to Brighton Gay Radio most of the day … they’ve been playing all Donna, all day. In Tribute. I think it’s the only time I’ve heard many of the songs On The Radio (notice how I worked that in)… usually I have to break out the CDs to hear them. Their tribute, playing just about every Donna song ever, reminded me just how varied her songs were, and, with the exception of some of her very early songs, they’ve aged well. I thank them for devoting so much time to her music. There was so much more to her music than many people realize.
Conventional wisdom states that Summer’s Love To Love You Baby was her first song, and her first hit. Well, conventional wisdom is only slightly correct. It was her first hit, from her first record released in the U.S. Donna had been passed over for a starring role in the Broadway musical Hair, but was offered the role for the Munich production. She spent the last part of the 1960s, and the early part of the 1970s in Europe, where she was briefly married to Helmut Sommer, and had a baby (after her divorce from Sommer, she Anglicized her last name). While in Europe she met Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte, and, as they cliche goes, the rest is history. Moroder and Bellote worked with Summer until the early 1980s. Together they changed the sound of the music of the 70s.
However, in 1974, Donna released an album, Lady of the Night, in The Netherlands, produced by Moroder and Bellotte. This, was her first album, and contained her first hit (though neither the song or the album was released in the US at the time.) It was a hit in a several European countries. This first song, The Hostage, has a classic 1970s sound, and is Donna in her pre-disco days. It’s also one of the campiest of songs:
This next song was a single, released in 1975, in Holland. Again, it’s sound is very 1970s. It’s a strange, likable little song, about small town narrow mindedness. I have always liked it, because I think you really get a sense of the richness of her voice:
Finally, for this post at least, is another song from Lady of the Night. This one, along with several other tracks has a sound that we wouldn’t often hear again from Donna, a folksy, country sound. For some reason this song strikes me as something Joan Baez might have sung back in the day.
A few months ago, when I saw the psychiatrist at the clinic I go to (it was a medication management appointment, not a therapy appointment because … it’s complicated, it has to do with being poor, having no insurance, and a rant that will go on all night), so… I was sitting with the shrink, chatting about Klonopin and the fact that I’d stopped drinking since the first time I’d seen him. As of that appointment, I was just approaching the four month sober mark.
Jokingly, I remarked that I was doing ok with the sobriety, but, I was looking around for my next addiction, as I seem to always have one.
He asked what I’d been addicted to before.
“Well”, I said, counting them off on my fingers, “cigarettes, sex, gambling, booze, and, for a brief period, eating Oreo cookies. I can’t eat them any longer, I ate so many.”
He stared. He’s nice, but I’m not sure he gets my humor.
“What do you think you’ll be addicted to next?” he asked. A better question than I was expecting, though not one I was prepared to answer. Not because I didn’t want to tell him my next addiction, but, because I didn’t know what my next addiction would be.
“Don’t look too concerned. It won’t be drugs. That’s not an option.”
“Why not?”
“Because they scare me”, I said, “I’ve never even really experimented with drugs, other than some pot when I was in high school. I’ve stayed away from them. It’s the one addiction I know I’ll get lost in. If I start drugs, I won’t come back from that addiction.”
I think he was surprised by my self-awareness. It’s not something I’ve admitted aloud too often. Drugs scare me. I may be suicidal, but, I don’t need drugs to add to the tumult, or to fake euphoria. The alcohol was enough to kill the pain. Drugs seem to just create more pain than they relieve.
“So, what will your next addiction be?” He was persistent.
“I’m not sure.”
Well, now I’m sure.
I’ve developed an addiction to poetry books, art supplies, and paper. Ok. Ok. Sheesh. You’re so pushy and demanding of truth. Ok. I’m addicted to spending Julian’s money.
I’ve been sober six months, and, in that time I’ve bought (ok, ok….sheesh… I’ve spent Julian’s money on):
So, I’ve found my new addiction. But, I have a plan. To use them. For real.
Which is an improvement over my other addictions which used me.
So, don’t be surprised to see something pithy written on a 3″x5″ notecard in glitter pen very soon.
Another entry in my ongoing series of taking the complete, unedited text from an email caught in my spam filter, and formatting it’s gibberish into poetry… strangely, they seem to make sense when you read them as a poem. And, as a service, I perform a reading of the poem as well:
Seven
Tyya’s dad
won’t swallow anything good
at the depend on –
no ice cream, no sweets, no cookies.But when
the saleslady puts a valuation sticker
on Tyya’s nose,
Daddy is decisively stiff to suborn
something high-minded
For David:
Click the play button below to listen to my reading of the poem
Remember that summer when you wanted to be a fireman
and mom and dad bought you that big, red firetruck,
the one with a working rescue ladder, that cranked
upward toward the sky, and that had a little
fire-hose nozzle at the end of the ladder that…
If you’re just tuning in, read the following first: Introduction, Part One, Part Two, Interlude, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six.
When I sat down at my computer and started writing about my adoption, I had no clear goal in mind. I knew that I wanted to respond to a few quotes that I’d read in a book, tell a few things about my adoption story, and to try and work out what, if any, impact being adopted has had on me. I didn’t really know what I was going to say, I had no idea that I’d end up writing so many words about it, and, up until two nights ago, I had no real idea what the point of it all was.
As I wrote this series, I became more and more convinced that there was a reason I was writing about this topic. I’d been thinking about adoption since I’d read Jeanette Winterson’s book, and thoughts were circling around in my mind — some complete, some just fragments of ideas. It seemed they were all circling around something, but I just could not see what was at the center of it all.
Writing has often been my way of working through something. Sometimes I write and ask questions, then try to answer each one; sometimes I just let the pencil fly across the paper writing whatever is in my head, sensical or not. I find that just getting the extraneous words out of the way lets me focus on what’s really at the root of my thoughts. It’s not always about problems, or bad things — sometimes it’s just trying to make sense of something, or to truly examine how I feel about something. That’s why I decided to start writing about my adoption. Something needed to be said, some deep truth needed to be seen, but I just had too many other thoughts swirling around, clouding whatever Big Idea was at the center of it all.
So, I started writing. This time, I did it here, on my blog. I am fairly open about myself on this blog, but I still write many things that don’t make it out into the world of the internet. I felt I needed to work through this one publicly, to share one of many different stories about what being an adopted child means.
Adoption impacts many people in the world, and, it is a big decision for people — a big decision for a woman, deciding to give up her child in hopes that the child will have a good, safe, secure, happy life; and, it’s a big decision for people choosing to adopt a child: adopting is a gamble after all. In Winterson’s book, “Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal“, she sums it up quite succinctly: “The trouble with adoption is that you never know what you are going to get.”
Of course, this is true of any birth: adopted children have no idea what they’re going to get for parents any more than a child raised by his birth-parents; adoptive parents have no more idea of what the child they adopt will be like than the birth-parents of a child. It’s always a gamble. For millennia, people have continued to make that gamble.
I wonder, though, if adopted children are more prone to feeling guilt if they don’t turn out to be the best and the brightest? Of course, as I’ve said many times during the writing of this series, I am speaking only of myself, and my thoughts–I don’t presume to speak for anyone other than myself. And, I wonder if I am the only adopted child that’s felt as if he’s been a disappointment, and if my parents have had regrets. This is purely hypothetical, and is really unanswerable, but, I’ll ask it anyway: if my parents could have somehow seen into the future, and known that the child they were adopting was going to grow-up to be a gay, HIV+ man, who suffers chronic depression and anxieties, would they have gone through with it. The same question can be asked of any parent, really. As I said, it’s an unanswerable question, but it’s one that I can’t help wondering about.
How much of the conflict that my mother and I have had over the years has been because of disappointment or regret? I know, as I mentioned in the last post, that she wondered if “they’d been given one of those kinds of boys.” She’s called me “fag”, “queer”, “whore”. A few years ago, when my partner was hired for a new, well-paying job, my mother said “His parents must be so proud of him. I wish I had a son I could be proud of.” She’s accepted my gayness in the sense that she knows if she doesn’t accept it she would never see me, and, yes, she’s let my partner move in, but, that offer came when I was contemplating moving in with him. She’s for gays being able to inherit from each other, and have hospital visitation rights, yet her Catholicism opposes same-sex marriage, and, she’s concerned that now that Colorado has civil unions that Julian and I are going to rush down and be … unionized? Not long ago, after putting a damper on an idea of us moving somewhere (all of us), she informed me, loudly, in the hospital waiting room, that I was just selfish, spoiled, never did anything for others, and that the only good thing that has happened in her life has been marrying dad. Based on the blatant stares from the rest of the people in the waiting room, it was, apparently, riveting theatre.
Perhaps I have been a disappointment.
Wondering if I’m a disappointment is not just an adopted child issue — I suspect a great many of us, adopted or not, wonder that. And, as I was thinking that previous thought, the fog suddenly cleared, and I realized what my reasons for writing this were.
It was important for me to not only say, but to search that deep, inner space where we hide our truths, and realize that indeed, I didn’t wish to seek out my birth-mother, even though it seems to be something that people think adopted children should do.
It was important for me to tell David’s story, and, to admit to myself, to say out loud, that that experience has haunted me all these years, and that it’s been the root of much of the conflict between my mother and I. And, also, for me to realize that my distrust of people, my lack of feeling for family, that my distantness from people, that my anxieties all stem from that incident. It was especially important for me to admit that even though I feel scarred by David’s being sent away, I don’t blame my mother for it, as I once did, in those first few years afterwards. I’ve come to realize that she made a decision that seemed the best choice she could make at the time.
I’ve also realized while writing this, that fear has entered into my soul. My mom will be ninety in November. While I’m not expecting her to die today, or this week, it’s a fact that our time together is growing shorter. I’ve said that my mom has been afraid of being alone. I realize that once my mom is gone, I will be alone — alone in the sense of family; family meaning the basic, micro-level definition of family: parents, children, mother, son. Yes, I have a partner, and am part of a modern Family Is Who We Make It, but once my mom is gone, I am alone. Orphaned. No ties to anyone. I’ve not been close to any of my parents relatives — they’ve all lived in other states, our interactions have been limited and brief over the years. In a way, that fear I had after David was sent away is close to coming true for me, metaphorically, at least — being sent off, alone, into the world. And, it makes me mad that I spent all those years trying to hurt my mom, that we’ve spent so much time trying to hurt each other (that hasn’t stopped — in fact, I’ve managed to be a Pigheaded Ass as recently as this evening, and have been given the ultimate silent treatment — she went to bed at 8, and won’t let me give her her night insulin and night pill.) As Linda Ellerbee used to say at the end of her news show: “And so it goes…” But, it’s made me realize that part of why I stay here, care for her, is to try to, in some way, make up for those awful years.
Ultimately, though, what I’ve realized in writing this is that even with all the issues surrounding adoption that our family has gone through, through all my fears and insecurities, through all our fighting and lashing out, adoption hasn’t made us any less of a family than other, non-adoptive families. We’ve fought, bitterly, awfully, woundingly. We’ve laughed. We’ve cried. We’ve stood by each other, mom and I. She’s been there when I’ve needed scraping up off the pavement, and I’ve been there to nurse her through one of the toughest surgeries there is.
As I was writing this series, as things were making sense to me, I began to look around at all the families I know. And, I realize we are no different. I’m adopted, but it doesn’t change the fact that we are as much a family as anyone else’s family. Good, bad, indifferent — we’ve managed to look past the wounds and the scars. I like to think that in spite of all the pain and hurt, that when we look at each other, we both see the love, the strength of the love that’s been tested, and that still holds us together.
(Previous pars of the series can be read by clicking on the link: Introduction, Part One, Part Two, Interlude, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five)
My mother is a strong, tough, opinionated woman who has always stood up for what she believed, and for what she wanted. But, when it comes to conflict, my mother is not a fighter. When she and I fight, there are two possible outcomes.
If she is right, and I am wrong, she stomps out of the room (now that she’s almost ninety, it’s more of a quick shuffle out), and I’m given the silent treatment. Pigheaded ass that I can be, I will usually go after her, try to engage her again, but her silence remains solid, so I leave, eventually to return with an apology, and am given the inevitable guilt trip for upsetting her.
The second response is a bit more complex, and happens when I’m right, and she’s wrong. My mother has never, ever, admitted that she was wrong in an argument or fight, and I can count the number of apologies on one hand. Usually what happens is that she stamps out of the room (see above parenthetical aside re: shuffling now that she’s nearing ninety). Pigheaded ass that I can be, I’ll go after her, trying to get some response, other than the silent treatment that now ensues. Getting no response, I’ll leave, only to return, with apologies for upsetting her. (Whether I am right or wrong, the apology has always come from me.)
Here’s where the complex part comes in: she’ll usually break into tears, and, sobbingly, will tell me that she tries hard to be a good mother, and that if I want we can probably track down Mrs Green (remember her from the Intro?) and that Mrs Green can contact my birth mother, and I can meet them, and I’ll probably have siblings and a father, and a better home. I’m not entirely sure why this is her response.
I know when it started. I’d once asked, when I was about fifteen or sixteen, during a calm period of our Uncivil War years, about my birth mother. I don’t recall exactly what I asked, it wasn’t anything about wanting to find her, more of a “do you know if she ever got married?” sort of question. That was pretty much it — she visibly crumpled, collapsed into a chair, started crying, and within a matter of minutes she had herself worked into a frenzy of belief that I was busily packing up my things so I could go live with my birth-mother. This was the furthest thing from my mind.
Even during those really terrible years after dad died, and David left, I’d never given much thought to my birth-mother. Mom and I fought more than we talked, hurt and wounded each other as often as we could, but, no matter how bad it was, it never occurred to me to go back to my birth-mother on my own. After David’s being sent back to his birth-mother, I was afraid of being sent back to mine; seeking out my birth-mother voluntarily was not something I cared to do. But, this particular day, in whatever mood my mom was in, she became convinced that I wanted to leave her. A weird dynamic had set in: I was terrified of being sent away, and she was terrified of my leaving. In spite of our war, in spite of the times we hated each other, neither of us wanted to end up alone, though, I suppose if I were to go to my birth-mother, I wouldn’t be alone — but mom would be. And, perhaps that was the thought that terrified her most.
But, after that day, any time we fought, and if I was in the right, she’d just offer to find my birth-mother and send me to her.
One would think that once I reached a legal age, and was able to make my own decisions about where to live, that she’d stop offering to find my birth-mother.
One would be wrong to think that.
I am now forty-seven years old, and, while she and I don’t fight as much, about once or twice a year, she’ll get teary-eyed, apologize for being such a bad mother, and offer to help track down my birth-mother, so I’ll have a real family, with siblings. As if siblings are the answer. I know enough other people with siblings to know that, often, siblings are the problem, rather than the answer.
It finally occurred to me that my mother is not too different than her mother, though I think she’d be hurt if she knew I compared her to her mother. My mother’s mother was widowed young, eight years into her marriage, and was left with one child: my mother, who was seven. My grandfather had had a decent job, made enough money to afford some of the luxuries: electricity, a refrigerator, an automobile. After he died, she was left with not much, and, times got tough during The Great Depression. For whatever reason, my grandmother felt the need to test my mother’s love. My mom would come home from school, and there, on the floor, was her mother, presumably dead. My mother would try to rouse her, in the way a seven and eight year old would, and, getting no response, would begin to cry and scream and not know what to do. Her mother would then rouse herself back to life, assured, that since her daughter was so upset by the thought of her death, that she must, indeed, love her. This, apparently, went on for the first few years after my grandfather died, and then stopped. There is much else that was wrong about the relationship my mother and grandmother had, but, I don’t know it well enough to recount properly. But, I know that my mother swore when she had kids she’d not be like her mother. And, like many parents before her, she has managed to not do the things her mother did to her, while coming up with similar things to do. My mother, like her mother, needs to know that she’s loved, and, by provoking tearful responses from me that I want nothing to do with my birth-mother, I give her the reassurance of my love and devotion, just as her crying and being upset reassured her mother of that love.
For a while I thought that the reason I didn’t wish to seek out my birth-mother was because of the guilt my mother was laying on me for wanting to leave her, and the belief that maybe that guilt had brainwashed me into thinking that if I looked for my birth-mother I would somehow be invalidating all the years of parenting, all the love that she, my adopted mom, had given me. As I got older, and really thought about my birth-mother, dug down into those parts of mind and soul where we often stash the truth, I knew that I wasn’t guilted or brainwashed into not wanting to find my birth-mother. I really, deep down, soul-searingly honest did not want to find her. She gave birth to me, and I feel a sense of gratitude to her for that, but, other than “thank you”, I’ve got nothing to say to her. Alright, well maybe I’d ask “does diabetes run in your bloodline? what about cancer? heart disease?” But that’s it.
Like my grandmother, I, too, am guilty of testing my mother’s love, seeing just how far I could push before she finally snapped. Perhaps that’s what families are about, adoptive families or otherwise: testing boundaries, learning limits, struggling, fighting, yet, somehow still retaining that bond that keeps you together, keeps expanding boundaries and limits of acceptance, keeps you afloat, keeps you a family.
Photo taken by first-time contributor John Nooney, a 47-year-old gay man from a suburb of Denver, Colorado, who has been HIV+ since 1989. John has dealt with mental illness for most of his life, including chronic depression and severe anxiety attacks. His first bout of depression occurred when he was 14, though it wasn't until he was 22 that someone finally told him what his "horrible, black episodes" were.
(Click on the following links to read the other parts of this series: Introduction, Part One, Part Two, Interlude, Part Three, Part Four)
I’d like to add the caveat I’ve added to the past few parts of this series: this is one story of adoption, my story. These are my thoughts, opinions, feelings about adoption, my adoption, based on my experience. I do not claim that my story is typical of all adoptions. We are a world full of unique and individual people, with unique and individual stories. This is my unique and individual story.
You’d think I’d remember the date my brother left home. It’s not every day that your adopted brother has his adoption reversed and is returning to live with his birth mother (see Part Four of this series for the entire story, if you’ve not been following along since the beginning).
I remember the date my father died: February 8, 1980. I remember that David boarded the plane to return to his birth mother later that year — September, October? It was either right before school was to start, or right before the second quarter of the school year was to start. The date had something to do with school. He was nine years old, and one did have to think about his schooling.
So, why can’t I remember the date?
I remember being at the airport. I remember the striped shirt he was wearing. I remember the flight attendant (stewardess, as they were called in those days) coming over to us, introducing herself to David, and walking him through the door, and down the jetway to the plane. I remember him turning around, about halfway down the jetway, to wave and smile at us, at mom and I. There’s a memory of a stuffed toy in his arms, but I won’t swear it.
I can remember standing there, next to my mom, and feeling dead inside. My father was gone — something that wasn’t supposed to happen in the natural order of things. I didn’t know of anyone my age, fourteen, who’d lost a father (at least, not then). My world was already upside-down. I was adopted into this family as a baby, and, five years later, my brother was adopted into the family as well. Suddenly, after a ten-month battle with brain cancer, my father was gone, our family was one-quarter gone. Now, here we were at the airport, and my family was now reduced by half — from four of us, to two of us. My brother, my adopted brother, was being sent back to where he came from.
I didn’t understand it at all.
That’s a lie. I understood that David had been a lot of trouble from the beginning, and that my mom, now locked in grief, anxiety, probably depression, had no idea how to deal with David on her own. Sending him to live with the woman who gave birth to him, who was married and who’d had other children since, seemed a good option — perhaps having a big family, with more siblings, with younger parents (his birth mother was twenty-five years younger than my mom’s fifty-six years). Maybe all those things would be good for David.
That was the hope. That is what I think my mother believed with all her heart in that moment at the airport as we watched David leave. I think she hoped for David what his birth mother had hoped for him when she’d sent him to live us when he was born: that he’d have a better home, that he’d be loved, that he’d be safe.
For me, it was the start of a lifetime of …. of what? Of fear. Of anxiety. Of isolation. Of more things than I can set down in words. In those moments, leading up to David’s departure, it dawned on me: I could be next. I could just as easily be sent away.
In a way, I was sent away — on my eighteenth birthday my mother threw me out of the house; I’d been late coming home from a job interview because the interview ran long. I missed the express bus, had to take the local bus, and was late. There were no cellphones in 1984. I couldn’t call. We were to go to dinner, to celebrate my birthday. My mom was convinced that I was having sex with a man, and that I thought having sex with a man was more important than celebrating my birthday with her, so, I should just go live with this man I was supposed to be having sex with.
There was no man.
I was gay. I’d told her — it was either a few weeks after dad died, or a few weeks after David left. I can’t remember that detail either. I can remember that she wouldn’t touch me, that she didn’t hug me again until after she found me on the streets, where I’d been wandering around for nearly twenty-four hours after she threw me out. She hugged me then, and brought me home.
I spent the years between David’s leaving, and my turning eighteen waiting for my turn to be unadopted. It seemed logical to my teenaged mind (because teenagers are known for their logic and astute insight into the workings of the world, right?) I didn’t take the time to mourn my losses — I cried the day my father died, standing there, next to his bed, watching him breathe his last, but I didn’t cry for him again until I was well into my twenties. I cried that day at the airport, watching David leave. But, I didn’t mourn for him until later, years later, when his life got even more troublesome. And, then I mourned him when he died five years ago. Mostly, I was too busy being afraid that my turn to leave was going to come.
I spent those four years, from fourteen to eighteen doing everything I could to push my mother’s limits. I can distinctly remember thinking that if she was going to send me away it was going to be for as many reasons as I could give her. I was angry. I was full of unexpressed grief. She was the one who was there to direct it at.
I started ditching school. I started having sex with men. She’d marched me into therapy the minute I told her I was gay, because it was just a phase, and she didn’t want anyone blaming her for my being gay — Mama’s boys, was the polite term for faggot back then, and my mother did not want anyone to think that she was the dominating mother who’d turned her son into a Mama’s Boy. The therapy didn’t work — the therapist never even tried to cure me.
She’d stopped hugging me, which, to me meant she’d stopped loving me. I couldn’t get her to talk about it. So, let her see me doing it, then she’d not be able to pretend it wasn’t true. I was good enough to not let her actually catch me having sex. She just caught me after it was done, and the man had to flee, out a window, to avoid her wrath.
She was my scapegoat. Every drop of grief, loss, fear, and confusionI had was directed at her. I ditched school more. I had more sex with men. I stopped going to school, dropped out, and just spent my days having sex with men.
When I was sixteen, I told her that I was no longer going to church. My mom, staunch Catholic, was devastated. First I was gay, then I’d dropped out of school (she was a teacher, and my decision stung), then I rejected religion. I would have left the church eventually, as I’d never felt any sort of feeling towards the whole thing — no matter how hard I tried, I never did find faith. But, I left the church early not just because it meant nothing to me, but because I knew it would wound her. As I write this paragraph, I realize that I spent my time rejecting everything she stood for. Maybe that was the point. If I reject all she believed in, then maybe it would be easier for her to reject me. There was a part of me that wanted to be sent away, because once I was sent away, I could stop worrying about when it was going to happen.
Do I blame her for throwing me out when I was eighteen? No. I’d been trying hard enough to provoke some sort of reaction, though I admit to being surprised when I got a reaction.
In many ways, my teenage rebellion is no different than many teenage rebellions, so I can’t, and don’t, blame it on being adopted. I don’t blame it on my mother — logically and rationally, at least. What she did, sending David away, was something she felt was the best decision for her and for David. I don’t think anyone thought about what it would do to me. It took away my sense of security, my sense of safety. I was already in a state of emotional turmoil, trying to come to terms with my father’s death, dealing with my own budding sexuality — something that was still Very Wrong back then; then the one unimaginable thing happened: my brother was unadopted. To use a well-worn metaphor, I went over the edge of the emotional cliff.
My mother and I were both locked in our own emotional vortex. We avoided each other when we could. We clashed when avoidance was impossible. She hated my being gay; I hated her for taking away my sense of safety and security. We were mean to each other during those years. I acted out, and she volleyed back with words like “fag” and “queer” and “whore”.
In those years I wished she’d never adopted me, and, I wonder if she didn’t feel the same. She’d questioned it before, years earlier. I was five or six, and was caught playing with a pair of my mom’s pantyhose (I had them on my head, holding them up, pretending they were a conical hat, imitating a picture I’d seen in a fable of some princess — the women of the court had on conical hats, with little veils at the top, one woman in the drawing had a hat that had two cones, almost horn-like, with a veil on each one — hence the pantyhose). My mother turned to my father and said “Oh my god! Do you think they sent us one of those kinds of boys? What if he is? Would we have to keep him?” I had no idea what kind of boy she was talking about, but, the part about keeping me I understood. I never touched the pantyhose again. So, she’d questioned the decision to adopt me once, I wouldn’t be surprised if she hadn’t questioned it again in those years. I certainly gave her reason to question her decision.
Those years ripped our souls apart. They very nearly destroyed us. I think some parts of us were permanently destroyed. Something held us together though — perhaps it was a fear that without the other, we’d each be alone. None of my parents blood-relatives lived here, though there were family friends who filled part of the gap. But, when it came down to that concept of family — the micro-definition of family, the Mother and Son definition, not the definition of Family Can Be Made Up Of Whomever You Surround Yourself With — but, the simple, basic family law of mother and son, it was clear: together we were a family; apart we were each alone, orphans. So, maybe it was that fear of aloneness that kept us together.
Maybe, just maybe…. it was something more. It’s entirely possible that love played a role.
