Billy was severely developmentally disabled due to a chromosomal abnormality; when I was younger, he had a vocabulary of roughly 2000 words, but that had diminished over time. When I was a child, he could be extremely violent and provoked by very little. That feels like a very long time ago now; who he was for the past twenty years was very different. He was often heavily sedated and rarely agitated to the point of potential abuse when I visited him.

I loved my brother even though I was never able to have a traditional relationship with him. I remember when I was 11 years old or so, I tried to connect with him on his level. I was proud because I seemed to be calming him down and then he hit me in the face. I didn’t try as hard to relate to him after that.

I always felt like he had an extremely hard life filled with injustice and cruelty, but my father ensured he could have the best life he possibly could within the confines of his difficult circumstances. My father spent a large part of his life fighting for a better life for my brother. A constant advocate, he tirelessly devoted his time and energy to making things as comfortable as he could for him.

I don’t know if I believe in God or an afterlife, but I hope he truly is in the cliché of a “better place.” My husband and I discussed the possibility of Heaven on Saturday night. I asked him whether or not Billy would be “normal” there. He reminded me of our philosophy of how people would be their happiest self in the concept of Heaven. I often think of how my mother would be her younger, healthy self there; my husband’s theory is that Billy would probably be a child because he hadn’t developed mentally past that and was probably his happiest then. Maybe Heaven is a collection of souls and not our physical representations. Maybe it doesn’t even exist. I suppose nobody knows and there have been countless theories, but I hope he is at peace wherever he is and reunited with my mother. Maybe he is at a tea party with my mother and grandmother; maybe Fernando and J.P. are with them too.

Rest in peace, Billy. If nothing else, you were always my older brother, and I love you.

Billy Coffelt
7/1/1977 – 4/2/2016

‘Cause there’s no comfort in the waiting room
Just nervous paces bracing for bad news
Then the nurse comes around
and everyone lifts their head
But I’m thinking of what Sarah said:
That love is watching someone die

Death Cab For Cutie, “What Sarah Said”

The waiting room was our living room; the nervous paces were that of my father, little brother and me. I was bracing for what I still feel guilty about: good news, that it was finally over. My dad was the nurse, and I lifted my head on May 23rd, 1995, as I woke up to his announcement: mom is dead.

Love is watching someone die. That’s what my dad taught me when he chose to take care of her, to have her spend her final years with her family, the ones she loved, the ones who loved her.

I was 14 when she died and I was 12 when she was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s disease. The autopsy said it was actually amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease) and frontal lobe dementia, but it didn’t really matter; there still isn’t a cure for either one and the end result would’ve been the same.

The only difference, as far as what the misdiagnosis caused, was she was prescribed tacrine and was subjected to frequent liver tests which she hated as a result. A proper diagnosis wouldn’t have spared her life, but at least it would have spared her those much dreaded doctor visits.

I get like this from time to time, but it seems like the last few weeks have been especially harsh. I’ve cried myself to sleep on more than one night; the last few, I’ve even broken down in front of Rio.

The other day he told me to go to Starbucks and write my feelings down. I told him I didn’t want to go outside; he told me he didn’t want me to get too depressed.

Breathe in the oxygen; happiness is a foreign country, but sadness is far too expensive to live in.

excerpt from a poem I wrote years ago

I have reverted to 12, 13, 14, who I should have been then. Grieving. Not the hollowed-out shell of a kid who went back to school the very next day in hopes of a starting a new, less catastrophic life, only to find out about the insensitive whispered miscalculations of her old life by the peers who knew no better.

So here I am now, writing my feelings down, the thoughts that cause both the unexpected and inevitable flood of tears:

She’s gone for good.
She’s not coming back.
It’s not fair.
How can I find her when I don’t even know where she went?
What cruel god would do this to her?
Is there a heaven?
Will I ever see her again?
Why?
She deserved a long, happy life.
My dad deserved to grow old with her.
I deserved a mother, especially during puberty.
I need you. I love you. I miss you.
I’m sorry.
Goodbye.

I was too young then to understand that every last moment was just that: the last. My dad knew; he videotaped the last few weeks of her life. It wasn’t that he thought he’d want to watch it again as much as he knew he’d never have the chance if he didn’t.

She used to scream at the top of her lungs, over and over, until she’d gasp for breath only to do it again. That was the background music to my 13th Christmas. My younger brother and I opened our presents quietly while our older brother pulled ornaments off the tree and our mother screamed.

I hated her at times, and I hated myself for hating her. I hated this woman who stole my mother, and I loved her every time I remembered she was still my mother, regardless of how she was acting now. I hated how selfish I felt for needing anything for myself. I hated that my life had been far from normal long before she was sick. I hated that I couldn’t do anything but watch her wither away into a skeleton.

I dramaticized my life at the time to a point; it was how I dealt with everything prior. My older brother is developmentally disabled, which never felt like an accurate term for how he actually is. That’d be a more appropriate way to describe someone with dyslexia than it would be someone who hits you in the face for crying.

But, that’s who he was and that’s how he was, and my interpretation of the time period is as valid as the way I felt about it.

So, my mother did in fact starve to death on the living room couch. That is how I saw it then and that is just what happened.

But, in the interest of honesty, she’d also smile at you while you walked by, her head barely turning, but her eyes following you the whole way. That was who she was. Someone who was in enough pain to fill the house with her agonizing screams, and someone who could still smile, even with dried tears streaked on her face.

I don’t feel like writing my feelings down anymore. They feel as old and tired as I do.

I love you too.

The sky is blue, and while the sun blinds me when I look up, I still hope you are looking down.

You said you knew there was a God, because there was a blue sky. I still remember that, and while I didn’t understand at the time, I understand now: you desired heaven, and you wanted to believe what I want to believe, that your mother was there looking down at you as you looked up for her.

I hope your dreams came true, and I hope you are now there with her, and your father, at peace, at Plum Lake.

There are, and will always be so many things I wish I said, and wish I didn’t say, but your soul was kind, and I know you loved me regardless, and I know you knew I loved you too.

Love,
Your daughter, Beth, the one who is still grateful to have spent at least half her life with one of the most amazing people ever to walk the Earth.

Sorry, Google. I know you had the best of intentions, but this is scary, not sweet.

Let’s just hope nobody bails them out (of jail).

When this first started catching nationwide attention, all I knew was fear. Obsessively checking the FDA website for the latest recalled products, looking up the most recent count of related illnesses, the latest death toll.

However, as the month went on, another emotion crept up to keep fear company: anger.

The more news that comes out, the more scared and furious I get. Apparently, the plant in Blakely, GA was filled with roaches, mold, and plagued by perpetual leaks. Salmonella or not, it shouldn’t have been open in its unsanitary state: something like this was inevitable, easily predictable. And, lab tests even showed that this was no surprise; inspection records reported they sold products after already confirming they had been contaminated with salmonella.

Why? Because it all comes down to the bottom line. Someone… several someones… decided that the monetary value of the peanut butter was worth more than the price of human life, the cost of any lawsuit that a devastated relative could file. Someone made some calculations and then made a deliberate decision to ignore the risk of fatalities and ailment because it was more profitable.

So far, there have been 8 deaths. They were people, but I haven’t been able to find out that much about just who these unfortunate “casualties” were. For the most part, they remain faceless and nameless in the media’s eyes.

However, death is serious, the final period to end a life sentence. There is nothing casual about it, but to countless corporations who have killed for the capital that fuels capitalism, don’t ever forget: you are just a number.

You are nothing more than a statistic.

One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is just a statistic.

Joseph Stalin*

Homeless people haven’t been talking to me as much as they used to, the way that they used to, and on that particular night, I was willing to listen… wanted to listen, even.

I was in-between Howard & Mission, and as one might expect in January at 7:30pm, the sky had darkened, and that particular stretch of road wasn’t very well-lit.

Despite the lack of light, I saw a man gesturing at me; he had seen my cigarette, and he wanted to pay me for one. He walked over, and as he sorted through the bills he was clutching in his dirty hands, I said, “No, no, it’s okay. Don’t worry about it.”

He looked like he was on the verge of tears with gratitude.

“Listen”, he said, his voice and words urgent, his face close enough to mine that I could smell the stench of alcohol on his breath.

“Ok.” I took out the other ear bud I had tactlessly left in my ear, in anticipation of a much shorter encounter. It suddenly occurred to me that this was what he had wanted to pay me for, and a request for a cigarette was simply an excuse to initiate conversation.

“Listen.” he demanded once again.

“I am!”

“I used to hurt people for a living.”

“Really???? Why??” I was intrigued.

“Used to”, he repeated, as if I had just wrongly accused him of what he had already admitted.. as if he was someone who had a long history of accusations and admissions to guilt.

“Yeah, but why?”

“Come over here”, he said, motioning over to a dark side street.

I had been surprised by my bravery up until that point, but it had dissolved at the suggestion of listening to a confession of his deepest darkest secrets in an alley.

“Oh, no… I want to go home and see my husband, I’m sorry…”

Now, his back was against the brick wall of a closed storefront. As he slid down further, he begged, pleaded, the way a child would… “pleeeaaaasssseeeee?”

“No, no, I’m sorry…”

He whimpered, even pouted.

“It’s okay! I’m sure we’ll see each other again! Don’t get upset!”

More sorrowful puppy dog eyes. I said goodbye, and he barked in response: “woof!”

As I continued to walk down 7th St, I uneasily wondered if he’d follow me, make me listen. I wondered what he would have told me had I not run away.. had I let my curiosity take priority over my fear and just listened to him the way he had asked me to, the way I had agreed to.

I wondered if he even had a light for the cigarette I had just given him.

I wasn’t surprised that Obama had won, and I hadn’t been worried about him losing. The night before the election, I had told my husband that if he were to lose, the country would spiral into a Great Depression, and not just one of the financial sort we were already experiencing. After all, he was doing well in the polls, he was an inspirational figure in an extremely dark time, and his platform was built on hope, dreams, and change.  For all of the people who had given what little time and money they had in hopes of fulfilling their own shared dreams of change, only to witness such a great loss… well, hearing the “yes, we can!” turn into “no, we can’t.” would just be defeating the defeated and invalidating hope, dreams, and change.

And, on that election night, roughly 40 years after the civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King, Jr., the majority of American people finally spoke up to say that, no, human rights were not specific to any one color.

As the television broadcast the loud triumphant cheers of victory, and the streaming tears of joy, I was anxiously checking my phone for the results of a different kind of change, a different kind of proof that human rights were not exclusive to certain humans.

But, I was disappointed, I was wrong and my theory had been disproved. At the same time a majority of America had voted against racism, the majority of California had voted for homophobia and sexism.  In exchange for a step forward, we had taken two steps back.

No, human rights knew no color, but they still knew a gender, and marriage only knew heterosexual love.

I couldn’t believe it, or rather, I didn’t want to.

On November 16th, 2007, I married the one I consider, without even the slightest shred or sliver of doubt, my soulmate. The one who incites a conviction in true love I never thought I would or could have. I was lucky enough to find something that so many want and so few get, and apparently, I was even luckier we happened to be of the right genders. On that day, we were declared man and wife, but had the circumstances been different, we would’ve never been married; we would never have been declared woman and wife, man and husband.

I can’t understand how someone could walk into their assigned polling place, and on the same ballot that they proudly cast their vote for the first African American president, they cast the vote that those of the same gender should be denied the right, or better said, the privilege, of marriage.. of having the state of California acknowledge the love between those who were lucky enough to have found what I have found, their soulmate, only because said soulmate happened to share the same gender.

I’m trying to remain optimistic, but it’s hard. I started writing this shortly after that fateful night, and have written and re-written it 4 times (I have had various problems during the process of posting it).  Since then, things have in fact changed, almost to a point where I’ve wondered if it even was worth re-writing this a 5th time.. if it had lost some of its relevance.

However, I believe that this night — the night of Martin Luther King, Jr. day, the eve of Obama’s inauguration — the relevance of these words has been strengthened.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was my childhood hero. I loved reading the books about him that my mother bought me from the Scholastic Book catalogs they handed out at school. Although I have learned that its accuracy has since been questioned, I always have loved the story of his father’s response when he was referred to as “boy” in front of a young Martin Luther King, Jr.

I didn’t understand racism then, any more than I understand homophobia now, but I’m trying my best to derive hope from his dream tonight, and how an African American man who ran on a platform of change, hope, and dreams is being sworn into office tomorrow.

No, California won’t recognize the marriage between two people of the wrong genders today, but America wouldn’t have elected a person of the wrong color 40 years ago either.

Here’s to hope, change, dreams, and for Obama to have the ability to actually, truly, practice what he preaches, without discrimination of any kind.

Photographing fishies is a lot harder than I thought, but we now have 4 of them, all pictured there :)

I also decided to take a video.  Now introducing…. Glurpy, Vida Uno, Muerto Dos, & Calico!