Life is very strange sometimes… A week ago today, I went on a journey which has wracked my mind and body with pain and left me a mere shadow of my damaged self. I was in Sacramento, California. I didn’t think I’d ever find myself there; Sacramento is where Stephen promised we’d go to be married. But God was using me to bless someone else’s life and before I realized what was happening, I found myself on my way west chasing the sun and with it, my dreams and Stephen’s promises, even if only in my mind.
As I was driving to the airport last Saturday, more than once, I looked down to the spot between the seats where I had dreamed his hand would be holding mine, but only my hand laid upon the leather that day… Still, I remembered that there had been good days when his hand was there holding mine (when he was sure no one else could see), just as I had dreamed of as a boy when from the back seat of my parent’s car, I’d watch them hold hands as we drove along. That someone would hold my hand that way was one of my fondest dreams even in those days when love to me seemed to only be an impossible dream.
In the parking deck at the airport, which seemed more lonely and foreboding than in all the times I’d been there before, as I took my bags from the trunk of the car, I imagined that they contained “our” clothes and not just my own. I envisioned our black suits there, the same ones we’d worn last December 10th, when we contemplated and then attempted suicide in the garage of the dream house… In my mind’s eye, as I looked at my bags, I envisioned those suits being nestled together in the garment bag destined to be worn for a much happier occasion… In the shadows of the garage, I thought of how in two thousand miles and a day, we could’ve stood together as two becoming one. Alas, with the passing of a car, I was awakened from my daydream and presented with the painful reality that Stephen’s promises… all of them, all of his lovely promises were empty, the lies of a man who lives his life in fear.
Yet, while walking through the terminal, utterly oblivious to those around me, I could imagine his smile and his always mischievous laughter as we together, perhaps even hand in hand made our way to the gate. I could see us sitting in the lounge waiting with eager anticipation for the boarding to begin. I imagined the things we’d be talking about, “life, the universe and everything.” I could see myself handing our boarding passes to the gate agent with Stephen’s hand lightly upon my shoulder. I imagined the knowing smile upon the face of the ubiquitously gay flight attendant as he’d watch us take our seats, showing gentleness and care for each other, knowing he was seeing two who were in love. But I was stirred from my dream by the announcement that boarding of my flight was about to begin and it was now 9 months too late, the same amount of time it takes for a new life to come into the world... As I looked around the gate area last Saturday, there were many couples, even one or two gay couples, but I was not counted in their numbers that day, I was dreaming of promises made but not kept… there were no knowing smiles, no gentle caring, no Stephen, no us… he was not there with me, but I was there.
I sat at the back of the plane, in the very last row where I used to always sit, before Stephen Christopher Harris came into my life. I’ve always liked to sit at the back of the plane, because just like sitting in the back of the theatre, you can see everything that’s happening. Stephen doesn’t like sitting in the rear of the cabin, I learned that when I took us to Philadelphia, he complained and made me feel terrible that day… But closing my eyes to imagine this day as it was supposed to be, Stephen didn’t complain, for once he was happy to sit where I liked. As I sat there with my eyes closed tightly, I could almost feel the warmth of him sitting there next to me, I could feel his soft hand stroking mine, and over the roar of the engines I thought I heard him whisper to me… “We’re finally on our way, Dearest… I love you and my promise was real.” But then with the nudge of the plane being pushed back from the gate, I opened my eyes to the stark reality that Stephen was not there… yet here I was on “our wedding trip.”
With my eyes now closed again… leaving the ground, I felt the plane climbing higher and higher, until finally I knew we were above the clouds to where even through closed eyelids, you know you’ve arrived at the moment and the place where God’s view of eternity lives in the bright beaming sky. I opened my eyes for just a moment to behold the beauty of creation just outside the window. But realizing again, that I was alone, the beauty of it seemed not so… I again closed my eyes hoping to drift off to fevered dreams in fitful sleep… “Please raise your seat back, Sir,” awakened me to “our” soon arriving in Minneapolis. Both Stephen and I had been to the “Little Apple” many times, me for the first time some 27 years before when I left home to go to school there.
With the sound of the landing gear being lowered, I remembered Stephen’s business trip to Minneapolis in 2007, he’d promised that I could go along on those trips, but that was proven just another empty promise as he left me behind yet again. I was jarred from remembering the pain of those memories as the wheels of the plane returned to the earth. While the plane taxied to the gate, I imagined the conversation we would've been having… I was telling Stephen of the first time I came to Minneapolis as a young man; I was really just a boy, barely 18 years old. I could hear him laughing as I told him of my youthful misadventures on Hennepin Street. Then as the plane stopped just short of the gate, I swear I heard him whisper in my ear “500 miles down, 1,500 to go to the beginning our new life, I love you, Dear.”
Having nearly an hour before the next flight it was time to get a bite to eat… I find that I’m rarely hungry these days, but now as when I was a troubled boy, I find solace in food and so I eat. “What shall I have?” I thought as I wandered the concourse… I saw the places that Stephen would have liked, but I couldn’t make myself stop at any of those. Passing a vending machine selling “Rosetta Stone” language courses, I was reminded of when I was with Stephen and he stopped to talk to the clerk who was selling them at Philadelphia International. Suddenly, I felt the same emotions that I felt on that day more than two years ago… I was ignored by Stephen as he pretended that we weren’t together lest any onlooker think that we were what he said we were, “partners and in love.” Then my appetite was truly gone, but I decided to have a hamburger anyway, it would be late by the time I arrived in Sacramento and I knew I’d not want to eat then.
I ate and I watched people passing… I watch people a lot these days. I note if the people I see are alone or if they’re with someone important to them. I especially notice couples. I find that I always look for wedding rings, and that’s something I never did until I was promised one of my own. I found myself wondering if the opposite-sex couples I saw expressing their love and affection so openly realized how truly blessed they were having no need to live in fear of what people may think, or say, or do just because they love someone. I remembered the fear that Stephen allows to possess him. I remembered the few silent whispers over dinners or at the movies… the secret codes, the stolen touches that were pretended to be accidental and his scared looks that even so, meant, “I love you.”
As I ate, every swallow choking me just a little more than the last, I listened to the couple at the next table discussing happy plans the likes of which I’d never even dared to dream for my own life except when I was with Stephen. Interestingly enough, they were on their way to Disney World, Stephen promised to take me there... But that turned out to be another broken promise too; he’d been to "The Magic Kingdom" with other lovers, but not with me. Just then, as I thought about what I was overhearing, the pain of the lies about Disney, and Minneapolis, and New York, and Washington, and Boston, and Park City, Utah pierced my heart anew. Finishing my sandwich, I wiped my lips and then my eyes, which by now were heavy with sorrowful tears. It was time to continue on to Sacramento.
Arriving at my gate, I found everyone already queuing up in line, so I fell in line behind them. Then I realized that directly ahead of me was a same-sex married couple. They both wore wedding bands, they touched and caressed one another the way married people do and they shared each other’s “personal space.” They were younger than Stephen and I, perhaps in their early 30s. They were a lovely sight to see… they were masculine and handsome, but also gentle and kind with each other. Their conversation was that of spouses and lovers… As I watched and listened to them, following them through the line and down the jetway, I wondered why Stephen couldn’t be brave enough to live life as boldly as these two, brave enough to trust God, brave enough to love me as he promised so many times. Instead, Stephen lives in shadows and pretends to be what he is not… I truly envied the two men in front of me that day… How had they overcome the odds that Stephen thought so great that they were unfathomable? Thankfully, they were seated behind me, so as I took my seat, I would not have to watch them for hours and wonder how they had managed to find love and to make the promise of love real.
I settled into the window seat of a row of three. Soon a man in the middle seat and then a woman on the aisle joined me. Almost immediately, these two strangers struck up a conversation between themselves learning that they were both flying for the first time in many years and both were nervous about it... I guess because they were nervous about flying, they kept talking the whole 3½ hours to California. I just sat there with my eyes closed thinking of what I was doing, but I couldn’t help listening to their conversation as well. They discussed anything and everything… love, sex, and politics too. Then they got to same-sex marriage and that pricked up my ears. They were divided on the issue… at first.
During their conversation, my row companions had discovered they shared many similar viewpoints on a plethora of topics… They were both heterosexual, both evangelical Christians, both fairly conservative… He was a person of mixed race, originally from California, and she was white, from Arkansas. They had their first disagreement when they got around to discussing Proposition 8 and same-sex marriage. This surprised me as they’d echoed each other through most of the flight. She said she just couldn’t understand why two men or two women would even want to get married, “It’s unnatural, God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve…”
As I cringed in my seat, the gentleman in the seat next to me surprised me by saying he thought that God made some people gay, they're born that way, and it's not choice or a sin and that, “He wants all his children to be happy and paired with a mate.” I almost fell out my seat. And for the next half hour, he went on to explain how he came to believe what he was telling her... I have to admit, I wasn’t surprised by how he said he came to realize that same gender loving people are just like everyone else... He spoke of a close friend who had come out to him some years ago, and of how he'd never suspected and of how he chose to love his friend rather than judge him.
His conversation about his friend went on until we were at the gate and people were standing in the aisle waiting to deplane... I’d like to think that the gentleman that sat next to me convinced the lady on the aisle, but I don’t think he did, but I could tell that she was still thinking about what he had told her he knew to be true about same gender loving people as we made our way off the plane in Sacramento. I can't explain why, but overhearing their conversation gave me hope for a day when lies and hatred will be replaced with truth... Maybe then, men like Stephen can find the courage to live and love in truth.
As I was driving to the airport last Saturday, more than once, I looked down to the spot between the seats where I had dreamed his hand would be holding mine, but only my hand laid upon the leather that day… Still, I remembered that there had been good days when his hand was there holding mine (when he was sure no one else could see), just as I had dreamed of as a boy when from the back seat of my parent’s car, I’d watch them hold hands as we drove along. That someone would hold my hand that way was one of my fondest dreams even in those days when love to me seemed to only be an impossible dream.
In the parking deck at the airport, which seemed more lonely and foreboding than in all the times I’d been there before, as I took my bags from the trunk of the car, I imagined that they contained “our” clothes and not just my own. I envisioned our black suits there, the same ones we’d worn last December 10th, when we contemplated and then attempted suicide in the garage of the dream house… In my mind’s eye, as I looked at my bags, I envisioned those suits being nestled together in the garment bag destined to be worn for a much happier occasion… In the shadows of the garage, I thought of how in two thousand miles and a day, we could’ve stood together as two becoming one. Alas, with the passing of a car, I was awakened from my daydream and presented with the painful reality that Stephen’s promises… all of them, all of his lovely promises were empty, the lies of a man who lives his life in fear.
Yet, while walking through the terminal, utterly oblivious to those around me, I could imagine his smile and his always mischievous laughter as we together, perhaps even hand in hand made our way to the gate. I could see us sitting in the lounge waiting with eager anticipation for the boarding to begin. I imagined the things we’d be talking about, “life, the universe and everything.” I could see myself handing our boarding passes to the gate agent with Stephen’s hand lightly upon my shoulder. I imagined the knowing smile upon the face of the ubiquitously gay flight attendant as he’d watch us take our seats, showing gentleness and care for each other, knowing he was seeing two who were in love. But I was stirred from my dream by the announcement that boarding of my flight was about to begin and it was now 9 months too late, the same amount of time it takes for a new life to come into the world... As I looked around the gate area last Saturday, there were many couples, even one or two gay couples, but I was not counted in their numbers that day, I was dreaming of promises made but not kept… there were no knowing smiles, no gentle caring, no Stephen, no us… he was not there with me, but I was there.
I sat at the back of the plane, in the very last row where I used to always sit, before Stephen Christopher Harris came into my life. I’ve always liked to sit at the back of the plane, because just like sitting in the back of the theatre, you can see everything that’s happening. Stephen doesn’t like sitting in the rear of the cabin, I learned that when I took us to Philadelphia, he complained and made me feel terrible that day… But closing my eyes to imagine this day as it was supposed to be, Stephen didn’t complain, for once he was happy to sit where I liked. As I sat there with my eyes closed tightly, I could almost feel the warmth of him sitting there next to me, I could feel his soft hand stroking mine, and over the roar of the engines I thought I heard him whisper to me… “We’re finally on our way, Dearest… I love you and my promise was real.” But then with the nudge of the plane being pushed back from the gate, I opened my eyes to the stark reality that Stephen was not there… yet here I was on “our wedding trip.”
With my eyes now closed again… leaving the ground, I felt the plane climbing higher and higher, until finally I knew we were above the clouds to where even through closed eyelids, you know you’ve arrived at the moment and the place where God’s view of eternity lives in the bright beaming sky. I opened my eyes for just a moment to behold the beauty of creation just outside the window. But realizing again, that I was alone, the beauty of it seemed not so… I again closed my eyes hoping to drift off to fevered dreams in fitful sleep… “Please raise your seat back, Sir,” awakened me to “our” soon arriving in Minneapolis. Both Stephen and I had been to the “Little Apple” many times, me for the first time some 27 years before when I left home to go to school there.
With the sound of the landing gear being lowered, I remembered Stephen’s business trip to Minneapolis in 2007, he’d promised that I could go along on those trips, but that was proven just another empty promise as he left me behind yet again. I was jarred from remembering the pain of those memories as the wheels of the plane returned to the earth. While the plane taxied to the gate, I imagined the conversation we would've been having… I was telling Stephen of the first time I came to Minneapolis as a young man; I was really just a boy, barely 18 years old. I could hear him laughing as I told him of my youthful misadventures on Hennepin Street. Then as the plane stopped just short of the gate, I swear I heard him whisper in my ear “500 miles down, 1,500 to go to the beginning our new life, I love you, Dear.”
Having nearly an hour before the next flight it was time to get a bite to eat… I find that I’m rarely hungry these days, but now as when I was a troubled boy, I find solace in food and so I eat. “What shall I have?” I thought as I wandered the concourse… I saw the places that Stephen would have liked, but I couldn’t make myself stop at any of those. Passing a vending machine selling “Rosetta Stone” language courses, I was reminded of when I was with Stephen and he stopped to talk to the clerk who was selling them at Philadelphia International. Suddenly, I felt the same emotions that I felt on that day more than two years ago… I was ignored by Stephen as he pretended that we weren’t together lest any onlooker think that we were what he said we were, “partners and in love.” Then my appetite was truly gone, but I decided to have a hamburger anyway, it would be late by the time I arrived in Sacramento and I knew I’d not want to eat then.
I ate and I watched people passing… I watch people a lot these days. I note if the people I see are alone or if they’re with someone important to them. I especially notice couples. I find that I always look for wedding rings, and that’s something I never did until I was promised one of my own. I found myself wondering if the opposite-sex couples I saw expressing their love and affection so openly realized how truly blessed they were having no need to live in fear of what people may think, or say, or do just because they love someone. I remembered the fear that Stephen allows to possess him. I remembered the few silent whispers over dinners or at the movies… the secret codes, the stolen touches that were pretended to be accidental and his scared looks that even so, meant, “I love you.”
As I ate, every swallow choking me just a little more than the last, I listened to the couple at the next table discussing happy plans the likes of which I’d never even dared to dream for my own life except when I was with Stephen. Interestingly enough, they were on their way to Disney World, Stephen promised to take me there... But that turned out to be another broken promise too; he’d been to "The Magic Kingdom" with other lovers, but not with me. Just then, as I thought about what I was overhearing, the pain of the lies about Disney, and Minneapolis, and New York, and Washington, and Boston, and Park City, Utah pierced my heart anew. Finishing my sandwich, I wiped my lips and then my eyes, which by now were heavy with sorrowful tears. It was time to continue on to Sacramento.
Arriving at my gate, I found everyone already queuing up in line, so I fell in line behind them. Then I realized that directly ahead of me was a same-sex married couple. They both wore wedding bands, they touched and caressed one another the way married people do and they shared each other’s “personal space.” They were younger than Stephen and I, perhaps in their early 30s. They were a lovely sight to see… they were masculine and handsome, but also gentle and kind with each other. Their conversation was that of spouses and lovers… As I watched and listened to them, following them through the line and down the jetway, I wondered why Stephen couldn’t be brave enough to live life as boldly as these two, brave enough to trust God, brave enough to love me as he promised so many times. Instead, Stephen lives in shadows and pretends to be what he is not… I truly envied the two men in front of me that day… How had they overcome the odds that Stephen thought so great that they were unfathomable? Thankfully, they were seated behind me, so as I took my seat, I would not have to watch them for hours and wonder how they had managed to find love and to make the promise of love real.
I settled into the window seat of a row of three. Soon a man in the middle seat and then a woman on the aisle joined me. Almost immediately, these two strangers struck up a conversation between themselves learning that they were both flying for the first time in many years and both were nervous about it... I guess because they were nervous about flying, they kept talking the whole 3½ hours to California. I just sat there with my eyes closed thinking of what I was doing, but I couldn’t help listening to their conversation as well. They discussed anything and everything… love, sex, and politics too. Then they got to same-sex marriage and that pricked up my ears. They were divided on the issue… at first.
During their conversation, my row companions had discovered they shared many similar viewpoints on a plethora of topics… They were both heterosexual, both evangelical Christians, both fairly conservative… He was a person of mixed race, originally from California, and she was white, from Arkansas. They had their first disagreement when they got around to discussing Proposition 8 and same-sex marriage. This surprised me as they’d echoed each other through most of the flight. She said she just couldn’t understand why two men or two women would even want to get married, “It’s unnatural, God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve…”
As I cringed in my seat, the gentleman in the seat next to me surprised me by saying he thought that God made some people gay, they're born that way, and it's not choice or a sin and that, “He wants all his children to be happy and paired with a mate.” I almost fell out my seat. And for the next half hour, he went on to explain how he came to believe what he was telling her... I have to admit, I wasn’t surprised by how he said he came to realize that same gender loving people are just like everyone else... He spoke of a close friend who had come out to him some years ago, and of how he'd never suspected and of how he chose to love his friend rather than judge him.
His conversation about his friend went on until we were at the gate and people were standing in the aisle waiting to deplane... I’d like to think that the gentleman that sat next to me convinced the lady on the aisle, but I don’t think he did, but I could tell that she was still thinking about what he had told her he knew to be true about same gender loving people as we made our way off the plane in Sacramento. I can't explain why, but overhearing their conversation gave me hope for a day when lies and hatred will be replaced with truth... Maybe then, men like Stephen can find the courage to live and love in truth.
"Fear Eats the Soul"
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