Ghosts Of Resentments Past

Last night I cuddled up with my wife, shared some Flower Power hookah with her, and we watched one of my favorite independent films from the late nineties, The Unknown Cyclist. I have wanted to watch the film again for years, but have been unable to find it anywhere. My wonderful wife found it on Youtube for me. I never thought to look there.

The description of the movie simply states that "Bernard Salzmann made his directorial debut with this comedy-drama set in West Hollywood where a wake is held for community center founder Christopher Cavatelli, who leaves behind his lover Doug (Stephen Spinella), his ex-wife Melissa (Lea Thompson), friend Gaetano (Danny Nucci), and his macho heterosexual twin brother Frank Cavatelli (Vincent Spano). After Frank arrives from New York, this offbeat group sets out to distribute Chris' ashes and fulfill his last wish - a five-day, 450-mile charity trip up the California coast on an Aids bike-a-thon." But the description doesn't do the movie justice in my opinion. There is no perfect and good character or evil and bad character. It shows many of the issues around orientation and Aids as they were in the late nineties, and sadly much still the same today. The movie is well written, serious, inspiring, funny and clean. But that's not why I love it.

I love it as much as I do because I thought when I saw it in '98, and still feel, that it shows an awesome, interesting and moving way to have my ashes handled after I'm gone. Yes, I plan to be cremated, and no I don't want that to be any time soon, which is one difference between now and then. I felt fascinated by the idea of splitting my ashes between several special people. In my plans, they would each be instructed to take their portion to a place that was special to them in conjunction with a memory of me and release the ashes there, one last moment between them and me, one on one so to speak.

While I have been wanting to see it again, and looking forward to watching it with Leah, who had never seen it, last night felt harder than I anticipated. The movie always moved  me emotionally, but not like last night. I felt grateful that I could see the film with Leah, that thanks and praise be to God I survived the Bi Wonder days without contracting HIV, grateful that I finally found my perfect partner, my best friend and helpmate, my treasure that I want to grow old with. At the same time I felt sad and afraid that I am facing health issues which have the potential of robbing that last gratitude and dream, sad that if I want something special done with my ashes similar to what I've wanted to do since I saw the movie the first time that I may need to start planning and documenting exactly what I want sooner than expected or desired, and I even felt a little guilty that I haven't done anything with Andrew's ashes.

But I got over the negative aspects fairly quickly. I am trusting God about the health issue, and progress towards treatment is finally being made. I still have more hope that I will be able to grow old with Leah than fear that I won't. And as for guilt about Andrew's ashes, Leah has been sweet and understanding enough to let them sit in a beautiful urn in our living room, but that guilt is simply a result of procrastination. I've felt for a while now that it's time to release them. My home with Leah is ours, and I don't want to share it with the ashes of my ex, and sitting on a shelf is never what Andrew wanted when he left me his ashes anyway. I can take care of that soon.

With those issues contemplated and released, gratitude remained while fear and guilt faded away. I snuggled Leah closer to me and relaxed into the story. But about halfway through I received a text from my mother informing me that, "Your Aunt Earlene is with the Lord." I knew it was coming, but it still hit me hard to hear about the death of my father's sister. She was an amazing lady. She made homemade pretzels with me and my cousins when I was a child, and the first memory I have of catching lightning bugs in a jar was one evening at her house in Mineola. I will miss her.

But being confronted with the issue of death once more while watching a movie about honoring the memory of the loss of someone brought up again the simple fact that I am not ready to say goodbye to my family and friends and not ready for them to have to deal with losing me so soon after getting me back, I don't want the reconciliation between my brother and I to take place over my ashes, and something else nagged at the back of my mind.

This morning I realized what that nagging was. Resentment. Resentment that I believed that I had let go of quite some time ago.I have been blessed in a lot of ways, but specifically lately I have been blessed with the care I have received since the radiologist saw the problems with the lymph nodes in my lungs, even if it hasn't progressed as quickly as I would like. My father-in-law, a doctor, is working to get me admitted to UTMB Gavelston to have a mediastinoscopy done. This is an expensive and somewhat complicated procedure that I can't afford without assistance. I am not looking forward to having someone cut into my chest to remove part or all of the three affected lymph nodes, but it's much better than the alternative. I am grateful that it looks like I will receive treatment and have a good chance to see the dream of growing old with my wife come true.

That said, I am having problems with the idea of trusting my life to UTMB. UTMB has the contract with TDCJ to treat Texas prison inmates. Every infirmary on every Texas unit is run and staffed by UTMB. It won't do me any good to go into more deeply here, so suffice it to say that what I experienced and saw of what passes for medical care on Texas prison units is abysmal and left me with fear and anger towards this organization.

Logically I know that UTMB Galveston is a good hospital with good doctors and is totally separate from the division of UTMB that controls the prison infirmaries. I know that I have been blessed by the opportunity to get treatment there. Emotionally I am mixed up. I know this is due to resentments, and resentments untreated can be most dangerous to my sobriety. I am grateful that my health situation and the other things going on in my life right now have worked together to bring to light this root of resentment that before I was not aware that I had. Now I know what I have to do. I have to look at my part in things. I have to pray for UTMB and the prison doctors and nurses, and I have to forgive them as I would like to be forgiven. Then the ghost of resentments past can disappear into the fog of memory and no longer haunt my emotional castle.