5 Minutes to Midnight

What do you think is worse: To have your life is come to a drastic and immediate end or to have your life slowly seep out from you over time, as you lose control of your body and mind? This is the question I've been mulling over today.

After finishing an online meeting this morning, I walked downstairs to find my Mum in tears while talking on the phone. I sat down next to her, without interrupting, awaiting the bad news that was going to be explained to me once she was done with the call. She soon hung up the phone and let it out: Oldest Brother was in Toronto for a conference. He had decided to randomly stop by my Grandmother's house to visit. He rang the doorbell and knocked a few times, without an answer. He found the door unlocked, so he let himself inside. He ended up finding Grandma lying on the ground in an overwhelming pool of blood, without the ability to speak coherently. A 911 call later, phone calls back and forth between himself and us in Montreal, and about 10 hours of time, my Grandma is now in the hospital with a broken nose, probably broken pelvis, what seems like a stroke, and in a quasi-coma. To add onto that she's hooked up to a respirator and has yet to speak to anyone. She may have been lying on the kitchen floor for a full day, unable to help herself, before Oldest Brother walked in.

She only briefly appeared once in my blog, but that shouldn't make you think I don't care a lot about my Grandmother. Independent, quick, witty and always interesting & entertaining, she's the only grandparent I have really known well.

In this situation, like I said to my Mum, we should only focus on the immediate since there's no point in thinking about the repercussions of everything that
s going to follow over the long term. Still, just as my Dad verbalized what we all separately thought, there are only two outcomes right now: in the next few days, Grandma's precarious condition will deteriorate and she will die, or she will recover but be forced into some sort of home or assisted care due to her injuries and stroke, where she will stay for the rest of her days.

Obviously you should understand why I began the post as I did.

The truth is that it took me only a few minutes to make my decision: I'm hoping for a quick, sudden death for my Grandma.

Worse than the current predicament, I'd be a lot sadder if we had to keep her in some sort of old folks' home. One of the things she values the most is her liberty and self-sufficiency. Giving up her current home of 50+ years, the garden, her car and all her activities would be devastating to her. When the doctors asked my Mum, over the phone, if they could hook her up to the breathing device, my Mum answered: "I know she would fight it but I am going to say yes for my own selfish reasons."

To add onto that, Grandma was always one of the most eloquent and pertinent conversationalists; when she has something to say, it sounded important, beautiful and intelligent. The doctor's don't know the intensity or damage of the stroke, but I've seen others get wrapped up in frustration from not being able to express themselves when their words were once their closest friends. I don't think I could bare to stand that.

Oddly enough though, my feelings for my Mum are trumping those for my Grandmother. Since they are mother and daughter, I know my Mum will take/is taking this situation worse than the rest of the family. All I can do right now is comfort her (which I personally think I am quite good at). The sad truth is that if Grandma does survive the next few days, a long, drawn out half-life for my Grandmother would just sap the strength out of my Mum. I know it would exhaust her and rip the well-placed heart off of her sleeve. She would be by my Grandmother's side day and night, which is wonderful, all the while the circumstances would depress her more and more.

So here's to taking each day once at a time, coming together as a family, watching and waiting.

Savage Love

About a year ago, Alicia sent me a link to one of her favorite internet columnists: Dan Savage from Savage Love. This person has been writing a not-so-vanilla sex & relationship column for about 10 years. Although now a growing public figure (he does appear on CNN from time to time when they talk about gay or anti-gay issues), he initially became popular for his hilarious and asshole replies that he would sometimes give out to people who asked for his advice.

Since Alicia introduced me to the site, I've do check back on it from time to time and I always find it super entertaining and interesting to read.

I've decided to link you all to my favorite article from his column archives:
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/SavageLove?oid=532280
It's about gay teenagers and coping with being gay/hiding you're gay. I don't love this article for the humor or odd situations, like other weeks' entries, but more for its sadness.
If you've read my blog since the beginning, or if you feel like reading it from the start right now (DO IT!) you should know that I have an odd fascination and attraction to sorrowful, trouble and distressing things. I'm pretty sure it relates back to most of my feelings from my teenage life; I just feel like I can relate well to those emotions. I'm not a sad person today, but that doesn't mean that I don't understand. This is also probably why I love to route for the underdog.

Well, the article I've linked is a prime example of people who've been pushed into an ocean on their own, and need to fight against the giant crashing waves without a real hope for someone to save them - at least, not for a while. Dan Savage's replies are definitely good for the situations, but it shows sometimes you just need to bottle up all your feelings inside of you and just run full steam on the rage, anger and hate that comes from inside of you (and from outside of yourself too). That rage, anger and hate might just be the one things that keep you alive and going.

Don't worry, this post isn't all doom and gloom though. The article I linked to also has a nice little ending. The last entry, Savage includes in that week's article, just shows that not everyone has to go through such bad things.

I hope you all learn to love the Savage Love column.

You want to help them, but

I'm always surprised by how entertained I am by my clients from work. For doctors, researchers, psychologists/psychiatrists and clinicians, they can be pretty damn cool. I guess the whole internet-meeting and relaxed environment really breaks down their professionalism, turning them into normal human beings.

Well, most of them. Some are always dicks.

Every so often though, there's that 3rd type of person who get a hold of our association. I always feel terrible for them. From the first time I hear them speak, I can tell that I shouldn't be helping them at all.

It's not that they are bad or mean people. No, not at all - just the opposite in fact: they feel a bit too much. I would hope that all people in my bio-medical line of work care strongly about their patients. This particular kind of person I'm referring to, though, gets too deeply into their practice. It's not hard to tell either. There's a subtle desperation in their voice, that's offsetting. They need to help someone.

One woman comes to mind, from not too long ago.

Her: Well, I have my own private practice in [township East of Montreal]. I would like to incorporate EEG (a.k.a. brainwave) training in my treatments...

Instructor: Alright, we can get into that. Is there a particular specific focus for EEG training?

Her: Well, I would like to look at old age and memory loss. See, my mother has been forgetting...

Even before she mentioned her Mom, I knew beforehand that she was getting into our "tech-stuff" for the wrong reasons. You see, this 3rd type of person that I encounter through work is trying to help a member of their own family.

It's admirable and wonderful that they would go to such lengths to try and help someone. However, as much as someone, or maybe you in fact, want to help a loved one, you should never try to perform the treatment yourself. I would never expect anyone to attempt surgery on their son, but you would be surprised how many people want to buy bio-medical equipment to treat their son's intense ADHD.

One should never be emotional close to the patient. Accuse me of being detached or emotionless, but you don't think clearly and you risk doing damage. You want to get results, no matter what.

The quoted woman from above, was very insistent on wanting to help her mother push back the mental effects of old age. She wanted to start treatment immediately, without even knowing what to train or where to focus. Two lessons in, I could tell she didn't have the natural "feel" or talent to use the equipment. Even with 50 hours of training, I doubt it anything the instructor or I taught her would solidify in her mind.

I admired her for wanting to help, but I did feel bad for her. It's always best to let someone else treat someone, for whom you care deeply.

One last name for the books

All too often I look at my life, past and present, and think that I have things a lot tougher than most people. In reality, this isn't true - it's just part of human nature for me to get caught up in my own struggles. When I think about the situations other people are going through, I can be quick to say:

That's nothing. They have it easy. He/she just isn't willing to do something that's so clear and easy... They have no idea what's it's really like to go through....

Again, that's just part of being human. From my perspective, some conflicts can be so unimportant and easily resolved, while from someone else's perspective it can be so hard and confusing. The collective experiences I've had are different from other people's experiences, so what's hard or easy is accordingly different for each of us. If I push myself out of my self-absorbed, Western-centric world, I can easily imagine at least 5 billion people who's lives are incomparably more difficult than mine. Unfortunately, I'm human and most of us have a hard time looking outside ourselves to get that perspective.

You might think I'm going into some sort of guilt trip / let's think about the little people out there, but I'm not. The post is going in a different direction from ... (Aside: I don't think I portray myself correctly in this blog, because in actuality I'm a bastard. I can be very caring but I can also be a complete, self-centered asshole. I really wouldn't bother doing the whole think of the unfortunate people...)

Kieran is one of the very few people, or potentially the only one, whom I feel can understand my collective experiences and difficulties. From my perspective, he has had a tough (and interested) life. I can easily say he has been through more than anyone I know, including myself. We have faced similar, however completely different shit in our lives - think of it as the two opposite sides of the same coin - so different but still complementary. This is the strong basis of our friendship.


Although Kieran was not named before, I have eluded to him twice in this blog. He is one of the friends for whom I got a job at my work. It's his house where we would play video games instead of work. His photo is also at the bottom of that post. He then got two more photo-ops on the blog when I briefly mentioned my past attraction to him.


After being acquaintances with my greater group of friends for a few years, Kieran was brought into the circle soon after I gave him a job. Before then, my friends and I knew and really liked him, but never got close enough to become part of the regular gang. As Alicia, Kieran and myself hung-out via work (or "work"), Kieran and I bonded over our lives.

This, in brief, is what we learned:

We both grew up in loving homes, with both parents and 2 siblings each.

In primary school, I was diagnosed with leukemia (cancer) and spent the next 3 years being treated. For Kieran, life was normal.

In high school, I dealt with being was gay by descending into my ultra-closeted state-of-fear, protection and depression. I slowly mentally pulled myself away from my family, while maintaining a happy face for all to see.
High school for Kieran went as expected for a straight kid who excelled at school and sports, until his sister was diagnosed with cancer. The family would rally around her and her health would fortunately improve with time.

CEGEP would be start of [very] small steps for me accepting my sexuality, although still hiding it from my close friends and family.
For Kieran, CEGEP would be the shit hitting the fan. A walk home from his soccer team's game would end with him being jumped by a bunch of the opposing team's players. They apparently didn't like losing to his team, so they beat the shit out of him, putting him into a coma for a few days and forcing him to stay lying down for 3 months.
A year after that event, Kieran's mom would be diagnosed with breast cancer.

Entering university, his mom's health would steadily decline. As the unifying force and support in Kieran's family, his mom's sickness would cause a collapse in the lives of Kieran's sisters and father, along with his own. Kieran would try to take her place, but it would be too much. His sisters and father would each develop their own type of depression and problems. It would only worsen, when in first year of university Kieran's mom died.

Leading up to today, every month has been a trial for Kieran since he effectively became a parent to his two sisters and father.
Kieran's dad went deeper into depression and combined that with heavy drinking. Who knows what's gone through Kieran's dad's mind, but he has become deluded. He sold their family home and moved to the country, to get away from his kids, memories and be left alone. Back in highschool, it became apparent to Kieran, his mom and sisters that their dad was also gay - since there were plenty of unusual web browser entries - so that is likely to be connected into Kieran's father's psychoses.
All on their own, Kieran's sisters had only Kieran for help. Conversations by phone with their father would only end in abusive yelling. Although one sister has steadily gotten onto her feet and is starting to take control of her life, the other sister has always felt like she never fit in with the people around her. Like her dad, it's obvious she also has some deep rooted problem, which culminated this past summer with her attempted suicide by swallowing whatever pills she could get her hands on.

By comparison, my life has been smooth sailing. Just about all my friends know I'm gay and I've become incredibly comfortable with myself. I'm still afraid of how my family will take, some day when I tell them, and paradoxically I also have this internalized fear that I just don't care much about any of them. Oddly enough over the last few weeks I've felt increasing anger toward them, but that's a topic for somewhere else.

Clearly, Kieran's life and my life have not walked in each others' paths, however, like I said before, they've been reflection on the similar events, just from a different angle: The cancer, homosexuality, losing family and trying to keep them together. My sections of the blurb are short just because this blog has gone through them enough already. I could go into much greater detail about Kieran and his family, but the post has already gotten long enough.

People bond over mutual struggles and that is what Kieran and I have done. It's a comfort to speak with someone who has gone through so many things that could easily mentally destabilize anyone. I've spoken with him over moments when he's hitting the ground hard, but he always manages to come back. The loss of his mom, and essential loss of his dad is tough but he seems to be tougher. He has listened to my problems with my family and is always capable of giving a good perspective, that other side of the coin if you will. It's a widely accepted between all our friends that Kieran is the one person you can always count one when in need. I hope that I can one day been seen in such high regard as him.

This is not to say my relationships with Xav, Tim or Mike are weaker, but they really haven't experienced anything difficult in their lives. Obviously, I'm making that mistake that I described at the very beginning of this post by analyzing another's life based on my own experiences, but I just can't help that. As amazing as they are, I don't think life has tested them much just yet.

I guess it's time to bring this to an end.... Kieran, what can I say about him...
Well, he's felt something similar to what I have and I look up to him. I can't really say anymore.