My Memorial Day Thoughts: It's tragic that many young gay men don't make it to 40.

[Mocha]

This past week has been a sobering time (though I still been drinking more than usual lol). It's making me want to change my relations with people.

 

I was searching for a long lost friend the other day, and when I finally found his name...it shows he was deceased since 2016. That was 6 years after I last seen him. So for 9 years, I couldn't find him, and when I finally did...it was too late.

 

I called a friend, feeling very emotional. After that same conversation, I helped him find his ex husband whom he hadn't heard from im awhile. He found out that he recently passed away at around 25. Just the week prior, he found out an old friend in Chicago was murdered, at just 28 years old.

 

Not too long ago, I was next to a friend who was discussing another friend having committed suicide. Couldn't of been older than 30. And just a couple years ago, me and that same friend lost a mutual friend in a horrific car accident. He was only around 26 years old.

 

And with all that being the case, I'm still trying to cope with the tragic, and "deemed" suicidal loss of one of my favorite clients, who wasn't quite 60.

 

It's just so crazy. People disappear, and you think "oh I havent heard from them in awhile". Well check. Maybe they're in need of help, or guidance. I'm tired of it being swepped under the rug and dismissed. Some of the ones who've died, they go away and nobody stops to think what could have prevented it from the start

[gallahadesquire]

Personally, i’m going to call 2019 “the year of death“

 

I returned from overseas on New Year’s Eve. While waiting in LAX for my flight to Boston, I got a phone call from my stepsister, telling me that my stepsister had had a stroke and was in the hospital. A week later, I was in Chicago to see her terminal event. Two weeks later, I return to Chicago for her memorial.

 

The same day as her memorial, I later found out that a fellow I knew from church had died. I knew him from about age 8; he was 50.

 

Two weeks after that, my godfather, mentor, and good friend was admitted to the hospital in Seattle. He had advanced cirrhosis that led to multi organ failure. He died two days after my arrival. Two weeks later, I returned for his requiem.

 

Since then, I’ve learned of the deaths of the fathers of two acquaintances.

 

I’ve had some outside support, but it’s been limited. It’s had a pretty significant hit on my psyche.

 

Instead of Anno Horribilis, it’s been Anno Mortuorum. Thus it is said; thus let it be written.

[Mocha]

Well...I have noticed that more and more of my client’s parents have either passed or have declining health. I think it’s the result of the aging “baby boomer” era.

 

But to have these young men going left and right, it’s just a reminder that gay men’s life expectancy is still shorter than others. Matter of fact, to be more specific, in all the examples I gave above, only 1 was White. So more exclusively, there are many older White gay men, but I feel ethnic gay men face many hurdles on the road to longevity. And by ethnic I mean all outside of White, not just simply Black.