God Is in the Details

[bluenix]

I hope you're stirred, as I am, by this movingly comprehensive tribute.

 

 

http://www.ezshots.com/members/blueman/images/blueman-20.jpg

 

 

Carry on.

[BgMstr4u]

Before we get going on this, one question: Was she personally known to you?

[+ Lucky]

Grief is a personal thing and I don't have any problem with this memorial. I lost a dear friend this week and I will grieve him without a thought to what anyone else thinks is appropriate.

[Guest Hole_4_Hire]

Where is this located?

[Guest DickHo]

I guess this is when too much is too much!

[Will]

I think it's fabulous. At last, a good, honest, heart-felt and very expensive monument to love. The world would be a better place if more people had either the guts or the bad taste to set up something like that, rather than the boring, tight-assed, minimalist coded euphemisms tattooed onto granite that dot most U.S. cemeteries. I just wish they had had a real photograph of her embedded in the stone, as they do in Italy. That's as honest a confrontation with death -- and therefore a celebration of life -- as I've seen in a long time. It's doubly nice to see it on M4M, which has been very lively, in the literal sense, lately.

[Will]

I missed the photo the first time around. So now I see that it's perfect. God is indeed in the details.

[+ Charlie]

Without this monument, none of us would ever have heard of Jayleen, so her loved ones have accomplished their goal that she be remembered.

[Rick Munroe]

Hysterical. I love the part where she loses control of her 1984 Colt on icy North US-2 just a half-mile from her home. How nice to be remembered forever for an inability to drive. Kind of odd, though, that they leave out a description of her twisted, mangled body, or a photo of the wrecked vehicle. I guess they just ran out of room (or money?).

 

By the way...Lucky, sorry to hear about your friend. Derek and I have spent this past week sitting with a relative of mine who is on her deathbed in a hospital for advanced cancer patients. The doctors told us a week ago that she wouldn't make it through the night but she's a fighter & she's holding on. It's the most painful thing to watch. This is the second time we've sat & watched a close relative slowly die. I hope this isn't how it has to end for all of us. Makes me think it's MUCH better to crash your car on icy North US-2, you know?

[Guest Kenny021]

I really don't know how I feel about the tombstone....at first I thought it was very tacky but when I read people's comments, I realized that most obviously don't agree with my interpretation. When I read Rick's comments, I absolutely had to laugh out loud as they seem to match my reaction. Then we read on about his relative who is dying of cancer and know how much compassion he has for this person. Now I don't feel guilty for my original reaction as it became obvious that my feeling that this tribute was tacky has nothing to do with how one feels towards loved ones who died. I suppose how one wishes to express compassion is a very individual thing. Some shout it from the rooftops while others internalize their feelings and keep it very private. Both are very legitimate. And YES, there is humor to be found in ANY situation.

[bluenix]

Nope.

[bluenix]

Here's the Runner Up

 

http://www.ezshots.com/members/blueman/images/blueman-21.jpg

[Will]

Of course it's tacky. That's not the point. We aren't talking about good taste here, we're talking about honesty in the face of something so frightening to most people that they'd rather look the other way. All day today, I've been thinking about the relationship between this thread and the one on shyness in the gym. To my mind -- and some of the responses would bear this out, I think -- they're both about the fear of death. "Death," of course, is a reality so huge that most of us don't know how to manage it except through symbols and metaphors. Thus it's my sense that gay men in the United States -- like all men, whatever their sexual orientation -- are particularly terrified of death because we have no public, cultural discourse about it. (That's why there are all those awful little granite slabs I was complaining about above.)

 

In the case of gay men, I think, we've transferred our own fear of death onto the more immediate fear of losing our youth (whenever "youth" begins and ends). As Duke37 so brilliantly argued on another thread recently, in an entirely sexualized culture the body actually takes over -- even becomes -- the self. Thus, my sense of who I am becomes in large measure determined by where I think I fall on the scale that measures Beauty, which in ordinary gay behavior is almost interchangeable with the power to make other men desire me. Notice: beauty=power; lack of beauty=weakness.

 

Of course, there are many other advantages to youth apart from looks. Among others, there's the ability to adjust to rapid change, to learn new things rapidly, and to imagine that the world is one's oyster. I don't see people expressing their anxieties about losing any of those, however. Most gay men, it seems to me, are far more concerned about where they fall on the staying-cool-while-looking-hot meter than they are about anything else regarding the pains and pleasures of growing older. There could be a monument to the creative and useful gay lives that have been sacrificed to the glamorous lie that I am worth no more than my ability to make othersr desire me. That monument, by the way, would tower over anything else in the cemetery.

[Guest Thunderbuns]

>Hysterical. I love the part where she loses control of her

>1984 Colt on icy North US-2 just a half-mile from her home.

 

Rick, I do love your sense of humour - it matches mine to a "T"

 

It's a wonder Chrysler doesn't sue them - although anyone who entrusts their lives to a '84 Colt is just asking for trouble. Have they never seen a Volvo commercial?

 

As for tacky - this takes the cake. Two thoughts come to mind. I wonder why the cemetary would allow it - and - I'd hate to see their taste in home decor.

 

Thunderbuns

[+ Charlie]

RE: Here's the Runner Up

 

Tacky though the monument to Jayleen may be, I feel sympathy for the grieving loved ones who erected it. John's friends, however, are either really dense or have a wicked sense of humor. The poem is so bad that the coded message has to be deliberate.

[N.N.]

>There could be a monument to the creative and useful

>gay lives that have been sacrificed to the glamorous lie

>that I am worth no more than my ability to make others

>desire me.

 

In other words, a monument to lives lost

by losing control of their Charade.

[BuckyXTC]

Will, you never cease to amaze me with your thoughtfulness and insights.

 

Tombstone #1 is tacky indeed, but no more than many others I've seen over the years. Strange as it may sound, I find visits to cemeteries very interesting, particularly the ones where famous people are interred. At various times and in various places, I''ve visited the graves of Emerson, Thoreau, Louisa Mae Alcott, Stephen Crane, Mary Mapes Dodge and a host of others who've left behind a rich literary legacy. I've seen the tombstones of famous athletes, military leaders, and ordinary everyday people. Even though, to my way of thinking, some of these things may seem in poor taste (like Tombstone#2), I try to remember that tombstones represent the love and respect, or in some cases, guilt that persons had for the one buried there. If you want to see gaudy and tacky, you should visit the gypsy section of one of the large cemeteries in the New York/New Jersey area. Some serious dollars spent on those monuments.

 

Another really fascinating tombstone I've seen is in a cemetery in Linden, NJ........it is a life-size carving of a Mercedes Benz in granite....reportedly costing much more than that actual Mercedes would cost at a dealership....it is the tombstone of Chinese teenager, purchased by his family.

 

A fascinating website where you can see the tombstones of the famous and not so famous, and where they are buried, can be found at:

 

http://www.findagrave.com/

 

It's really worth the visit, and easy to find where lots of interesting folks are buried, as well as some history about them.

[duke37]

Ahh, now we know why we haven't heard much from that certain corner of Chelsea.

 

Rick, if our prayers and good wishes can help your ill loved one, your family or you and Derek, surely know you have them.

 

Jeff

[Guest curious2000]

I had to laugh out loud too to Rick's reaction that they actually engraved: she "lost control of her 84 Colt". I have to question why they would put the year and car model? Why not say she was in a "car accident" not that she "lost control", it sounds like a tacky Tammy Wynette country tune. I think this might be a little internet picture trickery done in Photoshop? esp. the one the spells out F.U.C.K.Y.O.U. vertically, that has got to be just a hoax. Who knows, life is stranger than fiction sometimes. They could be for real. :7

[Rick Munroe]

>Rick, if our prayers and good wishes can help your ill loved

>one, your family or you and Derek, surely know you have

>them.

 

Thanks, Jeff. That's very nice to hear. She passed away (at last) this evening and the funeral is in the morning. Derek, my cousin and I kept telling her to just let go...and she finally did. It was very emotional, very draining. Derek and I definitely need some R&R after tomorrow; we're planning our next stop on Tour 2002 (Chicago; end of this month) right now.

[+ deej]

>She passed away

>(at last) this evening and the funeral is in the morning.

>Derek, my cousin and I kept telling her to just let go...and

>she finally did. It was very emotional, very draining.

 

You have my condolences, Rick. The loss is difficult, but you can't wish the suffering to continue.

 

I went through this with my Dad. For a week the doctors told us they didn't know what was keeping him alive. We knew.

 

It sounds like you knew too.

 

If I'm in Chicago when you're there, you can collect a condolence hug.

[Rick Munroe]

>If I'm in Chicago when you're there, you can collect a

>condolence hug.

 

Thanks, deej. I'll hold you to that.

[Rick Munroe]

>I have to question why they would put the year and car model?

 

(Thanks, Thunder & Curious.) Derek said the same thing: why say that it was an '84 Colt? Wasn't the family embarrassed to say that they let her drive such an infamously crappy car? I did a search on google and it was the subject of quite a few websites devoted to auto recalls. :o

[CT Dick]

> Strange as it may sound, I find visits to cemeteries very >interesting, particularly the ones where famous people are >interred.

 

Not strange to me. I love visiting cemeteries. Last month I went to the St John the Baptist Cemetery in Rio. They have both awesome funereal sculpture:

http://www.findagrave.com/photos/101c/222/goncalvesnelson.jpg

 

 

and Carmen Miranda's tomb:

http://www.findagrave.com/photos/101c/222/mirandacarmen.jpg

 

Dick