A nornal day for a loving, committed couple

... my husband awakens at 3:30 am, pours a cup of coffee from our programmable coffee-maker, then surfs the net and answers his e-mail until 5:00, when he has to jump in the shower to begin his commute by 5:30. At 5:30, I generally wake up, take the first dosages of the cardiac medication I need to make it through the day, give him a kiss goodbye, and - generally, because of the medications - go back to sleep for a couple of hours. He'll start his commute between 5:30 and 6:00 am; it will take him almost two hours to make it the 40 miles from home to work.

When I wake up, I'll call him, to make sure he made it to work okay. The CHF I've lined in the last three years has taken its toll on both of us - his health has declined due to the simple stress of my poor health. Everyday, I hate that I've had to put him through this; everyday, I thank God I've had him by my side...

I was born with a bad heart. I always knew something was going to go wrong, and when it did, it would be major. When I was single, I had one rule: I was going to live my life and when something happened; it happened. I had decided, a long time ago, that when/if my heart ever failed, there would be a "DNR" order; my time would be up, and there would be no regrets on my part. Then, I met him... four years later, I went into Congestive Heart Failure, and suddenly every resolve I had had concerning "what if" scenarios of my heart were tossed out the window. The treatments and surgeries were now simply a matter of course. I know it's selfish, but I wasn't going to miss one single second I could have of life with my husband.

I'm home all day, but several times a day we'll call each other, simply as a check-in, or to let the other of us know how we feel. I must tell him I love him at least six times a day; as he does me. Somewhere around 3:00 pm, I'll call and offer him some dinner options. He gets off work at 5; I try to arrange it so just as he's pulling into the driveway, the potatoes are just finishing being whipped, or the garlic bread is just toasted, or I'm just putting dressing on the salad and tossing it.

We sit (in front of the TV, like so many other American families) and have our dinner, while I ask him about his day, and listen to him as he responds. We've both learned, over the seven years of our marriage, the smallest "throwaway" items of the day may turn out to be significant somewhere down the road, so I want to know all about his day, and he's the same about my day.

During dinner, like I said, the TV is on... either "Cybil" on Oxygen, or "MadTV" on The National Network, or "Law and Order" on either TNT or A&E. Sometime between 8 and 8:30, we'll start getting ready for bed. He has to awaken so early and I'll begin to tire... but I also don't want him to sleep alone. If I weren't tired, I'd still go to bed with him. He finds it difficult to fall asleep without some type of background noise, so the TV will go on (with auto-off timer set), I'll snuggle up against him, and he'll fall asleep. I normally find myself lightly caressing and scratching his back, which will set in motion the only magic trick he knows: The Amazing Disappearing T-Shirt. Without remembering it the next morning, he'll take off his shirt, while asleep, to better feel my fingernails on his skin. Somewhere in all that, I'll fall asleep... and, since I never sleep through a night, I'll find that he's rolled over to hold me, or just simply drop his hand on my hip or thigh... just his way to let him know I'm still there, I guess.

On weekends, and evenings before we've gon to bed, there are times I find myself just looking at him (and he's caught me doing that once or twice); there are times I catch him just looking at me, without saying a word.

Sometimes, I catch myself just on the verge of crying when I'm with him. Just out of happiness. Just to sit on the couch watching television, with his head cradled in my lap, or our fingertips lightly touching. I'm overwhelmed by the depth of emotion I feel for him; how if something were to ever happen to him, my life would never again be complete and whole.

When I was a teenager, in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, all I was ever led to believe was I was a sick, disgusting pervert. When my mother discovered my homosexuality, she forbade me from ever kissing her again. That was 30 years ago. I haven't to this day. Shortly after my first cardiac hospital stay, I confronted my parents about their reaction upon their discovery, when I was 11, that I had been being continuously molested by a neighborhood man. Their reaction? My father beat me, my mother issued her "never kiss me" statement. That was a Saturday in October, on Monday, my father went with me to my school and had me pulled from gym class to "protect the other boys."

In that period of time, we moved. It had been my parent's dream to own a small farm. They finally bought one, thirty miles away from where we were living, and we moved. But what I and my sisters were was that we were moving because I had brought such shame on the entire family, my "normal" sisters were being treated badly by the other kids and their parents. Even teachers had started referring to me as "that queer boy" to my older sister Karen.

When Dad and Mom discovered my sexual orientation, my father told me the day I turned 18, I was out of his house. 3 days before I turned 18, I was out of his house, on my way to my first year of college in New Mexico.

Now, I have this wonderful man in my life; I have this beautiful partner who IS my life.

And some of you have the audacity to pass judgment? Some of you have the unmitigated gall to somehow equate the act of sex with the emotion of love? With a straight face and, I'm sure, a sincere mind, you feel what two people do in bed is the ultimate of their being?

Take out all the overt references to gender in the preceding paragraphs. Omit all the references to my personal experience with coming out. Just read the paragraphs that talk of my emotions and feelings for Bill, and his for me.

Now tell me how ANY of that is different from what you feel for your spouse. Without the Bible. Without your individual morality. Look at emotion, compare it to emotion, and tell me how it's one iota different!

And in doing that, trash my entire life. But somehow justify the willful obliteration of the validity of another human being's existence.

If you were to actually obliterate another human's existence, you would be brought up on murder charges. But by denying their validity, it's somehow less hateful?

Look at some of the statements that have been posted to "pro-gay" newsgroups advocating killing gay men... or of having a "holy war" in which all those deemed to be "non-Christian," or morally lacking would be put to death... but who's Christianity? The Catholics who, according to the Protestants are not Christians because they pray to idols (Saints), rather than to Jesus? Or maybe the Protestants who allow females in leadership rules in their churches, when the Baptists claim women should be totally subservient to men? Or maybe the Mormons, who are reviled for daring to teach of a different Gospel, as well as re-instituting the Old Testament tradition of a man having many wives? Or just about any other "denomination" because the Pentacostals believe only they have it right? Just, exactly, who would be left standing?

Some of you have equated homosexuality with some type of personal choice, that one day we wake up and decide to be homosexual; that you're not really hateful and bigoted and spiteful, you're just protecting yourself.

If you're not hateful or bigoted or spiteful, how do people feel it's perfectly fine to threaten an entire group's life? How can others feel it's perfectly reasonable to agree with those threats? How can you be representing God, and advocating the taking of another person's life all at the same time? Isn't there something about "Thou shalt not kill"? Or "Presume not to know the mind of God"?

You go on your way, somehow convincing yourself you are spreading love and joy to the world, while managing to ignore the carcasses of the persons you've over which you've trod in your zealotry. Mere roadkill on the Highway to Heaven?

I have a life some of you would deny me. No way, mister. Just as you fight for what's yours, you can bet your butt I'll be out there (and have been for years now) fighting for what's mine.

©Eric Seright-Payne Livermore, CA

This webmaster cannot begin to express her thanks to Eric for permission to share this stry with you on "The Lord is my Shepherd and He knows I'm Gay" Website. Any and all rights to reprint, reproduce, and distrubute this story remain with Eric, and any and all he names as his heirs.