warren c. e. austin
|
 |
Likes it here |
Location: Toronto, Ontario, CANADA
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 247
|
|
|
I'm making one of my increasingly rare "personal" appearances here, specifically for the purpose of making this declaration.
Here, at "A Place of Safety", twice in as many weeks, we have very nearly lost (or could potentially have) individuals that you, and I, have come to consider very dear to many if not all of us.
Why?
What sense of alienation, not just here, but in society at large, prevails that foster such feelings of anxiety and despair?
Feelings that could well result in our losing, IN MY LOSING, two wonderful kind-hearted, compassionate, caring people - one who if age and circumstances had been different could very well have prompted my active pursuit as he is in all respects a man I could (and truly do) love, and one I perceive as being an "ideal" life-partner, the other a blessed and gifted person in his own right and rapidly becoming a friend - men who, as adults, have felt they may have no other alternative but to take their own life.
I'm crying as I write this because I truly cannot understand this, and refuse to accept that any one of us is so indifferent to the needs of those around us, that this might happen.
The two I discuss here are not alone; we have in addition discovered others, through our rhetoric, that whilst not at a point of contemplating suicide, do too, feel sufficiently out-of-place, that they are slowly withdrawing into themselves and away from our community.
This cannot be allowed to happen!
We are "family". And, for some, many of whom have never been sufficiently recognized, because they have chosen to remain largely unknown to us, we are, and may very well be, the only family they have.
I too, at one very dark period in my life, had thoughts of suicide and all that kept me alive were my dogs, and my concern for what would become of them, should I have done so. My children were, and are, indifferent to them. My brother positively hates them. One, or the other, or all would have summarily had them put-down, and would do so now, were I to die. I can only hope I live long enough to out-live the youngest of them - they have proved to be the sole anchor to which I cling.
When my one and only "lover", some 25-years ago, unexpectedly and quite suddenly, died my world collapsed as I knew it then. My friends rallied and for the next 5-years busied themselves, keeping me occupied. Slowly I returned to them and myself.
Of those 40-odd blessed individuals, none to this day remain, all having succumbed to that scourage upon humankind we now know as HTLIV-4/AIDS. I buried the last of them not too long ago. Now, in many respects I feel that I too have out-lived my usefulness, and it is probably my time to move on as well.
But, I won't: firstly for my dogs, and secondly for all of you, especially those I've yet to come to know. If I did, I'd never have that opportunity to meet you (even if only through this transitiory and impersonal media we call the internet), and I know my life would far be lesser richer for not having been able to.
As "K. C." has often quoted "It may all only begin with one drop of water, but look at what comes from that!"
We simply have to care. We cannot ever stop. Living would be pointless otherwise.
Warren C. E. Austin
|
] 
A Place of Safety
Search
Help
Register
Login
Home
