Living Proof

Without a doubt, it’s hard to see a loved one sick, and even harder to watch someone facing a terminal illness with a potential expiration date. My family has to excuse me for writing about this, I know they are a bit more private than I can ever be, but this is my outlet and perhaps my writing can help someone else going through similar situations. Last Sunday, Madelene’s family and my family got together for dinner. We had a great time and dad seemed to be doing okay for the most part. I noticed that my father wasn’t eating very much, however when I made coffee and put the desserts out which Mad’s mom brought over from this incredible bakery, he began to eat more. He livened up with some coffee and a bit of Puerto Rican anisette. (We all did actually.) Dad was happy, talking & laughing with everyone. Later on that evening, mom calls me and tells me to call 911 and come down ‘cause dad was sick again. Dad was disoriented - didn’t even know who we were. Mad helped him walk over int

My wife told me this story about when she was a little girl, probably 3 or 4 years of age, she was at this petting zoo and she fell in love with these baby chicks. They were under heating lamps in a huge bin - probably a ton of them all chirping and hopping around. She asked her mom if she could hold one. When she was given the baby chick, she held on to it so tightly, that she suffocated the poor thing. She didn’t want to let it go. She cried and cried and never forgot that moment in her life. It’s true though in a proverbial sense: when you hold onto something so tightly, you’ll kill it, or in some cases, it’s like sand - it’ll slip right through your fingers. Even when we hold on tightly to “control” - the more we try to gain control, the less we have of it. That’s why it’s so important to just let go and let God. I remember a time in my life where I had to have every single thing in my life within my control. Ironically, everything in my life at that particular time was quite the o

There’s a fine line between love and hate when it comes to Christian beliefs. Holy wars, Christian debates, ‘what’s a sin & what’s not a sin’ type of arguments and of course, the conviction of others through “righteous judgment”. We are all sinners regardless of our perfect or less than perfect lifestyles. Even if we love God with all of our heart - God knows how messy life can be. He sees our struggles and most of all, sees our hearts. Without a messy life, we probably wouldn’t come to God for help. Through our weakness, He is our strength, as written in the Bible. We divide when we’re offended by another’s judgment. I divide when I see another Christian tearing other Christians down. No sin is greater than another. While having said that, as you’ve been reading the debates between Kimberly Bowman and I, we both clearly disagree about homosexuality being a sin. Her usage of “homo” and “the hateful lesbian” (because I stick up for myself & the LGBT community), are all hurtful.

T his is the face of intolerance. This is the face that teaches hatred towards anyone who is gay or lesbian. This is also the face who has children, to which I can only assume teaches zero tolerance for homosexuals. Parents need to understand that their children look up to them. They believe them. They're the only truth they have. Teaching children to have hatred, intolerance and giving false information about gays, lesbians and transgender people is not “Christian-like”. It’s your fear that teaches them these things; your fear that perhaps your child may grow up to be gay or lesbian, or worse yet, “tolerate” those who are. When you teach your kids that it’s okay to tease those who are homosexual & call them "homos", you’re also teaching them to kill. Maybe they’re not killing them with their own hands, but they’re killing them with mere words. Words can hurt more than a physical beating sometimes. And for Jamey Rodemeyer, it “didn’t get better” for him, as he states

More often than not, many of my readers saw the bitterness and rage that went into religion, mostly due to the many Christian debates regarding homosexuality vs. religion. Some would email me on the side or make public comments asking me “why” I would defend myself against people who were so very hateful and had words to only tear down somebody’s spirit, not to edify or encourage them as true Christians would. They would call it “righteous judgment” and explain that since I was living such a sinful life by having a loving partner of many years, that I was going straight to hell and that I should give up this “filthy lifestyle” and repent. While focusing very closely on my life, I started to realize that it wasn’t me who was hurting and feeling all sorts of guilt and shame, but it was the very ones who attacked me so viciously. Even when they threw scriptures at me, I’d show them scriptures to counteract it. The Bible is very complex, misinterpreted and also, misunderstood most of the t

I’ve been a complete ball of static these past couple of weeks. Irritated, stressed out and full of anxiety. It comes out in various ways from avoidance of all people or saying something completely out of bounds without even realizing it (and sometimes realizing it). Sunday morning, I woke up and found Madelene making breakfast for me. Usually I’m up before her making her breakfast, but she beat me to it. She knew how distraught I was about life and everything going on in it. Mad on the other hand remains positive on every single situation, or the best of her ability, which I admire. I wish I had that type of mindset - that inner peace no matter what’s exploding outside your circle of tranquility. As I was putting away my dish, I said, “Thank you so much.” She looked at me and said, “For what?” I smiled, walked out of the kitchen and started to think to myself: “For what? For being the best friend I ever had. For listening. For sharing yourself with me. For understanding my anxie

Everything changes. People change. Minds change. Hearts change. There’s no stopping it. Whether good or bad, I was told the change should be embraced, whether through a friend or some cheesy quote I found on the net. “What won’t kill you will make you stronger.” While I know that hardships in life do make us more knowledgeable so we can cope with it better the next time around, I wonder if it truly makes us stronger, or does it possibly cram us back into our shell a little more? They say knowledge is power, but I’m not sure that “power” has strength. I do believe the mind is underestimated, so I have conflicting thoughts on it. For instance, if you put your mind into it, you can conquer almost anything. But, on the other hand, what if fear trickles into that “you can do it” mindset? It kind of puts a monkey wrench into the works. We all have some level of fear whether we admit to it or not, and some people can do it above and beyond the fear while it’s still present. A good friend o

There’s always going to be people who hate you for whatever reason, critics who tear you apart, bone by bone and those who simply judge you without taking a second glance at their own life. It’s especially difficult to ignore it if it’s somebody you care about or love. It’s easy to brush aside the ones who are just in a mediocre standing in your life. Depending on your mind’s ability to flush out the toxins, it can either make you or break you. To be honest, I haven’t quite learned a perfect way of flushing these evil spirits, but at times, God gives me the understanding and discernment to realize their motives and reasonings for it all. Sometimes it’s rational and other times, it’s just erratic and uncalled for. The one common denominator: it’s out of “my” control. If you don’t like the way I do A. B. or C. - I can’t convince you that I’m doing it to the best of my ability. If you think my “X” looks bad today, I’m not going to make excuses or tell you that you’re wrong for thinking so

For as long as I can remember, I’ve never quite handled stress well. For instance, my body’s physical response is to get sick, mimicking a stomach virus, if you get my drift. Prolonged stress would bring on IBS and ulcer-like symptoms. I remember at the age of sixteen, I developed an ulcer due to a very stressful event in my life. It went away thankfully, but it really did a number on my body and psyche. I would steer clear of certain foods and would develop fears about getting an ulcer once again. Throughout my twenties and early thirties, it was generalized anxiety type of stressors, like the pressures of work, relationship issues and so on. All of us have stressors, but for some people like myself, I process it much differently. I internalize a lot of things and it ends up giving me a “stomach virus”. I even develop a low grade fever with it. I then started developing new symptoms to stress, like bleeding in between menstrual cycles as well as fainting spells, which happened at my l

It’s been a rough week, between dad being in the hospital, receiving bad news and having myself end up in the same hospital due to stress. Our family has been overloaded with an extreme amount of stress, anxiety and sadness lately. Seeing our father, aka “Superman” wither away from his illness and lack of will from hearing the worst news of all from the doctors, we’ve all been handling our stress in various ways. We also have in the back of our minds that mom may be affected by all this stress too, so we’re trying to do our best to ‘keep it all together’ for her, and somehow, it just winds up a big chaotic scene. We all love one another so much and so scared to see our own family break apart, either by arguments, or worse off, death. I can only speak for myself and say that this huge change of events has me in a constant state of turmoil. With a million emotions going through my system while getting ready to see dad and the family at the hospital, I finally shut down on Monday morning.