Walking Home...

When I got home from rehearsal tonight, I had a ton of e-mails...almost all of them from myself. Everytime I got ready to leave the office, I would remember something else I needed to do and send myself an e-mail. When I got back to my junky, apartment (which is even more of a disaster, the week before the show) all of those "to-do" e-mails were here waiting for me. Once again, I was too tired to fix anything, so I went back out to McDonald's (I've been eating waaaay to much crap the past two weeks, even for me) and on the way home, on a beautiful, balmy spring night...with the scent of french fries wafting from my bag, it happened again. You know how you can live with someone for decades, especially in a small space, and over time, you've heard all of their anecdotes a million times? Even before he got extremely sick and it started affecting his mind, Lionel was a gregarious talker...to anyone who would listen, even (especially) strangers on the street. And when no one would listen, he would come home and talk to me. Sometimes, it would irk me, especially when I was trying to concentrate and get something done. Most of the time, I was able to conceal that and feign interest. But a occasionally, when I was really busy, or really tired. He could tell I wasn't really listening. Then he would get annoyed and go in the livingroom and pout. Lionel could hold a grudge forever...but he couldn't stay mad very long at all. Before I knew it, he would be back in the room telling me something else, that he'd already told me a dozen times. He was a very animated talker, acting stories out and waving his arms when he got wound up. Mostly he enjoyed the attention. And it was both irksome and endearing as those things can be...when the person hasn't died yet...and you don't know the time will come when you would give ANYTHING to drop everything and just listen to them ramble as long as they wanted. Lionel told the same jokes over and over and he enjoyed his own jokes, as much -- or more -- than anyone. Enjoyed the telling, enjoyed the punchlines, got tickled and laughed at himself every time. Sometimes, laughing almost too much to finish. As I was walking that short block back to The Covington, a man emerged abruptly from the alley, walking a large black dog. At first I thought it was my neighbor upstairs. The actor who has a similar dog, so I was poised to speak...then I realized it was someone else. A total stranger. He stopped so that his dog could sniff around the base of a random tree and take a leak. A sight I see, one we've all seen a million times here in the city. But, in the instant, I was reminded how, no matter how many times Lionel saw this happen, he would grin at the stranger and say "That dog is just checking his "Pee-mail" then he would chuckle, pleased with himself and his cleverness. That vivid image came to mind in that moment as I passed the man with his dog, and it was almost as if Lionel was there walking there with me, as he had so many times, on our way home from McDonalds at night. I could almost here his voice making that familiar joke, "Pee-Mail"...and chuckling. At the same moment I smiled at the memory, my eyes filled with tears. But, instead of laughing or crying, I opened the door and entered the lobby, passing the mailbox that still reads, Sharpe & Jaggers"...and climbed the two short flights stairs to my apartment. Alone.

A Sad Anniversary

By this time, two years ago, Lionel had been in the intensive care ward at Georgetown University Hospital for almost two months. The doctors had determined there was absolutely no chance that he would ever recover. And the miracle for which I had been so desperately praying had not come to pass. A few days prior, his family had finally and collectively, made the heartbreaking decision to disconnect him from the life support machinery which, at that point, was keeping him alive...but they were having a difficult time deciding when this would be done. It was a cold, grey Sunday. A day very much like today. I had gone to the hospital, as I did every day since he was admitted, arriving a little after one in the afternoon. Ordinarily, I went later, Sundays were usually a busy visiting day on the ward, but I had a show opening the following night and the final dress/tech rehearsal was that evening. Plus, my job was renovating its Baltimore office, and I had to be up early the next morning to take the train to Baltimore to be on-site with the contractors. I sat holding his hand, watching him sleep much of the afternoon, and was glad when some of his family arrived to visit, as I hated leaving him alone to go to my rehearsal. We chatted briefly, then I headed outside, where a light drizzle had begun to fall and it was growing dark. On my way to the bus stop, I encountered more of his family on their way up to the room. Again, I was relieved. At first. But by the time I got to the bus stop, and saw even more family parking their cars. I became concerned. It seemed odd that he would have so many visitors in one day. Finally, the reason hit me and, when I talked to his family members, they confirmed that the decision had been made to disconnect Lionel from life support that evening. It was a very stressful and emotional time, and everyone thought someone else had told me. It scares me now, to think how close I came to not being there. I accompanied them back inside to the ward where, individually and collectively, we all said our goodbyes. Finally, came the moment I had been dreading. As we all crowded into the room, surrounding his bed. The nurses came in and disconnected the machinery keeping Lionel alive. Although they had gradually eased him off the sedatives, he did not regain consciousness. I know that was a blessing for us. I hope it was a blessing for him. I cant' help thinking he would have been stoic, but terrified. I certainly didn't want that to be his last experience. We all told him we loved him. Even though, I had known for a week or two, that he would never be coming home, I was not prepared to say goodbye. In a lot of ways, I still am not. It was very emotional when the nurses came in to confirm to us that he was gone. Lots of tears, lots of hugging as we tried our best to support each other. After everyone left the room, I sat with him for awhile longer, just telling him one final time how much I loved him and how much having him in my life had meant to me. I gathered up some of his personal things, I had taken -- a stuffed animal one of my co-workers had sent, a "Krusty the Clown" toy I had taped to his bedframe, so that he would have something familiar to keep him company. With most of the machines off, it was dark and quiet in the room. The only light from the nurses station just outside the door, and the small Christmas tree I had brought to cheer him up. He loved watching the ebb and flow of the colored lights. it seemed to calm him. Over the years that I'd known him, Lionel frequently had trouble sleeping, due to pain, illness, having a lot on his mind...and frequent nightmares. Sometimes, i would go into the room and see he was in the throes of a frightening nightmare. Trying not to startle him or awaken him too abruptly, I would stroke him on his arm, talk to him soothingly, kiss him, on the forehead, and reassure him it was just a bad dream. Sometimes, he would awaken and smile, drowsily trying to describe his nightmare. Frequently he said he was being chased and had flown into the air...then suddenly remembered that he shouldn't be able to fly. I'd sit with him, until his eyelids started getting heavy again. I would stroke his forehead and we would talk quietly until he started to fall asleep again. Other times, he never awakened, so I would talk to him gently until I saw his his furrowed brow slowly relax. I'd know then, that the nightmare was over and he was sleeping peacefully. While waiting for that to happen, I would keep murmuring to him, "You're fine now...safe and cozy." Over time, that also became our little ritual, the last thing I'd say to him each night. After helping him let out his bed, making sure our front door was locked, the lights were out, his television remote was nearby and he was tucked in comfortably, and before heading into my bedroom myself to retire, I would say, "Here we are, safe and cozy." And, each night he would reply "Yeah, safe and cozy...." and smile, sleepily. Before leaving his hospital room that final night, I leaned over, kissed him one last time, and murmured, our parting words, "Safe and cozy, Lionel." He was no longer suffering. I'd like to think that he was at peace.

Christmas Shopping

In just a few weeks, it will have been two years since Lionel died. Yet, I'm still catching myself making mental notes of things that would make good Christmas presents for him. Things he would like. It happened just now, when I saw something that would have made him happy...and it's too late to give it to him.

Early morning. It's still dark outside, and raining. Sometimes, it sneaks up on me. I get up to go to the bathroom and it is not him snoring softly in the darkened living room. I still expect to see him. Cutting his hair in the bathroom, brushing his teeth with his noisy, battery-powered toothbrush (still in the medicine cabinet because I can't bear to throw it away.) Still hear him puttering around in our tiny kitchen, fixing breakfast, grilling cheese sandwiches, cooking those smelly crabs. See him, reading the newspaper, glasses sliding half down his nose. Still hear him cussing the Redskins on t.V., arguing with his younger brothers on the phone - then laughing about it. Ironing his clothes in the precise, post-military, fashion. Singing along with music videos in his off-key way. Cackling at cartoons in the middle of the night. Admonishing me to "Fix your collar." Going downstairs to check for the mail. Happy because he found a cigarette he'd forgotten he had. Fussing about too many commercials. Mixing his orange juice and vodka with that casual satisfaction. Calling me, interrupting rehearsals, to see what time I'd be home. Stopping to talk to every dog we encountered and every baby rolling by in a stroller, as he walked me to work. Or sitting outside my job on the wall grinning, waiting for me when I finally got off. Cramming all his clothes in one washer and dryer to save the extra change for a beer. I forget. Then, I remember. I forget. Then... I remember.

I don't post updates here as often...

...not because I no longer think of Lionel, or because I have "accepted" his death. In fact, it's quite the opposite. Everyone said it would get easier with the passage of time...but it hasn't. It is just as hard. I don't write in the blog because it is painful to even see it. I wouldn't dare go back and read over any of it. That would just be like reliving the whole experience and I do enough of that as it is. For a while now, I've been keeping myself very busy, stupid busy, because I know that, as soon as the motion stops, as soon as it gets still or quiet, my heart and mind go instantly back to what I spend so much time and energy trying to avoid. Early on, in the hospital, before I realized what was actually happening, I took some photos and video of Lionel on my cellphone...mainly because, after his many previous hospitalizations, once he had recovered and come home, he found it fascinating to see what he looked like in the hospital and I think he got a certain sense of relief from seeing how far he had progressed from how bad his condition had been. It let him know that he had, indeed recovered. Of course, this time, he never recovered. And one day, looking for something else on my phone, I stumbled across a short video of him, there in is hospital bed. It was devastating, like having a brick wall fall on me. I was plunged into a deep depression from which it took days for me to emerge. And yet, I didn't delete the photos and videos. I can't. Just like I haven't taken his name off the mailbox in the lobby of our apartment, or his name off our outgoing phone message. That would have a type of finality that I still cannot face. I have a bad habit of saving old voicemails...and everyone of his that happened to be on my phone when he got sick is still there. Sometimes, I will listen to a couple of them, just to hear his voice, saying normal things like reminding me to stop at the store on the way home, or asking what I wanted for dinner. Even the one angry message he left when he was worried about me being out so late at rehearsal, is oddly comforting. The ones he left when he was sick, sad, or feeling bad are heartbreaking. The apartment still looks pretty much the same as when he left. Some of his favorite shirts are now hanging with my things in the closet. I notice them, unexpectedly sometimes, and my heart gives a little leap. I'm not alone, a friend is staying with me, but he does not disturb any of Lionel's things, including his toothbrush and other items still in the medicine cabinet. Today, I started to exploring my transportation options for finally going down to the military cemetery in Quantico, VA where Lionel is buried. I was wondering how I would be able to find his grave among the many, when it occurred to me that they must have a website. Sure enough, they did and the search function made it easy to find information on Lionel. What I did not expect was to find a photo of his gravestone. It was heartbreaking to see...and yet I was glad to see it, if that makes any sense. Apparently, they have volunteers who take and post photos of gravesites for the loved ones who cannot travel to visit in person. The photo of Lionel's grave was probably posted shortly after he was buried. There is no grass around it. It seems unbelievable that it has taken me this long to go looking for this information. But maybe I wasn't ready to see it yet. But now, ready or not, I have. I was even able to pay a fee and sponsor his memorial website, which removed the miscellaneous ads and enabled me to post a photo of him, as well. That was oddly comforting, even though I know that it is only symbolic and that he is no more there in that grave than he is anywhere else. And yet, at the same time, he is everywhere. And so it goes....

One year later...

Originally written Thursday, December 22, 2011...

Exactly one year ago today, we buried one of the best friends I will ever have and one of the great loves of my life, Lionel Barrington Jaggers. The time since that cold, grey, December day has done absolutely nothing at all to lessen the pain of losing him. The seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks and months -- just as empty now, as my tiny apartment in Adams-Morgan where he lived with me for over twenty years and where, for much of that time, he was my constant companion.

I still remember the very first time I ever saw him. Not the day, or the date, which have faded with the decades…but the moment. Remember it, as clearly, to employ a timeworn but apt cliché’, as if it was only yesterday.

The non-profit where I work still had its offices downtown back then. I spent many lunch hours and late afternoons at the main, Martin Luther King, Jr. public library. I had just collected a stack of magazines that I couldn’t afford to buy and settled in at a table in the first floor main reading room. I’m not sure how long I had been there, when I glanced up and noticed, seated a couple of tables in front of me, one of the most handsome brothers I had ever seen. Now, even towards the end of his life, when we were both old men, Lionel was still very good looking. But, in the heyday of his youth, he was breathtaking.

I glanced around the busy, bustling room to see if anyone else was as struck as I, by this vision in our midst, but all seemed oblivious. Not I. An inveterate people watcher from an early age, I was transfixed. I found myself glancing up every few minutes to see if I had imagined him…but each time, he was still there. The ideal physical personification of all of my fantasies.

Those quick, furtive glances became long gazes, as I examined him for any humanizing physical flaws. Despite my most penetrating inventory, none were apparent. I began to stare openly, hoping to attract his attention, but he took no notice. Didn’t even look in my direction. He was dressed casually in jeans and a plain short-sleeved shirt that displayed a lean, but hard and impressively muscled physique. I later learned that he was an avid tennis player.

I haven’t the faintest idea how much time had passed before he finally began gathering the books in front of him and stood slowly up to leave – revealing that he was tall and lanky, an inch or two over six feet…and also that he had one of the largest erections I had ever seen. More about that later, but for now I’ll just say that I was, at that time, in my early thirties…and had seen enough to know what I am talking about.

Needless to say, I was back at the library at that exact same table, at the exact same time, the next day, and again at the same time and on the same day, the following week. But he did not reappear. Nor did he turn up again over the next several weeks as I continued to stake out the library. I was about to give up all hope of ever seeing him again, when he finally appeared again, as abruptly as he had disappeared, and a pattern began that repeated itself several times throughout the summer and fall. Me staring, as enamored as he was preoccupied and oblivious, before he disappeared again until the next sighting.

As avidly as I was stalking him, it never occurred to me to try to approach him, or even sit any closer. And I certainly wasn’t cruising him. I was too intimidated. For one thing, when he was alone, he frequently seemed to be scowling, in a foul, or at least serious mood. For another, the longer I observed him the more I began to notice that I was not the only one watching him, after all.

He was frequently the object of equally intense attention from a bevy of girls and women of all ages, who positioned themselves strategically at the tables surrounding his. Many of them flirted openly with him, and he flirted back. He seemed to have a magnetic effect on women. They had an equally magnetic effect on him, which I eventually realized was the reason for his frequent and impressive erections.

I wasn’t going to mention that again, in order not to appear to trivialize this recollection. But my love for Lionel compels me to keep it real about the initial nature of my interest, which was both superficial and visceral. The depth of my more profound feelings came later -- after I got to know him and he let his wary and formidable guard down.

I also hesitate to mention it because, ultimately, it had absolutely nothing to do with the circumstances under which we finally did meet and become something more than the best of friends.

Holding On/Letting Go

It’s almost ten p.m. By this time last year, almost exactly, Lionel had been in the ICU for nearly two months. Although the rest of his body was frighteningly frail, his grotesquely swollen legs and feet were weighed down by inflatable boots that he found hot and uncomfortable. Both hands tied to the side rails of his hospital bed to prevent him from attempting, In his delirium and claustrophobic panic, to remove the tubes down his throat, mask over his nose and the 4-5 IVs (frequently including Propofol) attached to his neck. His liver, kidneys, and lungs continued failing…but his heart clung on, tenaciously. I sat by his bed all evening, each evening, holding his hand…gently stroking his arm, both of us listening to the beeping monitors.

This particular night, he began to get agitated and squirm, as he sometimes did, from frantic discomfort and from the delusions and hallucinations common after weeks in the ICU. I talked to him trying to soothe him, but he only grew more and more agitated. I leaned over him, trying to guess what he needed: The nurse? The bed adjusted? Pain medicine? The bed pan? Too hot – take the sheet off? Too cold – pull it up around him? With each guess, he would only frown and shake his head in frustration. He stared into my eyes intently, his own eyes blinking back tears. His rail-thin arms strained as he struggled against restraints that had already dug in and left scars on his wrists from his weeks of stubborn escape attempts.

Totally stumped by what he was so desperately trying to communicate, my own eyes began to fill with hot tears of despair.

“I’m so sorry, man. I know you want something, Lionel. But I can’t tell what it is. I know you hate being tied down and that old tube down your throat that keeps you from communicating.” I leaned over him more closely, even though I knew he couldn’t speak. “What is it, dear heart? I’m sorry. I just don’t know what it is you are trying to tell me. ” He continued to stare into my eyes, but the strain of trying to communicate had exhausted him, and he sank back into the pillow, despondent and resigned. He closed his eyes, but his brow remained furrowed. I knew he was not at peace.

Helpless, with nothing else to do, and mindful of the tubes and straps and monitors and IVs…I leaned over and barely hugged him -- very, very gently. Immediately, he opened his eyes, smiled, and nodded his head, “Yes.” Somehow I had stumbled upon it. That’s all he had been trying to tell me. That’s all he wanted to do. He wanted to give me a hug. To cheer me up. He smiled again. I hugged him again. He nodded “Yes” again, then lay back, gradually drifting off to an uneasy sleep.

Sitting by his bed, once again holding his hand, I tried not to let him hear me crying. It would be ten more days, before his family agreed to take him off of life support on December 12, 2010 and he immediately passed away.