“Old Gay Bones”

A must read from Corey Whelan at the AFA:

At the end of the day, what we most hope for as human beings is that our lives count. That we matter. That when we die, we leave something of value behind. That we are not just bones in the ground. For many of us, the something that we leave behind is our children, those we have helped to shape. For some of us, the something that we leave behind is the lesson of our lives, or of our deaths. Who we were. What we stood for. Our word.

You know, I’ve never written this on paper before, but my mother died alone. She had a DNR in place on the day she died and I simply left the hospital too soon. I had babies at home that needed me more, I told myself. The truth is I just couldn’t take the smell of the hospital for another second. So I wasn’t there when she passed. No one was. My dad died 40 years earlier than my mom did and I’m an only child. I made a mistake by leaving early that day, and I will never forgive myself

…