Rising for me today: On January 18, 1997, one year, eight months, and ten days after our younger son Bill committed suicide after a bashing based on his sexual orientation, I published an essay “Too Many Kids Like My Bill” which is in part included here:
My mother told me years ago, when we lived in New York City, that when she was out on a bus or in some public place and she heard someone talking with a German accent or in German, her first reaction was to think of my dad. And then instantly she would remember the millions of Jews killed in W.W.II by Hitler – and scream in her mind “NAZI!!!” – and she would stiffen — and the anger, the hate and the fear would rise in the presence of such horror. Then she would realize what she had just done — she would see her prejudiced reaction — recognize it and acknowledge it. And she would breathe and let go. She would begin again, with knowing that person was another human being – and she would start over from there.
The other day, one of my friends wrote and asked:
Clinically, as a therapist, what do you think causes the kinds of reactions in people that could lead to a group of young boys attacking someone like Bill? What buttons do we need to push in people to help them to see that by continuing in their thoughts and actions that innocent people are being hurt?
How do we convince the people that don’t agree with the bigotry and hatred to realize they also have a moral responsibility to stand up and speak out against it?
And I answered:
These are two very different sets of questions. Who do you want to reach? The bigots who beat people up? Or the “good” people who stand there and watch it happen and do nothing? Say nothing?
Right now I am mostly going for the people who are silent – and maybe uneducated and maybe scared. Hey, I have been one of those myself at times in my life. Let opportunities pass that I could have spoken – about lots of issues. The other group – you ask me what I think causes that?
Honestly, the word that comes to me is “evil.” Somebody had to do something to twist the souls of those kids – to make them think that what they did to Bill and Sam was OK. Somebody had to take fear and turn it into the kind of hate that acts like that.
Monsters.
Yes, I believe in monsters.
Human ones.
Not the kids who beat Bill – the ones who created them.
When they beat Bill and Sam they did not see them as human – and in the very act, they lost their own humanity. Lack of power in their lives? Frustration? Ignorance? Fear? Who knows?
Reading the words that are stiff, feeling the anger, the hate and the fear rise in the presence of such horror – now I realize what I have done — I see my prejudiced reaction — recognize it and acknowledge it. And I breathe, let go, and start over.
It is so easy to demonize when we don’t recognize each other’s humanity – our common bond – before we react.
Do I now take back what I said to my friend? No. I still see evil. I still believe that it took “monsters” to create a world where my son would feel so overwhelmed that he would choose his own death.
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To read the whole of this essay to so you can see the context, see: https://gabiclayton.com/BillsStory/TooManyKidsLikeMyBill.html
And to read more about Bill, see: https://gabiclayton.com/BillsStory/
There is so much grief with the death of Bill for me then, and still.
Now there is tomorrow’s inauguration and beyond that, and I feel tremendous grief about what we are facing as a country.
In the best book I have found about grieving, Landscape Without Gravity: A Memoir of Grief, Barbara Lazear Ascher wrote:
“I have been trying to make the best of grief and am just beginning to learn to allow it to make the best of me.”
— and she wrote:
“For many of us, grieving is our first experience, since childhood, of being out of control. It is a frightening return to old helplessness and society doesn’t tolerate it for long. The collective conscience speaks: “Get a grip on yourself.” “Get on with it.” But how do we “get a grip” on a self in metamorphosis? We are shedding more than tears, we are shedding skins. How can we “get on with it” when “it” has changed?”
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This morning I came across this quote attributed to David Lynch who just died on Wednesday, January 15th:
Keep your eye on the donut, not on the hole.
I remembered that I had included something like that a while ago in the quote collection on my website, and had found that while it is often attributed to Lynch, it was probably originally by Adolph Levitt as part of This Optimist’s Creed which was printed on his Mayflower Doughnut Shop’ packaging and their menu at the World’s Fair in 1939.
When hard times come, keep your eye on the doughnut and not on the hole.
Think about that for a moment.
A doughnut has two parts—the fried dough and the hole.
You’ve got a choice of which one will attract your attention.
You can either focus on what you’ve got or you can focus on what you lack.
What we have is going to be a mess of trouble and pain. I know that. And I do okay maintaining some optimism because while I know big trouble is about to come crashing in on many of us, I have not given up hope that we as a community can – and must – support each other to pull against the tide that will be working to sink us into the same place that our Bill found himself on May 8, 1995.
So I turn back to my collection of quotes and remember this one by Friedrich Nietzsche in Beyond Good and Evil:
Whoever battles monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.
When I was in graduate school I worked at Haven House, a shelter for at-risk youth here in Olympia. When one of the kids was moving on to another living situation, we gathered to wish them well and we went around and each offered them a “verbal gift” that we thought would help them on their journey, often something we knew we would need as well.
So with love to you all, my verbal gift to us as we go forward is courage.
Gabi Clayton
Thank you for sharing. You are a bright light for many. ❤️
Thank you for sharing your story and reminding us to see beyond this difficult moment 🌹