In Our Own Back Yard....

I am having trouble today. It has been a bad weekend. We lost two of our cats (separate situations - one died a natural death to age, the other to health complications and being poisoned by a flea treatment that we did not know was dangerous.) within 24 hours of each other. That has left us grieving and fragile. Which was when THIS blow fell....

I read stories posted all the time on one of my email lists...news posts - which are very important to me - of families torn apart by homophobia and hate.

Cut off from each other.

Rejected.

Relationships lost, damaged, unhealing.

Well, Dreamweaver and I are among those stories. We found out yesterday in a brief heartbreaking phone call that our grandson Wisdom is being tested today for possibly having Cystic Fibrosis. This is a serious illness and if he has it, can cut his life short. His parents - Dreamweaver's son The Marine and his wife Patience have cut us off from seeing the grandchildren because we are gay (there is far more to it than that but that is the public reason, and it is reason enough) We have seen Wisdom once, a few months after his birth but were not allowed to hold him. His sister, our granddaughter Beauty does not know who Dreamweaver is, or that she even has another grandmother from whom she is biologically descended. We found out that Wisdom was born weeks after his birth when we happened to check in with The Marine and Patience's Piccasa picture site and saw photographs of our new born grandson. Nobody called us.

Now we have found out, the day before he is to be tested for this illness, that he is very small for his age - he is 6 months old, and is about the size of a 3 month old, and not doing well. Patience and The Marine have known for several weeks that this was a possibility, but never contacted us. Basically, Patience called us to find out if there is any history of Cystic Fibrosis in Dreamweaver's side of the family - which there is not. Dreamweaver immediately offered to come if we could be of any help - The Marine is staying home today to be with Beauty, his daughter while Patience takes Wisdom for the test. We only live a few hours away. Patience brushed by the offer of help unacknowledged, and then had to get off the phone abruptly because The Marine had come home.

All you who may read these words...please remember little Wisdom in your prayers - pray that he is simply undersized for his age, but healthy, or that if there is a problem that it is something far less severe or mortal than Cystic Fibrosis. Pray for Patience and The Marine as they go through this horrible time - surely the most awful thing a parent can face. Pray that some how, someway, our relationship with them might be healed and made whole. It's all I can do to write this; Dreamweaver is devastated.

Where is homophobia striking?

In our own backyard.