Tag Archives: Grief

David Joseph Wilcox, 1957-1996

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Update 2008.01.23: Added brief history of the Pink Panthers and bibliography of articles from the New York Times.

The jacket I wore while on patrol with the Pink Panthers in 1990 and 1991
Pink Panther Patrol Jacket, 1990-1991

My friend, David Joseph Wilcox, died 12 years ago, on January 22, 1996. He was 38 years old.

I’m actually writing this late at night, early in the morning of January 23. I can’t sleep. I’ve post-dated this to January 22, Dave’s mortiversary. We’ll see if Blogger accepts it. [It did.]

Earlier this evening, I listened to a recording my partner, Blog Widow John, and I made, interviewing each other about our remembrances of Dave. Two years ago, on the 10th anniversary of his death, we went to the StoryCorps booth at the World Trade Center site – Ground Zero – in downtown Manhattan. In particular, we spoke about how Dave’s death brought us closer together.

Dave moved in with John for the last year of his life. For many reason, it was a trying time for John, even apart from Dave’s illness. When Dave died, John reached out to me, as someone who knew both of them for many years, for support. Though we had already known each other for over a decade, that was the beginning of greater intimacy between us than we had ever shared. Our relationship today arose, phoenix-like, out of our shared loss.

When I can figure out how to edit down the full 45 minutes we recorded into more manageable tracks and cohesive segments, I’ll be able to make them available. What follows is the full text of the eulogy I wrote and read at one of Dave’s memorial services. I have a VHS videotape of that which could be transcribed to digital video, but I can hardly be understood in it. I could barely speak.

In Memoriam: David Joseph Wilcox
b. 15 November 1957, d. 22 January 1996

  1. Prologue
  2. Gay Cancer
  3. Scapegoats
  4. Grace
  5. Panthers

1. Prologue

I’ll start with a letter.

There remained to me at least something salvaged from the wreck of last year: a most brilliant man, and … one great in action and counsel … who after numerous proofs of his virtue became very dear to me, and seemed worthy of your friendship as well as mine. … [displaying] loyalty and good fellowship, and that friendship which lies in sharing good and bad fortune and baring the hidden places of the heart in a trusting exchange of secrets. How much he loved you, how much he longed to see you – you whom he could see only with the eyes of imagination. How much he worried about your safety during this shipwreck of the world. I was amazed that a man unknown to him could be so much loved. … And this man (I speak it with many tears, and would speak it with more but my eyes are drained by previous misfortunes and I should save some tears for whatever may befall in the future), this man, I say, was suddenly seized by the pestilence which is now ravaging the world. This was at dusk, after dinner with his friends, and the evening hours that remained he spent talking with us, reminiscing about our friendship and shared concerns. He passed the night in extreme pain, which he endured with an undaunted spirit, and then died suddenly the next morning. None of the now-familiar horrors were abated …

Go, mortals, sweat, pant, toil, range the lands and seas to pile up riches you cannot keep; glory that will not last. The life we lead is a sleep; whatever we do, dreams. Only death breaks the sleep and wakes us from dreaming. I wish I could have woken before this.

– Written by Francesco Petrarch to Louis Heyligen, in May 1349, during the Black Death in Europe.

2. Gay Cancer

I moved to New York, to the East Village, in the winter of 1979. When I met Dave a few years later, maybe 12 years ago [at the time of this writing in 1996], he was a vulture. Actually, I saw him dressed as a vulture in some incomprehensible show at La Mama. I knew the stage manager, and I met Dave after the show at the closing party. First impressions: short, wiry, blue eyes, intelligent. I was in love. But we became friends anyway.

When I moved to New York, I moved into the middle, into the beginning, of an epidemic that would become a pandemic, though I didn’t know it. Nobody knew it. First, it was “gay cancer.” Then it was GRID – Gay-Related Immunodeficiency Disease. Several hundred deaths later, late summer 1982, it became AIDS. Seventeen years of now-familiar horrors, of struggling to reconcile my denial, panic, rage, guilt, helplessness and despair.

September 1991:

I cry, yet I’ve not suffered enough.
Who suffers more, the dying or the living?
I grieve, yet I am not angry enough.
I am too weak, too self-absorbed, too numb.
I am cruel enough to avoid an ex-lover on his deathbed,
yet angered by the deliberate avoidance of another.
I choose ignorance before responsibility,
running from the chance of knowing,
and feeling.

It doesn’t stop.
It doesn’t wait for me to catch up,
to get my life in order,
that I might face loss with strength and conviction.
So far surviving the holocaust of my peers,
I make nothing of my life that would honor their passing.

And it continues … it goes on, and on …

After all that has happened,
it is only the beginning,
always just the beginning,
ever new horrors stand in front of me,
invisibly in the future,
that I might stumble across them.

Still I can ask: why?

3. Scapegoats

Dave and I developed a friendship whose continuity endured despite long absences. We’d not see each other or speak for months, or years. Then he’d call me with a new phone number, or we’d bump into each other at a bar, and pick up where we left off. And that’s what I was looking forward to when, after another long absence, I called him this past December, to see if he’d received my invitation to a holiday party. He said it was good that I called. “I’ve been telling myself, I really should call Chris …” Three months ago, I hadn’t known he’d been sick. I didn’t know he was dying.

One of the ways I’ve responded to AIDS is to read: about viruses, the natural history of disease, historical plagues and epidemics, their human impact … During the Black Death of the 14th century, Christians accused Jews of poisoning wells and rivers. Some Jews “confessed” under torture, or were baptized. The others were tortured, killed, and burned, in fields and open pits, in their synagogues and homes, or in buildings constructed for this special purpose.

While AIDS has its own scapegoats, with so-called leaders of all religions denouncing them, little has changed in 650 years. There is no god who has delivered AIDS to “punish” me, my friends, my lovers, my family of choice, my community. Sex is not a sin, my love is not a disorder. There are no “innocent victims.”

April 1992:

how many voices have you silenced?
whose truth do you fear?

what sends you running for shelter in your god’s shadow,
clinging to the hem of his rotten shrouds,
praying to him for the bad words to stop?

your ignorance is vile
dangerous
violent

you would see me struck down
silence my voice, my truth
to preserve your fragile ballast of lies

preaching vainly of greater good
you bring greater harm

there isn’t room enough in hell for both of us

you go first

4. Grace

I believe that Dave came to find some faith, or re-discover his faith, in the community of the church where he worked. I want to honor that, but I admit I don’t understand it, and the only comfort it gives me is that Dave’s belief helped him. I don’t believe in a god, or a heaven, or any life after this one. This is it. Dave’s death is final. I’ll never see him again.

October 1994:

grace

I’m not a holy man.
there are no gods.
the dead speak to us
only through their works.

sadness weighs her heavy lids.
though portrayed as another,
she is of this world.
shaped by your hands,
her lifeless face holds your grief.

loss beyond comprehension.
time only to bury, or burn –
the next wave overtakes you.

from your hunger to understand,
you carve icons of your faith.
out of numbing pain,
you create meaning where there is none.

is it such mystery,
that you would know how I felt?

[Note: “She” is a wooden statue I saw at the Cloisters in upper Manhattan. When I wrote the poem, I thought the statue was contemporaneous with the Black Death. In fact, the statue was from the 12th Century, at least 150 years earlier, a dark enough time on its own.]

5. Panthers

The summer of 1990, a series of violent attacks against lesbians and gay men galvanized the community. The Pink Panthers, a street patrol, formed in response. Dave and I were among the founders of the East Village branch of the Panthers. For me, this was the most intimate and satisfying period of our friendship. We strategized, organized, leafleted, trained and patrolled together. Although we joked about having big pink targets on our chests, we knew that when we were on the streets, we placed ourselves in danger. Of all my colleagues and comrades from the Panthers, I felt safest with Dave as my patrol buddy, side-by-side. I trusted him with my life.

No explanation can ever satisfy me. Dave’s death is senseless. His life has meaning. I miss him.

July 1993, after learning about the death of another friend, also named David [David Kirschenbaum]:

what would it mean
even to say goodbye
my words do not grant
another breath

searching for the grief
that must be felt
as I recall other men
other names

if I could let go
lose control
permit my tears
what would it change

it ends, it is final
no room for regrets
no hopes for another chance
it is over

helpless, in the face of death
living is the best revenge

Fight the fascists.
Celebrate life.
Never give up.

Notes on the Pink Panthers

The Pink Panthers operated from 1990 to 1991. After it was successfully sued by MGM for use of the name “Pink Panther”, the group changed its name to OutWatch, but by the end of 1991, the group was already fading. After 1991, it existed largely in name only and its assets were dissolved several years later.

A series of articles in the New York Times summarizes this history:

Streets of Sanctuary Now Harbor Criminals, August 6, 1990
Anti-Gay Attacks Increase And Some Fight Back, September 3, 1990
Gay Organization Sees Upsurge in Violence, October 19, 1990
Pink Panthers Sued by MGM, January 8, 1991
Gay Patrol And MGM In a Battle Over Name, May 27, 1991
Gay Group Can’t Call Itself Pink Panthers, October 5, 1991

[http://goo.gl/GIjoV]

Links

StoryCorps
David Kirschenbaum’s obituary in the New York Times, July 14, 1993. He was 30 years old.

Another Warm Year

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January – November 2007 statewide temperature rankings. Credit: NOAA

The year 2007 is on pace to become one of the 10 warmest years for the contiguous U.S. … The year was marked by exceptional drought in the U.S. Southeast and the West, which helped fuel another extremely active wildfire season. The year also brought outbreaks of cold air, and killer heat waves and floods. Meanwhile, the global surface temperature for 2007 is expected to be fifth warmest.
– NOAA: 2007 a Top Ten Warm Year for U.S. and Globe

Preliminary data will be updated in early January to reflect the final three weeks of December and is not considered final until a full analysis is complete next spring.

Globally:

Including 2007, seven of the eight warmest years on record have occurred since 2001 and the 10 warmest years have all occurred since 1997. The global average surface temperature has risen between 0.6°C and 0.7°C since the start of the twentieth century, and the rate of increase since 1976 has been approximately three times faster than the century-scale trend.

Celebrating 50 Years of Carbon Dioxide (Measurement)

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Monthly Mean CO2 for the Past 50 Years. Credit: NOAA
Mauna Loa, Hawaii Monthly Mean CO2 for the Past 50 Years

This simple graph of the Mauna Loa Carbon Dioxide Record documents a 0.53 percent or two parts per million per year increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide since 1958. This gas alone is responsible for 63 percent of the warming attributable to all greenhouse gases according to NOAA’s Earth System Research Lab.

Fifty years ago the U.S. Weather Bureau, predecessor of NOAA’s National Weather Service, helped sponsor a young scientist from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography to begin tracking carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere at two of the planet’s most remote and pristine sites: the South Pole and the summit of the Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii. This week NOAA, Scripps, the World Meteorological Organization, and other organizations will celebrate the half-century anniversary of the global record of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere—often referred to as the “Keeling Curve” in honor of that young scientist, Charles David Keeling.
– NOAA Celebrates 50-Year Carbon Dioxide Record

NOAA’s Mauna Loa, Hawaii CO2 Monitoring Station. Credit: NOAANOAA's Mauna Loa, Hawaii CO2 Monitoring Station

Carbon dioxide is the most important of the greenhouse gases produced by humans and very likely responsible for the observed rise in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century. The Mauna Loa and South Pole data were the first to show the rate of CO2 buildup in the atmosphere. In 1974, NOAA began tracking greenhouse gases worldwide and continued global observations as the planet warmed rapidly over the past few decades.

Links

Mauna Loa Carbon Dioxide Record
Mauna Loa Observatories
Earth System Research Lab

The Volunteers

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I’m guilty of rarely highlighting other gardeners or their blogs here. I read something wonderful today:

She embodied the spirit of volunteerism in both its meanings. She was a person who performed services willingly and without pay, providing an example to others who may have come to the garden for personal growth but stayed to cultivate that passion in others. But she was also like a stubborn volunteer plant, flourishing in our communal garden without being planted or cultivated.
– Death of a Gardener, Grow This

I’ve written many times here about the connections I feel among between gardening, grief and recovery. This echoes it beautifully:

Dorcas embodied the gardener’s faith that the ground we prepare, and the seeds we sow today, will bear fruit in the future – regardless of whether today’s gardeners will be there to witness the next harvest. While she will be greatly missed, the volunteers that she inspired will continue her work for many seasons to come.

Word.

Gardening as if our lives depended on it

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2014-10-13: I just discovered that none of the original links are good. Two web sites linked from this post – Climate Choices, and the Northeast Climate Impacts Assessment (NECIA) – now redirect to the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).

I first started writing this post in the Fall of 2006. I drafted it in October 2006, but never published it. I think I was too overwhelmed by the impact of what I was writing to release it. The IPCC report has been issued since then. What I wrote over a year ago no longer sounds so alarmist to me. A post on Garden Rant spurred me to dust this off and get it out there, however imperfect I may think it is.

There’s a lot to this, and I’ve gone through some changes just to take it all in. Here’s the short version:

  • Climate change is inevitable. It’s happening already. We can’t undo the damage we’ve already caused. We can only ride it out.
  • If we continue as we have, the impacts will be severe. It’s going to get really, really bad.
  • Actions we take now can reduce the impact. If we start doing things differently now, it won’t get as bad as it could. We can affect the future.

There are those who cling, at times violently, to ignorance and dismissal of the facts of climate change induced by human activity. “De-nial ain’t just a river in Egypt.” It reminds me of the classical stages of grieving described 40 years ago by Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, all of which are demonstrated in different responses expressed around this topic:

  • Denial. The three-dog argument – denial, minimization, projection – applies here: There’s no climate change (it’s not a problem). The climate change is within historical ranges (it’s not so bad). It’s a natural process (it’s not my problem).
  • Anger. Protest, boycott, rage against the machine, fight the system, fight the man.
  • Bargaining. Carbon “credits” is the most obvious example. Little different from buying indulgences from a corrupt church.
  • Depression. There’s nothing we can do about it.
  • Acceptance. It’s going to happen. It’s happening. Now what do we do about it?

In July 2006, I wrote about the Bemidji Statement on Seventh Generation Guardianship:

The seventh generation would be my great-grandchildren’s great-grandchildren’s children. (If I had, or were going to have, any children to begin with.) If a generation occurs within the range of 20-30 years, we’re talking 140-210 years. Call it 175 years from now.

It’s the year 2181. It’s hard for me to imagine anything I can do to stave off or reduce the multiple disasters which we will have caused.

That was the voice of depression. I feel some hope now. The changes I make now, the work I do now, can make a difference. But only if I accept what’s going to happen if I do nothing.

A report (PDF) issued in October 2006 details what’s going to happen to the climate of the Northeastern United States – Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania – in this century:

The Northeast Climate Impacts Assessment (NECIA) is a collaboration between the Union of Concerned Scientists and a team of independent experts using state-of-the-art tools to assess how global warming will affect the Northeast United States following two different paths: A higher emissions path with continued rapid growth in global warming pollution, and a lower emissions path with greatly reduced heat trapping emissions.


The goal of this assessment is to provide opinion leaders, policymakers, and the public with the best available science as we make informed choices about reducing our heat-trapping emissions and managing the changes we cannot avoid.
– Climate Choices in the Northeast, Climate Choice

The [Northeast] region, comprising nine of the 50 US states, is critical, since it alone is the world’s seventh-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, just behind the entire nation of Germany and ahead of all of Canada …


Climate changes already under way will continue to accelerate in the next few decades, whether the high-emissions or low-emissions path is taken, but the results will diverge dramatically by the time today’s newborns reach middle age, the study found.
– US Northeast Could Warm Drastically by 2100, PlanetArk

Even the more optimistic, lower-emission scenario – if we aggressively reduce our contributions to global warming – is concerning. If we do nothing, NYC will become unliveable by the end of this century.

The higher-emission scenario … represents a future with fossil fuel-intensive economic growth and a global population that peaks mid-century and then declines. In this scenario, concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide (the main heat-trapping gas) reach 940 parts per million (ppm) by 2100—more than triple pre-industrial levels.


The lower-emission scenario … also represents a world with high economic growth and a global population that peaks by mid-century, then declines. However, the lower-emission scenario includes a shift to less fossil fuel-intensive industries and the introduction of clean and resource-efficient technologies. Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations reach 550 ppm by 2100, about double pre-industrial levels. Current carbon dioxide concentrations stand at 380 ppm (about 40 percent above pre-industrial levels).
– Scenarios and Models, Climate Choice


Over the past 40 years, NYC has averaged 15 days over 90F, and 2 days over 100F each year. In the lower-emission scenario, by the end of the century NYC will have 39 days over 90F, and 7 days over 100F. Under higher (unreduced) emissions, NYC will have 72 days over 90F (five times the current historical average), and 25 days over 100F (ten times the current historical average).

While these urban temperature projections seem to include the overall urban heat island effect, they do not describe surface temperatures, which I wrote about in August 2006. Rooftop temperatures can exceed 150F in the summer. These effects will be amplified even more when the city bakes for weeks and months without relief. We can expect heat-related deaths in the tens of thousands. Heat-related structural failures are not out of the question; the infrastructure of the city was not built with these conditions in mind.

What about winter temperatures? These will also increase. They have already increased by 3.8F from 1970 to 2000. Under the lower-emission scenario, average winter temperatures over the region will increase by 5-7.5F. With higher emissions, we will see 8-12F increase in winter temperatures. The USDA Hardiness Zones are delineated by 5F, so this means my garden is moving 1-2 zones this century, from Zone 7a to Zone 7b or 8a.

For another point of comparison, when things were that much cooler than they are now, NYC was under a mile of ice.

The temperature projections do not include the apparent temperature caused by increased humidity – the heat index – which can make it feel up to 20F hotter. Warmer air can hold more moisture. The increase in humidity will ramp up the heat index faster than the actual temperature.

This map represents how climate will shift in the NYC area through this century. This includes consideration of the heat index. Basically, we’ll be somewhere between Virgina Beach and Savannah.

Thanks to PlanetArk for bringing this to my attention
[bit.ly]
[goo.gl]

Related Posts

Imagine Flatbush 2030, November 20, 2007
Barbara Corcoran Hates the Earth, November 18, 2007
Preserving Livable Streets, November 7, 2007
2006 was the fifth-warmest year on record, February 20, 2007
The IPCC Report: Grief & Gardening #6, February 4, 2007
Buying Indulgences: The Carbon Market, November 23, 2006
NASA Earth Observatory Maps NYC’s Heat Island, Block by Block, August 6, 2006
The Bemidji Statement on Seventh Generation Guardianship, July 22, 2006

Links

Northeast Climate Impacts Assessment (NECIA) (link corrected 2014-10-13)
Full report (PDF, 159 pages, link corrected 2014-10-13)
Summary (PDF, 8 pages, link defunct 2014-10-13)
Climate Choice (link defunct, 2014-10-13)
Union of Concerned Scientists

Gardeners for Recovery is on its way!

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[Update 2007.11.20: Added clarification that cobblestones will not be marked.]

Cobblestones, Van Dyke Street, Red Hook, Brooklyn
Cobblestones, Van Dyke Street

The Gardeners for Recovery Cobblestone Campaign has received its first contribution. The fund now stands at $100, one-fifth of the minimum amount needed for a cobblestone, and one-tenth of the way toward the goal of $1,000. See the thermometer at the top of the sidebar.

Gardeners for Recovery is a Cobblestone Campaign for the National September 11 Memorial at the World Trade Center. Gardeners for Recovery recognize the importance of gardens and gardening for individual, community, and global healing and recovery.

The contribution was in the amount of $50. I matched it, to bring us to $100. I will match the first $500 contributed, to bring us to the goal of $1,000.

Out of respect for the victims of September 11, cobblestones will not be inscribed with donor names or any other markings. When the Memorial is completed, we will be able to identify the exact location of our cobblestone by using a kiosk on the Memorial Plaza.

If you would like to make a contribution, please visit the Gardeners for Recovery Cobblestone Campaign home page, then click the DONATE NOW button. This lets you contribute online, anonymously and securely, using a major credit card. If the National Tour visits your city or town, you can also contribute there; just let them know you’re contributing to the Gardeners for Recovery Cobblestone Campaign, so I can match it.

Related Posts

Announcing the Gardeners for Recovery Cobblestone Campaign, September 28
Gardeners for Recovery, September 11

Links

Gardeners for Recovery Cobblestone Campaign home page
National Tour Cities and Dates
National September 11 Memorial Museum

Seeking bulb-planting volunteers for November weekends

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Planting bulbs from the Daffodil Project in my front garden, Fall 2006
Planting bulbs from the Daffodil Project in my front garden, Fall 2006

Thanks to the initiative of one of my neighbors, Stacey, in Beverley Square West, there will be 300-500 daffodil bulbs available for planting on the grounds of P.S. 139 along Rugby Road, and in the new tree pits along Cortelyou Road.

The bulbs will arrive at the end of October, in time for November planting. Stacey and I thought we would try to coordinate some plantings the first and second weekends in November. Stacey will be at the Greenmarket TOMORROW, October 14, from 10am to 12noon, tabling with free 9-volt batteries for smoke detectors. If you can stop by, you can sign up for one or more days. If not, you can “vote” in the poll at the top of the sidebar on this blog to let us know which day(s) you could help out.

Related Posts:

Changes on Cortelyou Road, March 2007
The Daffodil Project, November 2006

Canaries in the Coal Mine: Honeybees and Climate Change

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NASA scientist Wayne Esaias believes that a beehive’s seasonal cycle of weight gain and loss is a sensitive indicator of the impact of climate change on flowering plants. A hobbyist beekeeper, he has found signals of climate change in his records of the weight of his beehives, and wants to enlist other beekeepers to contribute their observations as well:

The 25-year NASA veteran has made a career studying patterns of plant growth in the world’s oceans and how they relate to climate and ecosystem change, first from ships, then from aircraft, and finally from satellites. But for the past year, he’s been preoccupied with his bee hives, which started as a family project around 1990 when his son was in the Boy Scouts. According to his honeybees, big changes are underway in Maryland forests. The most important event in the life of flowering plants and their pollinators—flowering itself—is happening much earlier in the year than it used to. – Buzzing About Climate Change

[The] 1-to-5-kilometer-radius area in which a hive’s worker bees forage is the same spatial scale that many ecological and climate models use to predict ecosystems’ responses to climate change. It also matches the spatial scale of satellite images of vegetation collected by NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites. This similarity of scale means that all these ways of studying ecosystems could be integrated into a more sophisticated picture of how plant and animal communities will respond to climate change than any one method alone could provide. Esaias is particularly interested in comparing the hive data to satellite-based maps of vegetation “greenness,” a scale that remote-sensing scientists commonly use to map the health and density of Earth’s vegetation. Scientists have been making these types of maps for decades, and they have used them to document how warming temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere are causing vegetation to green up earlier in the spring than it did in the 1980s. Such maps are an excellent general indicator of seasonal changes in vegetation, says Esaias, but by themselves, they won’t tell you something as tangible as when plants are flowering. – Will Plants and Pollinators Get Out of Sync?

About half of the approximately 6 million honeybee colonies in the United States are kept by individual or family-scale beekeepers. Esaias’ vision is to develop a how-to guide, an automatic data recorder, and the computer and networking resources at Goddard Space Flight Center that would be needed to collect and preserve the data. Ideally, a hive data recorder would be hooked up to the Internet so that volunteers’ hive weights could appear on a Website hosted at Goddard. His goal is to get the cost per kit below $200 and then to get NASA funding to outfit a network of volunteers — HoneybeeNet — and analyze their data. “Ultimately, what we’d like to have is thousands of these across the country. Even if we can get the cost down to $200 a piece, that is still a lot of money to ask for until you have a test data set that proves it is valuable,” admits Esaias. He’s been working with local bee clubs in Maryland, rounding up some 20 volunteers who already have or are willing to purchase their own scales. He hopes that the data collected during the 2007 spring-summer season will be a prototype that will convince NASA to fund a pilot project.

Links: HoneybeeNetColony Collapse Disorder (CCD)Heat Island Effect

Gardeners for Recovery

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Update 2007.11.20: Added clarification that cobblestones will not be marked. Added link to related posts, including the announcement page.
Update, September 28: The Gardeners for Recovery Cobblestone Campaign is online.

What is to give light must endure burning.
– Victor Frankl, survivor of the Nazi holocaust.

Tribute in Light, shot blindly out the window of a moving cab in downtown Manhattan earlier this evening, the 6th anniversary of the attacks.
Tribute in Light, September 11, 2007

I’ve written several posts so far comprising an irregular series related to the symbiotic practices of gardening and grieving:

  1. 1, 5 and 25
  2. Five Years After, “Ths Transetorey Life”
  3. Nihilism and Squirrels
  4. The Death of Takeo Shiota
  5. The Daffodil Project
  6. The IPCC Report
  7. The Garden of Memory
  8. In the Shadow

What I’ve not written about so well is what follows – what accompanies and emerges from – grief.


40 years ago Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross described a model of grieving outlining five stages or phases:

  1. Denial
  2. Anger
  3. Bargaining
  4. Depression
  5. Acceptance

This is not the only model possible or available. However, it’s the one with which I’m most familiar, and I find it useful as a framework to describe, and therefore help me recognize and understand, grieving as it occurs naturally in me and around me.

Because it’s so familiar, this model has been often misapplied and misinterpreted, narrowed and stretched, until it has lost much of its depth and richness. There are some useful extensions and adaptations, intended to restore the balance, such as this one:

Grieving only begins where the 5 Stages of “Grief” leave off. Grief professionals often use the concept of “Grief Work” to help the bereaved through grief resolution. One common definition of Grief Work is summarized by the acronym TEAR:

T = To accept the reality of the loss
E = Experience the pain of the loss
A = Adjust to the new environment without the lost object
R = Reinvest in the new reality

– Beware the Five Stages of Grief

There is another vocabulary, another language, which can provide a frame for understanding and exploring all these stages. That is the language of recovery.

In 1999, I joined the steering committee of a group called SpeakOUT! Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Voices for Recovery. It was funded by a grant from the U.S. Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT); however, from early on we defined recovery broadly and inclusively. Though the group itself is now defunct, I learned a lot from my involvement with it, and there were some deep lessons. Our vision statement was:

Our vision is of a world that honors the journeys of recovery within all diverse lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender and other communities, supports all forms of recovery, and celebrates the growth of the human spirit.

This statement can still give me chills. We did not say that our vision was of a world free from chemical dependence. Or injury, pain, or loss. Instead we dreamt of a world which embraced recovery. We were not anti-drug. We were pro-recovery. There is a strong Zen/Buddhist leaning in this: Pain is inevitable. A world without pain, without loss, would be a world without life. Suffering is something we bring into the world, to others, to ourselves. The purpose of life is to relieve suffering.

The “forms of recovery” was a rich area of exploration. What did we even mean by “recovery”? How could we define it in a way that was compelling, flexible, and meaningful? I’m proud to say that then not-yet-blog-widow John formulated it this way:

Recovery is anything which manifests a desire to live.

Or, in my simplified formation:

Recovery chooses life.

In the U.S., September is National Recovery Month. Six years ago, we were planning a community forum to observe the month. Then the unthinkable happened. Like many other organizations, we questioned whether or not we should go ahead with our scheduled events after September 11, and if so, whether and how we should modify them. We decided to proceed, in part because the theme of Recovery Month was “We Recover Together: Friends, Family and Community” and in part because we knew the need people felt to come together.

Something remarkable happened to New York City at that time. As I spoke at the forum that month, and wrote up later for our newsletter:

Since September 11, 2001, everyone in New York City is talking about
“recovery,” many for the first time. What does it mean to be living in a
whole city that’s in recovery? As a person in recovery, what can I bring
to my colleagues, neighbors, and communities? What can I learn from
community responses to recovery needs? I’ve observed in myself how
my previous experiences have helped me cope with my reactions. …

At all times, and especially now in New York City, people in recovery
have much to offer our loved ones, neighbors and communities. We
know what it’s like to be powerless, to feel hopeless. We know that
healing is possible. We know the healing power of community. We
know the rewards of giving back. We know the gifts of recovery.

I believe that gardeners know this, too. It’s manifest in defiant gardens of all types. It’s manifest in vacant lots transformed by communities into oases. It’s manifest in horticultural therapy. It’s manifest in living memorials.

I’ve submitted a proposal to the National September 11 Memorial and Museum to sponsor a paver for the memorial plaza through a campaign for contributions. The name of the campaign is the title of this post: Gardeners for Recovery. Out of respect for the victims of September 11, cobblestones will not be inscribed with donor names or any other markings. When the Memorial is completed, we will be able to identify the exact location of our cobblestone by using a kiosk on the Memorial Plaza. See the announcement post for information about how to contribute.

I still dream of a world which embraces recovery in all its forms, gardening among them. For this National Recovery Month, and on this somber day, I invite you to find your own ways to celebrate recovery, to celebrate life.

PS: This is the 400th post on this blog.

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Related Posts

Gardeners for Recovery is on its way!, November 13
Announcing the Gardeners for Recovery Cobblestone Campaign, September 28

The National September 11 Memorial at the World Trade Center

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Also see my other posts on 9/11.

9/11 memorials, Union Square Park, September 24, 2001
9/11 memorials, Union Square Park, September 24, 2001

Recently, the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation announced:

… it will now be called the National September 11 Memorial & Museum at the World Trade Center – in order to reflect more fully the Memorial and Museum’s commemoration of the September 11, 2001 attacks as a national tragedy that changed the course of history. The Memorial & Museum will honor those killed in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, in New York City, Pennsylvania, and at the Pentagon, as well as those killed in the World Trade Center bombing on February 26, 1993, and will continue to emphasize the site-specific nature of building a tribute at the World Trade Center.
– Press Release, August 15, 2007 (PDF)

For the first time, there will be a national tour of a traveling exhibition associated with the museum:

To involve as many people as possible, the Memorial & Museum have created a traveling exhibition that tells the story of September 11 from the point of view of victims’ families, first responders, survivors, and everyday people who came together on that terrible day and in the agonizing days that followed. The traveling exhibition offers Americans the opportunity to come together again to pay tribute to those who were killed on September 11 as well as to support the heroic first responders whose selfless acts saved thousands.


Individuals and communities across the country will have a chance to contribute directly to this historic effort by signing a steel beam that will be used in the construction of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. The exhibition will also feature a timeline of the events, photographs, artifacts, and a short film.


Here are the first cities and dates. Check local listings for details, or check on the National Tour page.

  • Columbia, SC, September 10 and 11
  • Raleigh, NC, September 15 and 16
  • Norfolk, VA, September 19 and 20
  • Pittsburgh, PA, September 23
  • Charleston, WV, September 26
  • Cincinnati, OH, September 29 and 30
  • Lexington, KY, October 3
  • Fort Wayne, IN, October 6 and 7
  • Lansing, MI, October 10
  • Aurora, IL, October 13 and 14
  • Madison, WI, October 17


Other cities will include Sioux Falls, SD, Des Moines, IA, Omaha, NE, and Wichita, KS.

Links: