Days of Gratitude - Autscape, Friendship, And Finding Freedom In A Cemetery

I am posting this on August 25th.  Today would have been my mother's 72nd birthday.  She died a few days after reaching her 70th birthday.  Facebook keeps giving me memories to share each day and most of them have been status updates about the events leading up to my mother's death.  Every day I am given the option to share some painful circumstance.  I haven't been sharing.

The morning after my mother died I had to return from Sussex to Newcastle, leaving my brother to deal with everything for a while.  On returning to Newcastle I attended the appointment at which I was officially diagnosed as being transgender.  It's tempting to wish that my mother had lived to see that day and the two years that have passed since then.  But no amount of wishing would make it a reality.  After that appointment I returned to Sussex.  I wrote the address for my mother's funeral and reading it was a privilege - and quite a challenge to not fall apart at certain points in it.  I posted the address in a post on this blog and it also appears here, the final ever post on my mother's blog which she lovingly wrote nearly every day for quite a few years and filled with family and friends and many photos.

That all happened two years ago.  This is now.  And these are five days of memories for this month, to add to the memories Facebook keeps on recommending I share with the world again.


18^th August


Grateful for Autscape. A lot could be said about that.

Grateful though to spend much of the afternoon not at Autscape!

Amanda and I walked into Settle, relaxed together, ate ice cream and then walked a little by the river.

We found a great rock to sit on in the middle of the river and I even had a free thirty seconds for stone stacking, reminding me that I want to take myself off for a quiet day doing it.

19^th August


There is much I will miss. Much to think about too.

But I am grateful that tonight I will sleep in my bed.

Farewell Autscape for another year. Tomorrow I have to attempt to think about food again.

Grateful too that this time round only a week will go by before I see Amanda again - for a Christian festival!

20^th August


Being looked after when arriving at the meditation group in a state. Sitting alone in silence helped and then good people and lunch.

Grateful for the people who set up that group and for the way the enterprise will be expanding very soon. There will be a meditation centre in the city centre and there are great plans for the future.
Also grateful to look out of the window.

21^st August

Grateful for missing the bus home after the Sunday Assembly social and going a different route back to the Metro that turned out to be interesting even though totally an incorrect route.

This led on to becoming sidetracked in a cemetery I have been meaning to visit almost since we moved here.

Also very grateful that a year ago today I met a very wonderful woman. I couldn't be more grateful than I am.

22^nd August


Grateful that one year ago tonight I danced, played and sang barefoot in a big thunderstorm.

She had encouraged me to do so. She didn't accept my refusal.

A year on and we have a most marvellous and undefined relationship centred on a stunning magic friendship.

A Grand Day Out In Durham - 3: Walking The River Wear And Finding The Joy

After all my moaning yesterday, today is not a moan day.

I may not like the cathedral.  I may feel pretty bloody awful inside it.  But Durham is not just a cathedral.  It's a city with much that I like and I look forward to going back and exploring some more when I have a day on which I have lots of energy sufficient for visiting a city rather than escaping to the back of nowhere on a walk.  Yesterday was a walk day and apart from tiredness, getting overwhelmed, getting giddy and losing my balance, and getting so lost that I finished the walk in a different place than I'd been planning, apart from all that it was excellent.  I found some amazing and surprising places and much beauty.  The surprises began minutes after getting off the bus in Chester-le-Street and they kept on coming.  Now that I know the way I can walk it again and not walk down the wrong roads and paths.  There are places on that walk I want to see again.

I want to see Durham again.  Maybe sometime soon I will.

After visiting the cathedral and having lunch in Alington House I walked back down the hill to the river.  I felt very tired.  The cathedral experience had drained me a lot and it was tempting to cross back over the bridge, get the bus, and just go home and hide in silence.  Instead I stood on the bridge and looked down at the river.  And I looked along the river too.  And Clare saw that it was good.

Blob Thing decided it was good too and he was happy to have his photo taken.  It was a challenge as he didn't want to fall into the river and couldn't balance on the bridge very well.  Blob said that he wanted to walk by the river.  I agreed that it was a good idea.  Durham sits on a big bend in the River Wear and there are paths on both sides (I think) that run from the road bridge at one end of the bend to the road bridge at the other.  It looked quiet down there.  It looked much more peaceful than the bridge we were standing on, more peaceful than a bus journey would be.

So I walked down to the riverside and looked back at the bridge we had stood on.  I've walked round at least part of the bend in the river before.  It was several years ago and I was with my parents.  It hadn't been the easiest day for me because I had a streaming cold.  My souvenir of Durham, by necessity, was a packet of handkerchiefs!  My mother hadn't liked the cathedral either and didn't have many kind words to say about the city.  She did enjoy seeing the river though.

It's a shame that my parents were not able to see my life develop in Newcastle or the discoveries I've made about myself.  My mother died of cancer a week before I was officially diagnosed by a psychiatrist as being transgender.  I didn't need a psychiatrist to tell me that!  But that psychiatric assessment and diagnosis meant that I was able to begin medical treatment.  Two years on and my hormone levels are actually starting to bear some relation to what they're meant to be.  My mother would have loved all the photos on my blog - and Blob's blog too.  She kept a daily blog for many years and it was often filled with photos of the places my parents visited and the people they met.

If you want to take a look at her blog, it's still at http://grandma-p-ramblings.blogspot.co.uk/

My dad, by the time my mother died, was in a care home.  He has frontal lobe dementia and the progression of that illness was horribly swift.  I haven't seen him in a year - my mental health has meant that I haven't been able to get to Sussex to be with him - but will be there at the start of September.  So far the thought of that hasn't caused me to completely break down as it did last time when my visit was booked and I had to cancel it for my own wellbeing.  I would not have survived the visit in one piece, of that I am totally certain.  But next month I will be there.

Back to the river.

It was inevitable that I would spot a tree and need to take a picture of it.  A panorama.  My phone decided to do it like this.

If you stand on your head it might make more sense.  The top is the ground, the middle is the sky, and the bottom are the branches of the trees that were behind me when I started taking the picture.

Something I love about Durham is the amount of steps leading to different places.  Some are narrow passageways in the streets, each of which invite me to explore, experience and take pictures of.

Some are like this, pretty flights of stairs, stretching up into the distance from the river, rising through the woods.  For me, walking up or down a place like this is a far better experience than walking up or down the aisle and nave of a cathedral.  I look at the tree and get a greater sense of god which is creativity, life, beauty, and meaning than I ever do in a building.

And, though I am no longer a Christian, I find that my experience of the divine, of the ground of meaning, of that life giving source, and of the Christ that is within us is more "Biblical" than the construction of cathedrals.



For what does the Bible say?

Stephen addressed the Sanhedrin in Acts chapter seven.  During the speech he says this:

“However, the Most High does not live in houses made by human hands. As the prophet says:

⁴⁹ “‘Heaven is my throne,
    and the earth is my footstool.
What kind of house will you build for me?
says the Lord.
    Or where will my resting place be?
⁵⁰ Has not my hand made all these things?’

It wasn't a very popular speech.  Three verses later - just after he finally mentioned Jesus, "the righteous One", - he got stoned to death, the first Christian martyr.

I am not a Jew like Stephen was.  I am no longer a gentile Christian.  I don't believe in a personal God in control (or out of control) of things.  It doesn't matter whether that Biblical God is so loving everyone that he sends his son to save us or whether that Biblical God is so jealous and narrow that he commands his people to commit genocide.  The Bible says it's the same God and that God does not change.  No variation whatsoever in the Father of Lights.  And thus the Christian God is still the God of genocide, still the God who commanded all those things in the Old Testament that most of us would find utterly repugnant if they were preached today.

I don't believe.  And yet at this point I am in agreement with Stephen.  I am in agreement with Isaiah who Stephen quotes.  My god does not live in houses made my human hands.  No.  My god lives within me, within all of us, and in the spectacularly awesome universe around us.  No.  That's not quite right.  My god doesn't live.  My god is life.  Not just the life of a plant or animal.  But the life that is the music of the stars and the atoms.  My god is found when I stand and breathe deeply and realise that I am surrounded by wonder, filled with wonder with each breath, and that I am myself wonder.

Right.  Back to the river.  I apologise.  I didn't mean to talk about cathedrals again.  I didn't mean to divert into something that could easily have become some kind of sermon about wonder and awe and adoration and all sorts of other beautiful words in the life of a non-theist.

I don't just love trees.  I don't even just love nature.  I find that I am quite into bridges too.  Blob Thing has been getting into them and it's become something of an obsession with him to be photographed with as many bridges as possible.  That's another reason he wants to return to Durham.  He missed out on the pictures.  He's got pictures of himself by all the bridges on the Wear from the sea as far as Fatfield and lots of other bridges too.  But not the ones in Durham because he hadn't become obsessed by the time of our visit.

So here are a couple of bridges.  They are very different to one another.

This is Kingsgate Footbridge, constructed in 1963.  It is now a Grade 1 listed structure.

The second bridge, also Grade 1 listed, is Prebends Bridge, constructed in 1778.  Since 2011 it has been closed to traffic and is now just a footbridge.

There's a website I've come to love while starting to explore the area near my home.  It's http://www.bridgesonthetyne.co.uk and it's fascinating.  It also covers the Wear and several other nearby rivers.  When I write something about a bridge I've often found the information there.

It strikes me that people might think some of what I write is a little odd.  When I write "Blob Thing thinks ..." or "Blob Thing says ..." you may wonder if my sanity should be called into question.  Of course Blob is just a handmade soft toy.  Of course, objectively speaking, he's not really talking or jointly writing his own blog or even sometimes dictating the whole thing.  But that doesn't matter to me.  It's a much more interesting life to have Blob as a friend and much more fun to have a soft toy with attitude!

I'm not the only strange person.  Whoever sculpted this has to have been slightly weird too.  On the other side there are places to sit.  I would have sat too and listened to the magic of the river had the places not been occupied by other people enjoying themselves.

Yes. It's Prebends Bridge again.  From the other side.  Blob is wishing that he was in the photo too!

Continuing the walk round the river I looked up and near the top of the bank I spotted a stone structure sticking out.  There was a path leading up to it.  But not from the riverside.  The path and steps began halfway up the hill.  Here is a part of it:

I've just been looking it up and I am so pleased I did.  I found a webpage that talks of the ancient, healing and holy wells of Country Durham.  Just recently I've become a little more fascinated by wells and have lots of books about them on my wish list.  Blob's sister Winefride was named after a saint associated with a holy well in Wales.  And I am wanting to learn more about wells.  It's a great page and it tells me that what I had climbed to get to was St. Cuthbert's Well.  It also tells me that I have five more holy wells to find within Durham City.  That information is very exciting for me.  Now I want to go back possibly even more than Blob Thing does.  Woo hoo!  Wells!

St. Cuthbert's Well has the largest sandstone surround of any well in Britain.  The inscription on the well has a date of 1600 or 1660.  Of course we know that the remains of St. Cuthbert are in the cathedral but nobody knows anything of the history of the well.  In looking it up I've been led to another webpage and a site that is making me very excited indeed.  This one.  It says the well can only be reached with great difficulty.  I wouldn't call it great difficulty.  But it would certainly have been easier to stay by the river and not decide that I had to climb up to see what the structure was.

Here's the view from the well.  The top half is easy enough - although some of the steps are missing.  But the bottom half is just a steep and muddy slope.  I'm glad I made the effort.  Visiting the well was worthwhile.  And finding the two websites was joyous.

From there I followed the river to the next road bridge.

I had started my walk feeling very tired and dispirited.  I felt a lot better after it.  I was still tired though and decided that I'd done enough for one day.  I'd find a quiet cafe, have a quiet drink, and would then head home.  That was my resolution.  It turned out to be a resolution I couldn't keep.  Because Durham revealed something wonderful to me as I hunted for a suitably quiet place to rest.



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2016. Day One. Things For Which I Am Grateful.

It's a new year.  An idea was suggested at the last Sunday Assembly that there would be a facebook group on which people would post pictures each day of things for which they are grateful.  I've signed up and started posting early.  Celebrating our gratitude and the gratitude of others is a good idea.  And in the spirit of that, here's a blog post filled with some of the things for which I am grateful.

2015 was unexpectedly hard for me, perhaps the hardest I've ever had.  That is saying a lot given what's happened in previous years - not least 2013 and 2014 in which I came to terms with my gender, my precious faith fell apart, my dad's health deteriorated rapidly and my mum died of cancer.  In 2015 my mental health has been worse than it has been for a very long time and there have been some awful times.  Awful times.  Many tears.  Near despair.  Meltdowns.  Shutdowns.  Sometimes very publicly.  I am currently on four different waiting lists relating to different aspects of my mental health.  But today I don't want to focus on the bad parts of the year because there has been so much good.

So.  Some positives.  There are many to choose from.  These are just a few.

Autism.

2015 has been the year of accepting myself as autistic, starting to learn what that means for my entire life and for the future.  It's been the year of gaining a lot more self understanding.  It's been very difficult for me but worthwhile.  The way that certain unconscious survival techniques fell apart and I learned what it's like without them has been staggeringly difficult.  But I am glad to know who I am at a base level and to be at the point where I can begin to learn to live as who I am rather than as who I am not.

The process of reading and learning and of examining my entire life has been wild.  It affects pretty much every aspect of how I see my life and of how I should seek to be living it in the future.  And through the year I've found excellent people to read online and then met great people.  That led in August to Autscape, a four day gathering/conference for autistic people.  Such a wonderful time.  My name badge from Autscape hangs by my bed.

Autism will affect the rest of my life.  The hopes for this year include learning a lot more about it, seeking some training in how to help and educate others, to be involved with a network in Newcastle for support, advocacy, campaigning and education and to go back to university and study autism in an academic context.  The hopes for the rest of my life are to live it more fully, as someone who can be wonderfully autistic rather than thinking she is a dysfunctional neurotypical.  There will probably be many surprises.

I could write much about autism and my life, and I'm sure much will be written this year.

The Church.

My faith has seen highs and lows and most of the time I don't particularly believe in a creator God-being.  But church is still a home and the people there have stuck by me through everything - even the time where my mental health was such that I pulled out of leading worship half way through a service in which I was helping lead worship.  I haven't been able to go back to that role or any other role.  I am grateful for what Northern Lights MCC has been in my life for the last two and a half years.

Friends I didn't know a year ago.

In particular:

The autistic friend who helped me accept that I might be autistic after all and helped me get to the point at which I had to face myself.  She also got me to read the first of a series of books that I mention later.  And I am grateful for her company, which is always relaxing because there is open encouragement to be who we are and to accept each other in all our perfect imperfections.

The wonderful Christian friend I met at an atheist gathering.  She is so accepting and has encouraged me consistently to be myself, that it's okay to be me, and has encouraged me to explore creativity.  And she tells me how I've helped her which is great to know.

The wonderful witch friend I met at a day singing Christian songs.  Her company is relaxing and I just know whatever happens time with her won't be predictable.  Case in point:  The day I went for a walk in the country with her and ended up leading a pagan funeral for someone's dog.

The wonderful people who are a part of Autism In Mind, a charity based in Sunderland that does so much excellent work for autistic people and in campaigning and education.

Two of the Blue Babes.  Wonderful people I met at Autscape.  We started a little group to talk (and mainly text) and we've been in contact since.  I hope to see them both before Autscape if I can.  The cat pictured belongs to one of the Babes.

And last, but most definitely not least, the other member of the Blue Babes.  Another wonderful person.  We have become very close and she is massively precious to me.  I am extremely thankful that we met and that we have become what we have become.  I guess I may be writing more about us through the course of this year.  There have been quite a few surprises in the last year but she is the biggest surprise I've had and I am grateful to be surprised in this way.  We love each other so much and are both incredibly thankful that we have each other and can share what we share.

This is Portal.  She made Portal for me.  Portal is named partly because we can't be together much but can be connected by a Portal.  Portal is also named after the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Hearts.  To represent us.  Together.  We love.

One of us is blue.  The other is purple.







Just a few positives.  I could talk of my home, my wife, my child, the way people were understanding when my mental health stopped me doing things that I could really have done with doing.  I could talk of Shape Note singing and the joy of that terrible noise!  I could talk of living in Newcastle which is a place that's been so good to me.  I could talk of playing in the sunshine in the water fountains of the Olympic Park when visiting one of the Blue Babes.

I could talk of encountering Broadacre House, of being able to help with the work for refugees - if only for a brief period of good mental health, of the mindfulness groups I've been to there.  And there will be a Broadacre post sometime - with some of the photos I took wandering round the place a few months ago.  I reckon there will be more unexpected Broadacre things in my life this year.  Here's a collaborative picture a few of us made in a session during the Peace Conference there in September.

I could talk of drinking tea in Tea Sutra.  There was a lot of tea drinking in 2015.

I could talk of the joy of having a concessionary bus pass.  The joy of being able to get to the coast easily, not having to buy a ticket, and seeing sights like this.

I could talk of the way I endlessly find new music to enjoy.  Of how much I like my noise cancelling headphones.  I could talk about how 2015 was the year in which I made my first steps into playing with art and how it looks like that will develop this year.  Art is freedom.  The future can be freedom too.  This is my first art attempt - made for a friend's birthday.

I could talk of spirituality and the exploration in the last year.  Or of the free meditation group, Soul Food Spaces, that I have been introduced to in the autumn.  I could talk about an incredible series of children's books, Skulduggery Pleasant.  (If you haven't read those books, read those books)  And of the first post-Skulduggery book by Derek Landy and how fun the signing evening was when we got him to sign two full sets of his books.

I could talk about how my hormone treatment as a transgender woman is progressing well.  I could talk of how I was able to see a friend again who I hadn't seen since 1988.  I could talk about the fact I've taken more photographs in the last four months than perhaps in the previous forty-four years.  I could talk about how we replaced our very collapsed sofa with a lovely, comfy three piece suite, which cost us £25 plus delivery.

I could talk of so many things.  That's not an exhaustive list.

Yes, 2015 has been one of the most difficult of my life.  But there is so much good.  And today I choose to focus on all that is good.  And a year that starts out surprisingly very different to how the last one began.  There are a lot more challenges.

But I firmly believe that the future will be better than the past.

A Post About Autism in the Life of a Woman Reborn

Throughout my adult life my mother worked to an assumption, a belief that could not be shifted.

She believed, wholeheartedly, that she understood me thoroughly. And that affected the way she acted towards me.

I have had a long history of mental health issues and I have spent my life not quite coping with that life in general, with relationships; with others and with myself. My mother would say to me very frequently, “You think that because you ...” or “You're doing that because you ...” Bless her, she was trying her best. But in the majority of cases I could only disagree with her conclusions. Her words to me showed consistently that she didn't understand me or the way my mind worked at all. She could not have understood me in any case – for I was, to all appearances, her neurotypical son.

And she had another habit, arising from my mental health history and a history of not feeling physically great without developing any obvious serious diseases. She would give me diagnoses. Many diagnoses of physical ailments and mental health conditions that would explain what she thought was wrong with me. A new diagnosis would crop up with alarming regularity depending what she had been reading or what someone on Radio Four had talked about that week.

All of my mother's possible diagnoses for me failed. All of them sank into the background and were quickly forgotten about. Or they were knocked out of their place by the next diagnosis.

All of them were wrong. Obviously and demonstrably wrong.

Except for one of them.

Probably fifteen years ago my mother came up with a new diagnosis. She had been doing some reading, following another health issue being discussed on Radio Four.

And I have spent these fifteen years having to deny that diagnosis. Reject it. Swear that there was no possible way that it could be the truth. Mother, you got it wrong again. Very wrong.

Fifteen years ago my mother diagnosed me with Asperger Syndrome.

I rejected that – just like I rejected every other one of her diagnoses. And yet it stuck. And stuck. And persisted. It just would not go away.

Too many things fitted. And later I aced the test available at that time to lowly lay people – the Autism Quotient test devised by Simon Baron-Cohen. There were other clues too that added into the pattern.

But I still rejected it. I could not be autistic in any way. Impossible. And, psychologically I couldn't accept the possibility that my mother was right in a diagnosis, even if that only meant accepting that she had struck lucky on one occasion. Perhaps, sadly, I am only able to deal with this now that she has gone. Most certainly I am only able to deal with this now that I've dealt with my gender issues, accepting and embracing myself as a woman.

There has been a joke about me in my family for years. The joke, which really isn't funny, is that I speak in certain ways, think in certain ways, act in certain ways because I haven't got Aspergers. I am who I am because I am NOT an Aspie.

I couldn't be. No. No. No. There was no way and I refused to look further into the matter. Except it kept popping up and there was no way to escape it for very long.

A great deal has happened recently. I've had to do a great deal of rethinking of my life and of my mind, my brain. There have been many revelations. Discoveries about myself. Discoveries about how I've used logical rules and brute force to suppress and reject things about who I am. Discoveries about just how much guilt and shame I've felt about these things that led, in part, to me building impregnable defences so the truth couldn't leak out.

A great deal has happened. I will be writing about it. I need to write many things in order to understand it properly for myself. And I need to write many things to explain quite how these things happened and how I can be so sure of my conclusions. But for today the writing needs only set out one basic fact of my being.

A great deal has happened: It's a process that has led from me rejecting any suggestion of Asperger Syndrome, any possibility that I am somewhere on the Autism Spectrum, to being one-hundred percent certain in my own mind that I am autistic. I. AM. AUTISTIC.

I've been having to come to terms with a lot. I've been having to strike down those defences. I've been having to start to learn to be who I am.

In a very real sense, for the second time in two years, I have had to come out to myself.

This accelerating process is proving to be very difficult for me at times. And combining it with suddenly having a very different set of hormones within me (As of a month ago I have been taking a testosterone blocker and increased oestrogen) is adding to those difficulties. There have been some awful days. And those around me have been subject to those awful days. At some point I will be writing about those awful days.

Realising this autistic truth about myself is not in itself a solution to anything. But it is a map, an explanation, a guide to why I am as I am. And that's a good starting point for gaining a better life.

It doesn't necessarily change as much as my revelations about my gender. But it's so much harder to deal with. All the gender revelations brought only joy, release, relief and understanding of much of my past. Coming out as transgender and living as myself, female, is pretty easy in comparison to coming out as autistic and having to work through so many things that are painful and have no easy solutions or simple solutions and sometimes, or often, will have no solutions at all beyond accepting them as part of who I am and getting on with life accordingly, without the old shame and guilt.

So, now I sit, impatiently.

I have been referred by the GP for a proper assessment for autism. I went to her prepared. I knew that asking to be referred for assessment would lead to the question “Why do you want to be referred?” So I took along lots of reasons, several pages of reasons to cover the very basics. I hadn't got a quarter of the way through when she cut me off and said “Yes, we'd better refer you.”

This referral may take a while, a long while, because like so many parts of the NHS, especially mental health services, there is a shortage of cash, a shortage of staff and a shortage of facilities. I crave the day the assessment begins or takes place. I can only hope the experts agree with me, and agree with autistic friends of mine, that this is the truth.

This is the truth:

I am autistic.

This is my coming out to the world. It may be premature since I am not officially diagnosed – not that official opinion will affect what is already truth. This is me. Coming out. En masse. Coming out as transgender was such a slow, adrenaline fuelled, tiring, terrifying thing. If I could do it again I'd get it over quickly. So here's a new coming out. To everyone at once.

I. Am. Autistic.

18 Months - The Best of My Life

Eighteen months ago tonight I came out to myself as transgender, as a woman, in a way which left no possible room for denying the truth about who I am.  That night was the end of a process of finding space, of allowing myself to explore my thoughts and feelings with an honesty which had not been possible before.  On that night I stood in front of the mirror in a skirt and blouse, for the first time able to dress in such clothes without feeling great shame.  And I recognised myself for who I am.  I spent much time talking with myself as I stood at the mirror, and welcomed Clare into her existence - I already knew my name through dreams.  Until that night I could, had I so chosen, locked everything away again and gone back to the way things were, put the recent thoughts and experiments down to an aberration, a mistake.  After that night there was no possibility of going back.

That was the end of a process of experimenting with self-honesty but it set the course for the rest of my life.  Eighteen months on I look back and can say that it has been the best time of my life.  The best.

Here are just some of the things that have happened:

• My mother died of cancer.
• My father became seriously ill with dementia.  He's now in a care home having spent several months in hospital.  He broke one hip while in a different care home.  He broke the other hip while in the hospital.  And being hundreds of miles away I've been able to do nothing to help him and have had to leave everything to other family members.
• My cherished Christian faith died, very painfully, over the course of a year.
• We've had all the usual sort of family problems here - plus a few more.  But I don't talk of those online.
• I have been sexually assaulted.  The police couldn't find the assailant.
• I have received much verbal abuse in the street for dressing as I dress.  Thankfully that's pretty rare now but to being with it happened pretty much every time I left the house.
• I've spent sixteen of the eighteen months waiting for medical treatment.  That treatment has only just begun.

Yes, plenty of horrible things have happened.  Most people would say that the year in which they basically lose both their parents, their faith, and undergo abuse and assault would be among the worst in their lives.  Circumstances have indeed been pretty poor in many respects.

So how can I say that the last eighteen months have been the best of my life?  How bad must the experience of my first forty years have been if so much can have happened and it still be my best time?

It's simple.  I have lived these months as myself, free.  I have learned to love myself.  I have learned that the truth of who I am does not to be utterly crushed, despised.  I have learned that I am not a thing of shame.

And I've remembered and healed a lot of my past.  All the clues and thoughts and acts that I'd suppressed for so long.  Many painful memories and many confusing memories.  They're still coming to light now.  Just this week I remembered things from my childhood.  Words said to me by my parents - who were of course doing their best but in the 1970s couldn't see past their little boy.  But words that led me further into Hell and the long attempt at self-annihilation.  Remembering them hurt.  A lot.  But now they can be left behind and peace can be found.  Some of that language may sound over dramatic.  I promise you that it isn't.

It's been the best eighteen months of my life.  And that brings my past into sharp relief.  I knew it was bad.  For thirty years even the best of days contained the shadow of depression, ever felt.  So many episodes of mental illness.  So many years of not knowing if I'd be alive by Christmas.  So many years in which others had to suffer through that uncertainty.  Looking at photographs from my life is hard as there are very few in which I cannot see signs of that shadow.  Even on the days of many smiles those photos display pain, if you know what to look for.  Comparing my present with my past shows me just how awful my inner life was for all those years.

There are a lot of challenges involved with being transgender.  But the chance to be who I really am outweighs pretty much any rubbish that life could throw my way.  Because, accepting myself and being Clare took away the cause of that shadow of depression

I've lost friends.  But I've gained more friends.  And my wife and child stand by me giving full support for me being who I truly am.  I am truly fortunate.
I've lost that faith.  But I've gained a better faith.  And have written much about that wild journey.
I've cried many tears in the difficulties.  Many more tears for my parents.  Many more tears as the past has come to light and been grieved for and healed.  But I've also learned the meaning of crying tears of joy.
I've suffered transphobic abuse.  But I've grown stronger through battling onwards regardless.  And I've been fortunate.  The abuse has only been verbal.  I know others who have been less fortunate.
I've been sexually assaulted.  There aren't many "buts" to that.  But it could have been a lot worse than it was.  Many women are sexually assaulted.  I don't want to belittle what happened to me but so many women have suffered far worse assaults, or repeated assaults, or rape.  I count myself fortunate.
I've experienced fear as I never felt it before.  But I've overcome that fear in walking into freedom.
I've lost my mother.  But that last year was precious, to be able to share just that short time with her, knowing she was proud of her daughter.
I've lost my father - though he is of course still living.  I must admit that the silver lining is harder to find when I think of him and the sadness we all have for everything that his illness has brought to him.
I've remembered much pain from my past.  But I've been able to clean those events and words, repair wounds, and leave them behind so the future can be better.
I've waited so long for treatment - for the physical help in being who I am, having transitioned mentally and socially last year.  But the treatment has begun, just about.  I'm now on the lowest dose of oestrogen and waiting for my next appointment which should lead to increased hormonal treatment.  Waiting impatiently - as every timeline I've been given in the last eighteen months turned out to be a false expectation.  That next appointment, from what I was told, should have been this week.  It will be next year.

I know who I am.  And I accept who I am, embrace myself in love.  That in turn enables me better to receive love from others and to show love too.  The changes are immense.  I find myself doing things, frequently, that the old me wouldn't have done.  I'd either not have conceived of being able to do them or felt great shame that I couldn't do them.

I know that there is still quite a way to go.  The healing is not complete.  And without too much trouble I could make a long list of things I don't do but would be better for doing.  And a list of things I do and say that would be better left undone or unsaid.  A long way to go but the difference between now and then is to me nothing short of a miracle.

Yes.  The past year and a half has been full of the most difficult things I've ever faced.  Full of pain.  Full of challenge.

Yes.  Those months have also been the very best of my life so far.  The very best.  By a very, very long way.  Simply because they have been lived free.

Honest Thoughts About My Father - His Dementia, His Care, His Being So Far Away

This is the day my dad finally leaves hospital for a new care home - the same one that was looked at in the summer before social services moved him to a completely different one without anyone's permission or consultation.  That was awful.  My cousin (why my cousin?) was phoned and asked if he could collect my dad the next day and take him to a different home.  None of that had even been mentioned to my mother and moving my dad wasn't discussed with anyone.  It was a done deal before any family member knew anything about it.  My mother hated the fact that she wasn't consulted, that she had no say whatsoever in the care of her own husband.  That was pretty heart breaking for her.  Yes.  Social services broke the heart of a woman who was dying of cancer.  It's as simple as that.

My dad has been in hospital for very nearly 3 months having broken one hip in the care home and then broken the other in the hospital.  For legal reasons I cannot write about the circumstances of the falls that led to either broken hip.  The new home looks pretty good - certainly better than the old one.  I can safely say that much, based on Care Quality Commission reports.  The report on the old one talked a lot about under staffing, people left very unsupervised.  Including the inspectors finding one person left alone, naked, hanging over a bath.  To think of people paying £800 a week for that to happen is shocking.  The report on the new home has lots of nice green ticks and none of the red crosses in the report on the other home.  Reading the report on the old home was so worrying.  I never passed the report to my mother.  That would have broken her heart even more to think of my dad being there.

It's a relief that he'll not be in a hospital room all day every day but be somewhere where specialist care - nursing and activities and so on - are offered.  And it's a great relief that the CQC reports I've read are not scary but say that residents are well looked after.  It's still annoying though.  My brother visited the new home back in the summer and it was thought that when my dad was moved from the first home he was in it would be to that one.  We thought it was basically arranged.  Four months on he's going there, recovering from two broken hips he doesn't know were broken and with various extra health issues picked up along the way.

It would be so good to be there in Sussex and be of some use.  It would have been so good to be able to have been there for him through the months.  So frustrating to be so far away and to be basically useless in any of this.  Family there have had to pull all the strings and be the visitors and they've been marvellous in finding the care home, liaising with social services and in sorting the finances.  They deserve so much credit and thanks for all they've done.  Shame I couldn't be there but for a number of reasons (which haven't been mentioned online or have just been hinted at) it's not been a possibility.  Hard not to feel deep guilt even though life had to be as it has been.  If only I could be in two places at once - supporting him there and supporting those non-online things here.   And we can all say 'if only', so many times.

I have considered the possibility of moving him to a care home up here - definitely not the local one though.  But up here there's only me and down there is a wide family and in theory friends too - though the latter are invisible.  Had that support network not been there I'd have definitely sorted that somehow.  Though I don't know quite how you move someone from a hospital in Surrey, under the care of Sussex social services, to a care home or hospital in Tyne and Wear.  In the end it may be better if he moves here if there's a decent enough home that can be got to regularly.  That might end up being better for him - certainly better for me because I could be of some use and keep up the visits - but that's not a decision for now.  Have to see how things pan out into next year.

I may have to cancel the essentials at some point soon and go down and quickly clear and sell a house - depending on what the rules are about paying for the care that will either be urgent or not.  I look at those essentials and wonder how or when.  It depends whether care is dependent on the money being in the bank of if there will be an account to be paid once the house is sold.  I should know about that soon.

And then thinking about those essentials, all that needs doing, and grieving for many things, my brain fries - it's very fragile at the moment.  I've put a little of that online but only a little - I'd prefer to focus on the good things most of the time if I can rather than focusing on just how close I came a few days ago to using a knife in a less than productive manner. Years after self-harm the memories and mental scars remain and the knowledge that in the very short term it helped get me through a hundred inner crises.

Nobody knows, or can know, the prognosis for my dad.  Two years ago nobody could have known any of this, or known that my mum wouldn't be there.  Less than 13 months ago they were here.  He was ill of course but we were still able to do so much.  This illness rather ignores the words of Terry Pratchett that a person with dementia can still write several novels.  His deterioration has been rapid.  That may continue or he may plateau.  Impossible to say.  I just hope that in the time and health that remains he will be reasonably content in the new home, will be well looked after and that if he eventually ends up here the local care home would be just as good.


Of course most of us are at the stage where we have to be honest and say that, for his own sake, we'd prefer him not to stay alive for too long.  It goes against my old Catholic instinct of saying that life is God's gift to be cherished in whatever form it takes.  But it's how most people come to feel about any close friend or relation with dementia.  For him to die while he still has something, while he can still find an enjoyment is a far better image than thinking of him utterly helpless, unresponsive, unfunctioning in the corner of a room for year after year.  It is an awful feeling to almost wish your own father would die.  But it's a common one when we witness so much suffering, so much emptying out of the person who used to be there, so much damage to the brain.  It's hard not to feel deep guilt about it all even when you know that it's entirely a matter of mercy not malice.  It's clear to me that life should not be prolonged at any cost, that life is not just the beating of a heart.  And even in the hospital, at a time when he was pretty sick, there was a DNR order for him.  That was decided upon by the family there but I was in full agreement.  If he goes, let him.  Don't save him for a continuation of the decline.

It would be so good to get there this year to see my dad (and to sort that house some more).  But looking at things as they stand I'm guessing that probably won't happen - I guess at February.  And possibly by then he won't know who I am - he just managed it during the summer but of course could only know me as he not she.  Which was fine.  He's the only person on the planet I'm happy to have refer to me as he.  Because it's not his fault.  I wish he could have got to know me as she before getting ill, but this is life and we so often can't have what we wish for.  We'd all wish for many different things if it would ease the suffering of ourselves, our loved ones and seven billion strangers.

I just hope that in the new care home, with proper care, he will be reasonably content and find things to be able to smile at, while smiling is a possible.  I hope he settles there and is encouraged to be as active as possible.  I hope that, whatever the illness continues to do to him, he is more or less at peace whether living in a real world or a world that is only real to him.  I hope so.  And I will see him again, when that can happen.

Renewing My Baptismal Vows - As Clare, With Brand New Faith

Something good happened at church last night.  Next Sunday I will officially become a member of Northern Lights Metropolitan Community Church.  Before doing that I felt it necessary to publicly renew my faith in some manner, a break with so much of the past and a cleansing - even if just symbolic - in readiness for the new and for whatever my future brings.

I discussed this with our pastor who suggested renewing my baptismal vows, and she designed a short liturgy for this.  There were the traditional vows you take at baptism, more vows relating to the faith and practice of the local church, and between the two a symbolic hand washing to wipe away the past in a sacramental fashion and through the prayer prayed as my hands were dried.

As part of this I was asked to write something brief about the reasons for the renewal.  I don't do brief!  An edited version was in the church newsletter and I read the full version at church last night.  What was read is roughly what follows - though just as when I used to preach I don't stick to the script no matter how hard I try!  I was very well behaved last night, so the changes were minor.

Mentally I've been having a rough time recently.  Some quite major struggles.  My wife says that whenever I'm doing good things I get clobbered.  And there have been so many things recently, so much of a move to becoming a better functioning human, in the places where I am meant to be.  Saturday night was the worst I've had in years - but it led into a Sunday that was excellent.  I realised yesterday morning that among other things I was grieving, mourning greatly - for my mother, for my father, and also for the years that I could not live as who I am.  All those mourning processes are needed but piling it all up together isn't easy.  On Sunday as I was on the way to another church in the morning I opened my Bible to the next chapter.  Happened to be Matthew 5, the start of the Sermon on the Mount.  So I read, "Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted."  And then the first song at that church had lines, also drawn from the Bible, about mourning being replaced by joy.  Sometimes God knows what God is doing!

Truly, this weekend contained very low points, mourning, sorrow.  And it contained high points of commitment, friendship, and joy.  Life can be so amazing in its variety.

 _________________

Last night, during the service at Northern Lights MCC I publicly renewed my baptismal vows. For me this is a needful step before formally becoming a member of the church. I know that's not the case for most people so wanted to publicly explain why I am renewing those vows.

Firstly it's because I was baptised under another name, another gender, and was a very different person then. I'd love to be re-baptised as Clare but of course that's not a theological option. Baptism is a one time event – and I've already gone through it three times as an adult. I cannot be baptised again but I need to publicly express that, as Clare, those vows I made as “him” still stand and that they stand more firmly than they ever did in the past.

That's the obvious reason: My present,living as the woman I am, is such a changed life from my past, forcing myself to live as the man I never was.

But there is a second reason. It's even more important to me than the first. Many people in the church will know some of my story of faith over the last eighteen months. As I sat at MCC my Christian faith died a slow death, a painful death. Every service was a kind of torture for me. And some in the church put up with my many words, my complaints, my deep pain through that process. I cannot thank the church enough for supporting me through the death of my faith and through everything I said, and felt, and did.

My faith deserved to die. It really did. Good riddance to it! Not because of any doctrines or dogmas that were or weren't attached to it. But because the root of my faith was self-hatred, self-denial, self-rejection – arising from a firm belief that I was no good. Much of that came from received beliefs about my gender and consequently my near-constant urges to self-destruct. My faith helped to destroy me, helped me to eradicate myself, for twenty-three years. It was immensely important to me but it crushed me.

Eventually I was able to leave that faith behind, and rest secure in a faith that excluded any personal God. The plan was to leave MCC and never look back. That was the only future I could see. But throughout the whole journey I still believed in MCC, her vision, her people, and the place of healing that the church is. And, solely because of certain of the people, I stayed.

Many of you will have noticed a not so subtle change in me since the start of October. At church one evening everything suddenly clicked. I could sing the songs, pray the prayers and knew it was OK to receive communion again for the first time in a long while. And I was extremely surprised that night to find myself on my knees, hands in the air, lost in worship and thankfulness to the God I didn't believe in. The “God of Surprises” entered again and renewed my world, my heart.

Faith returned. It's a new faith. Brand new. It's a far healthier faith, one that accepts the love of God, and one that can honestly say with the Psalmist;

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.

As I renew my baptismal vows it is my freedom to be Clare, to be authentic, that I celebrate. But more than that I celebrate my return to faith. A purer faith. A very different faith than that I had before. Based on self-love rather than self-condemnation, on authenticity rather than self-squashing, on freedom, on love, on grace, on hope, on acceptance, on inclusivity, on joy, on light and life and on so much more.

As I publicly vow myself to God and to the centrality of Jesus in my life, I do so based on the solid conviction that God is love, and his love is for me and for all of us. And I do so based on a response of love that seeks the beauty and life of Abba, Jesus, and Spirit.  At this point I do not know exactly what I believe down to the x, y and z of doctrine.  But I know in whom I have believed.  In God, who is my parent and source.  In Jesus, saviour, who is my example and who died.  In Christ who lives, and lives in me and in all of you.

One Year Ago - My Parents Visited Newcastle For the Last Time

A year ago my parents came to visit us for what turned out to be the last time.

We knew my dad was ill of course.  His symptoms had got worse since we had visited Sussex in the Summer.  But he was still driving everywhere and got on with everything we did when my parents were here.  Nobody knew how quickly his health would deteriorate or that barely six months later he would be living in a care home.

But my mother was still full of life and the excitement of finding new things to do, to experience, to photograph.  We had a packed few days and she had so much zest for everything we saw.  Nobody would have guessed then that her cancer would return so aggressively, that just ten months after arriving to visit us, full of life, she would be dead.

I will treasure those days for the rest of my life.  My dad never got to meet Clare when he was healthy - even in the summer his health problems (and I suspect his upbringing too) meant he couldn't fully deal with his son becoming his daughter.

But my mother got to meet Clare when she was healthy.  Last summer when Kit and I were in Sussex for a few weeks I was in the early days still, experimenting and finding my way and lacking in confidence.  Everyone knew I was Clare, but it was very scary for me - as it turned out more scary than it needed to be.  Even so, she could see the changes in me - the new light, the new joy, the release from so much of the past.  And the difference in the less than two months between then and my parents' visit was quite astounding.

So the visit a year ago was the only time my mother got to experience not just her daughter, but her confident daughter.  I treasure those days.  And I know she treasured them too.

My mother wrote a lot about that visit.  I'm not going to say much more - just link to her blog posts.  There are short ones she wrote when here and then posts with lots of photos that she wrote after the visit.  Sometimes it is good to look back.

To be honest I'm putting my mother's posts here for my own benefit so I can find them all easily in one place.  If you want to take a look - and there are great photos of family and the local area - then do.  Regular readers of my mother's blog will know that they did all sorts of things and the blog, before the sad endings, is filled with descriptions of lives well lived.

People who have only met me in the last eighteen months should be warned against scrolling back in the blog.  I know many actively don't want to learn my old name.  And there are some photos that are quite scary.  There are some relatively decent photos of me - but not many.  Yes, I know I'm biased in my opinions of pictures of me!  But I can see the darkness, the sadness in my eyes, behind even the best of the smiles I gave when living as a man.

First the diary posts during the visit:

http://grandma-p-ramblings.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/the-day-we-went-to-newcastle.html

http://grandma-p-ramblings.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/our-trip-out-today-in-north.html

http://grandma-p-ramblings.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/briefi-lost-original.html

http://grandma-p-ramblings.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/two-lovely-days-in-north.html

http://grandma-p-ramblings.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/we-didnt-take-isaac.html

It's a good thing they didn't take Isaac given how things developed.  And Isaac himself got ill and died during the summer when I was in Sussex.

And then the posts after the visit with lots of photos.  The posts between these ones make for much sadder reading - many of them deal with stress and anxiety about my dad.  Even on days out to places they loved such as Nymans Gardens or the Bluebell Railway there is still the anxiety in evidence.

Newcastle residents may enjoy the pictures in some of these, especially of our walk through Jesmond Dene, Armstrong Park, Heaton Park, and Jesmond Vale and then to the Biscuit Factory.  That was a great day.  To think that a year ago my parents were both up to doing so much.  My dad needed encouragement but he could still do it all.

http://grandma-p-ramblings.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/northumberlandia-woman-of-north.html

http://grandma-p-ramblings.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/druridge-bay-and-amble-northumberland.html

http://grandma-p-ramblings.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/barter-books-alnwick.html

http://grandma-p-ramblings.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/alnmouth.html

http://grandma-p-ramblings.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/newcastle-rural-walk-part-1-jesmond-dene.html

http://grandma-p-ramblings.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/newcastle-walk-part-2-armstrongheaton.html

http://grandma-p-ramblings.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/newcastle-walk-part-3-jesmond-vale.html

http://grandma-p-ramblings.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/newcastle-walk-part-4-biscuit-factory.html

No photos of the fourth and final day.  On that day we went to Tynemouth Market, satisfying the urge to buy things for my mother's antiques dealing.  And then to North Shields for the market there and for lunch at one of the cheap pizza places on the fish quay - three courses for £3.95.  Many photos taken of the boats and the river with interesting lighting effects thanks to the weather.

Such wonderful days.  There will be more wonderful days.  I feel joy that we had those days together.  And still much sadness because we cannot have more days together.  I'm still grieving for my mother and unfortunately am not able to help my dad at this time in all his problems which have been far worse than anyone could have expected.

But for today.  Looking back to better times.

Funeral Address for My Mother, 8th September 2014

Yesterday was the funeral of my mother, Paula Monk.  At some point I will write more about her though many people reading this blog will have known her well and some will have followed her own blog for many years.

What follows is the funeral address that I wrote a few days before my mother died and then tweaked until the time came to read it at the funeral.  That was difficult - I'm not quite sure how I made it through to the end without breaking down and passing the reading over to someone else.  It was difficult but I am glad that I did it.

In response to some requests from people who couldn't be at the funeral, and a few people who were there, I'm posting the address here.  As I read this publicly a few things changed slightly, as was always the case when I used to preach.  But in the main the following is the address as spoken.

For anyone wondering, the entrance music for the service was Going Home, by Mark Knopfler, from the soundtrack of the movie Local Hero.  We had time to reflect in the service while Who Will Sing My Lullabies? by Kate Rusby was played.  And we exited to the song mentioned in the address which my mother, many years ago, said she wanted played at her funeral.

My half-uncle, Paula's half-brother Matt Frost ably led the service.  He's a baptist minister but in accordance with Paula's wishes led a secular funeral.  The only mention of the Bible was that which follows.

I'd like to begin with a reading from the Bible. It's not just any Bible. This is my mother's Bible. She wrote her name in it, 54 years ago. The reading isn't from any of the printed words but from a piece of paper Paula kept safe there for a long time. It's something that was said by her mother in the period leading up to her own early death.

When the time comes you will find you will quite enjoy dying. It's a wonderful struggle.

Mummy

Paula was involved in that struggle for many years, having been first diagnosed with cancer in 1991 and since that time never had excellent health. Every day has included a round of tablets and medicines and for the last seven years, since she had cancer for a third time, she had a urostomy bag to add to everything else.

Twenty-three years of struggle. In 1992 she struggled so much to survive. In 1993 she remained ill and received much help from St. Catherine's Hospice, as she did in the last days of her life.

Paula very nearly died and was in hospital for 3 months. At one point she had a 10% chance of getting through the following few hours. Some of us will remember clearly the struggles and the suffering she went through in order to live. And some of us have seen in detail the manner in which she has struggled this year and the dignity with which she accepted her own mortality.

And I believe the way Paula faced the struggles can be a lesson for us all. Her aim throughout those years was to live. To live each day in the fullest way her body allowed her to live. And we have seen the way she's done it and what she's been able to experience over the years. She lived to see Jamie and I married and settled. She lived to see her grandchildren and get to know them. She and Bill were able to visit Slovenia several times and walk in the mountains. They were able to visit Thailand to spend time Jamie and his family. She's seen the births of nearly fifty grand-nephews and grand-nieces and could name them all.

And she has lived. She and Bill went back to athletics and continued their role as timekeepers until quite recently, enjoying helping, enjoying the sport and perhaps most of all enjoying the banter and friends on the time keepers' stands. She has enjoyed dealing in antiques and collectibles and the relationships and friendships forged over the years. She and Bill have enthusiastically embraced digital cameras as the many albums at home testify, each containing wonderful pictures of the hundreds of places they visited together, the hundreds of people they've met and the countless family visits and celebrations.

On a personal note I am so glad that my mother got to see who I really am. I am so glad that she was so glad to meet me as her daughter. Because of my mental health history she has worried greatly about me over the years. I am very grateful and she was very grateful that she died knowing that she did not have to worry about me any more. Our friendship on Earth is over but we ended it in freedom, truthfulness and even in joy.

Truly, most days Paula did Carpe Diem – she did seize the day. Even on the darkest days when seizing the day was the last thing she wanted, she still triumphed and grasped the future. In 1993 after over two years of being ill she wrote in a poem “Bugger Carpe Diem!” But she came through the darkness and seized, and seized, and grabbed at the fullness of life. She lived beyond the mundane. Paula did not become famous. Instead she walked the “little way” doing all the little things as well as she could. And as in the Dire Straits song which she loved so much, Paula did the “walk of life”.

In our time of loss it's easy not to see the light. But we have a lot to be thankful for. In particular today we can all be thankful for the last 20 years, for the light Paula has been in all our lives and for the joys and triumphs she's known.

It's difficult looking at all the struggles not to ask a question. It's a question that she asked at times. It's a question many of us have asked about Paula. And it's a question we've asked when we've seen others suffer greatly or die young. All the great religions, the philosophers and the poets have asked it.

I found a book in the house before my mother died. I've seen it before but had forgotten it existed. The book contains a collection of things she wrote and some poems and sayings by others too. The first page was written in August 1980, around the time her younger brother, Robin, died. Paula asks the question about him – but we can in turn ask it about her.

My heart screams out

“Why you?”

I don't want your burden – but still

“Why you?”

I see you -

Glad, good

Game for living.

“Why you?”

I see you -

With strength you struggle

As ever

To stamp the seal

of your own individual person

on life.

With your first faltering footsteps

Into the future

You flung down a challenge to fate.

Fate answered,

With higher and higher hurdles.

You have jumped over with joy,

Climbed over with courage.

But still -

“Why you?”

Strength and daring

Are not deserving of such punishment.

I wish you well

And wonder again

“Why you?”

We can ask that question. “Why you?” And I'm sure if we haven't asked it already we will ask it. But for today, as we are together, let's try not to ask the question. Let's try to be thankful for each of the seventy years Paula lived and especially for the last twenty years that she nearly didn't see. Let's be thankful for our friendships, relationships and as we keep her firmly in our hearts and minds today let's talk of all the good times; those we lived with her and those she lived with others. And let's be thankful that nearly all her 49 years of marriage were good years. It is tragic that Bill is sick and cannot be here today but today let's think of the life they shared. Let's remember all those good times. Share our memories. Laugh. Cry. And support one another in the way Paula would ask us to.

To close, with a poem by Anne Bronte, written down by Paula in her book:

Farewell to thee! But not farewell

To all my fondest thoughts of Thee;

Within my heart they still shall dwell

And they shall cheer and comfort me.

Life seems more sweet that Thou didst live

And men more true that Thou were one;

Nothing is lost that Thou didst give,

Nothing destroyed that Thou hast done.

In our loss, in our sadness, remember that:

Nothing is lost that Paula didst give,

Nothing is destroyed that she hast done.

Nothing.

Nothing is lost.

Farewell to thee, Paula. Farewell my mother. Farewell.

You are gone. Yet you remain.

Nothing is lost.