Notifying The Family

118

After three months of my resumes being out and no jobs being offered, I decided I needed to move on with my personal life. Given the success of the hormone treatments I had been having during the past two years, I decided that the best long term decision for me would be to 'normalize' my sex as female. As part of this decision, Samuel recommended I let my family members know and thus have a good measure of which ones would be supportive and which ones wouldn't be. Ultimately I had no problem with this as, since I hadn't felt a high level of support from my family over the decades, I really wasn't worried if the intermittent contact I had with them was the only victim. Of my family members, I assumed that my father and mother would cut contact with me for sure, but I saw that more as a relief than a problem, so it was a question of which of my siblings might cut contact with me, themselves.

Daina didn't like the idea at all and felt I should wait until I found a new job and saved money for a few years and then decide how to lead my personal life. As jobs weren't immediately apparent, I didn't agree with her.

I spent a week crafting a common letter for all my immediate family members. I noted my years of having 'an issue', lightly giving some of the physical details but avoiding anything that would cause someone to abruptly stop reading, and then ended the letter with my decision to live the rest of my life as female. I then took this base letter and made five variations for each member with a touch of personalization. I printed and reread them just to be sure and then added my signature to each and mailed them off by the end of September, Nineteen Ninety-Four.

As no surprise my father again disowned me, having my eldest brother call me to let me know. For his part though, my eldest brother didn't have a problem with it. My sister didn't have a problem with it either, though surprisingly my not as older brother wrote back a letter saying he felt it was a 'betrayal'. His point was that, if mother had told me to keep it a secret for all of these years, I should have continued with that. Then he noted, upon reflection and after discussing it with my eldest brother, he had decided to 'forgive me' and accept my decision.

To my shock, my mother's reaction was the most extreme: She was fully supportive.

At the time I was thrown for a loop by this as I had been planning on not having to hear from her again. But in retrospect, after being the only family member to care for her when she had fractured her pelvis, she had concluded that she had to stay on my good side and keep me available in her life in case anything else happened where she would need help. That's my interpretation of her response. But what she did was want to know the details and started to send me frequent holiday cards in the vein of 'To My Darling Daughter, --'. When a friend later saw these, he thought she was being sarcastic with the cards, but I thought she was just over compensating for all the years since she had told me to keep my 'situation' a secret.

With notifying family members out of the way, I decided to verbally notify my friends in town. Of those friends, the ones I was most fearful of losing would be the one's who had supported the anti-Gay rights 'Amendment 2' in Colorado. It turned out I didn't have to worry. All of my friends who were still in contact with me had chosen to know me given my 'personality, talents, and interests', not based on my gender. So for them they just saw this as another interesting facet of the person that was me. The one friend I feared losing the most was my long time friend in Colorado, Jeff, as a few years earlier a member of the Denver science fiction club had come out as a transsexual and Jeff soon stopped attending their meetings with her there. But when I brought it up to him, he noted that it wasn't the club member coming out as a transsexual that had lead him to leave the club, but that she had then spent the rest of her time at the subsequent club meetings as an ardent feminist, taking the club off of its focus of science fiction & fantasy interests. So Jeff's only concern was if I was going to be undergoing a 'change in personality' as well as legal sex. I assured him I wasn't. I was just going to be the same person with a different letter on my driver's license. That was fine with him.

Given that I had been out of contact with my high school friends for years, I decided not to bother tell them as I felt it would only end up as grist for High School Reunions to take place years later. Otherwise, I didn't see the point.

When I reported to Samuel of the news of notifying my family and friends and how it had gone, he was pleased and, in fact, very surprised that there hadn't been any fall out with anyone I knew and cared about. I agreed and even joked wistfully that, yes, even my mother hadn't cut contact with me!

As time went on, I did lose contact with some of these Colorado friends, but it was due to the normal drift of life interests and nothing to do with my legal change of gender. Of my Colorado friends, there was only one who I lost: Daina.

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A Death In The Family

116

In fifth grade, I had taken up the habit of having a 'sick day' on one of my father's days off to avoid the despised fifth grade teacher, but to also have a chance to get to know my father better. On one of these days, my father had to sort through the home's attic and I joined him up in the dark and dusty space. Sorting through his collection of post World War II 'Life' magazines he stumbled upon a box with a typed manuscript inside. He looked at it briefly as he remembered what it was. It was a book written by Pappy's brother, based in their childhood location of Nova Scotia. This came as a surprise to me as I hadn't known my father's side of the family had come from Canada. I asked about Pappy's brother but dad simply said he had died young and left it at that.

Sorting through more stuff, I found a giant sized dictionary missing its cover. Published soon into the nineteen hundreds, it had more words in it than I had ever known existed. It had been squirreled away in the attic after the hard bound cover had fallen off decades ago, but had been kept given how much it had cost at the time it was purchased. My father said it had been Pappy's brother's and he had used it while writing his book. I asked if I could bring it down and look through it. He agreed and I had a great rest of the day seeing all of these words I had never heard of before and wondered if I could one day get it rebound with a new protective cover. Then it was gone. I assumed my mother had found it.

Twenty years later, in the pre-Spring of Nineteen Ninety-Four, Daina's mother had died.

What more can one say but that?

Her various siblings from across the Western half of the country assembled for the first time in decades for the funeral, then quickly dispersed as many had disowned the others during their lives and didn't want to spend time with each other. As her father had already made plans to live elsewhere, there was the family home to sort through and place on the market. Of the four siblings living in Colorado, Daina told me that two of them had not been as helpful as she thought they should have been during their mother's illness and believed that sorting through the home would be a task handled by her and her youngest brother. Given that I had been joining Daina for years on other errand runs and I felt like I owed her a lot given all the free meals she had fed me over the years, I offered to join her on the weekends and help with the home.

Sorting through one's childhood heirlooms, there's always that conflict of things that once meant something to you, but did it still mean enough for you to make a new place for it in your adult life? That was the dilemma Daina faced with each and every day we tackled one room after another. At the time Daina kept more than she should and we brought many boxes of items from Denver back to her condo and its associated single car garage, now dedicated to storage. Even the simplest things such as a canister of soothing power Daina had bought her mother during her last weeks had a deep meaning for her and when another sibling threw it away, Daina was horrified as it meant something to her, at that time. Each loss of a personal possession of her mother's often hit her as a reminder of the loss of her mother, itself.

Daina told me I could have anything that another family member didn't want as my payment for the time and effort helping her. While I couldn't imagine wanting anything, I kept the offer in mind. Once the top floor was done and the bottom basement floor cleared out, all that was left was piled in the main floor for a final sorting and review. Would a distant family member want it? Should it go to charity? Or was it to badly worn and needed to be tossed out? Suddenly, to my surprise there was a huge dictionary that was published soon into the Nineteen hundreds. While I couldn't say it was the same edition as my father and I had found twenty years earlier, it was still similar enough that it reminded me of that treasured book, since lost.

I asked Daina if I could have it. She didn't think so as it was a family heirloom in good condition and she was sure another family member would want it. Still, she asked her father and he said, ''No,'' as he felt someone in the family should have it. Hopes dashed, it was put aside and I continued to help Daina until her family home was emptied out after little over four consecutive weekends of sorting through everything. As there was little else left to do, Daina made the last trip to Denver on her own and she and her father took a last walk through the house before it was placed for sale. When Daina returned, she had a surprise for me.

No other family member had wanted the giant dictionary and her father said I could have it given all of my help. I eagerly accepted it from her and told her to thank her father for me. I spent the next few weeks reading through one after another of the very thin pages. Given its weight, it had to be placed on a table to read through. Once the table space was needed, I made a slot for it amongst my book shelves and there it stayed to be looked at once in a very great while when it was time to look up an obscure word.

Without her mother to care for and visit from now on, I assumed Daina and I would spend more weekends doing things together...

In reality our friendship seemed to be on its last leg.

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The Holidays

115

My mother never worried about the holidays when it was just me and her yet, since the time she fractured her pelvis, she suddenly cared about them and wanted to take me out for my birthday and Thanksgiving and Christmas. This creeped me out as it was so unlike her and I didn't know what to make of it.

Fortunately I had excuses at many of these times. As Daina would often be taking me out to eat anyhow, she had roped me into annually going out to eat at a restaurant where the meal was free for the one having the birthday. She sold it as a kindness to her as it saved her money, I only agreed as long as the restaurant didn't make a show of it. It turned out they didn't like doing the clapping and singing either, if they didn't have to. Daina had also found a couple of places that would be open on Thanksgiving Day and Christmas and invite me to go with her, rather than sitting in my apartment eating ramen noodles. But with Nineteen Ninety-Three Daina couldn't make these holidays anymore as she wanted to spend them with her own mother.

Daina's mother had been recently diagnosed with lung cancer and, as it had been caught so late, it was already past the time to treat it beyond an attempt at chemotherapy and painkillers as the cancer spread. Given this, Daina had a reason to be back in Denver for the Holidays and spend time with her mother and I didn't begrudge her that. Unfortunately this meant my ready excuse to turn down the invitations to join my own mother for the holidays was gone. When she again called me for this year's Thanksgiving, I debated quietly having ramen noodles in my apartment or going out to eat even if it did include spending time with my mother...

As she had been better behaved since her fractured pelvis, and I had become used to eating out so frequently, I decided to agree and it turned out we had a very good time. After we were done eating, mother offered to have me take the wheel of her car and go for a 'drive around town or to the mountains' for the afternoon. Enjoying such drives myself, I agreed and we were soon into the mountains and running along the back roads. After a couple of hours of this, it was time to head back and go our separate ways. For Christmas we did the same thing, though given the declined weather we kept the after dinner drive to around town.

This would become an annual event for my mother and myself for the next few years and they added to the rare positive experiences I had with her during my life. While she had made a number of friends during her early years in Colorado, her penchant for always having to degrade everyone in conversation had resulted in those friends eventually avoiding contact with her and, as I was the child who had helped her when she had fractured her pelvis, I suspected she saw me as her only friend left in town. In reality, after everything she had put me through I could never be her friend. But I could be polite and have fun with her as long as we didn't spend too much time together, allowing her typical behaviors to resurface.

With the holiday season coming to an end, the normal routine of life returned and I asked Daina how her mother had been doing during her recent visits. It turned out she was now confined to a rental hospital bed in the first floor of their house. Daina found it bizarre that given how terrible the relationship between her father and mother had been when she had grown up, her father had become dedicated to helping and caring for their mother during this time and she wondered if he had any regrets over the way he had treated her during their lives, or if he was just doing it out of duty. Either way it had helped a lot as many of Daina's siblings had moved away and Daina said she and her younger brother couldn't handle it on their own as they didn't live in Denver, themselves.

With the turn of the year came my last two semesters of College. In fact it would be my last full semester of College and then an abbreviated summer semester with a single class to ready me to join the job market. After all the challenges of my childhood and all of my early adult ordeals, I could see the end coming to this part of my story and would finally have my chance to enter the mainstream of life.

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untitled

106

[Disclaimer: This segment is based on my understanding and advice from the early nineteen nineties, I'm sure the state of scientific knowledge has improved since then so please only use the details here as a jumping off point for your own search for answers, not as the sum total of your knowledge...]

With the Hollywood check received, deposited & cleared, I went ahead and made an 'initial evaluation appointment' with the best doctor I could find knowledgeable in intersexed conditions. I was able to get the appointment before other things came up during the month of August and I asked Daina if I could borrow her car for the day so I wouldn't have to use the trick of taking a national bus to Denver one day, staying over night, and then returning the next. She agreed and I put down the sense of butterflies the appointment date gave me as I continued through my next two weeks of College. Finally the day came and Daina picked me up at my apartment on her way to work, and then I dropped her off at her job and pulled onto the highway to get to Denver and the appointment.

Dr. 'Czarnecki' was a family doctor who had come into the intersexed field through a patient of his who he was already seeing for routine matters. As such, he was the closest available doctor I could see about my condition and after fifteen years since my surprise puberty I might finally get some serious insight into my condition. Arriving, it was like any other doctor's office and I checked in, gave my insurance information for future reference and then paid up front for my initial appointment that wouldn't be covered by the insurance. I then got to take a seat in the waiting area and wondered how many, if any, of the people I saw in there were also of an intersexed background. No clue.

My name was called and I was lead to the doctor's little office room with his desk, not an examination room. It's always nice to get to know a doctor before you're told to undress! He was pleasant and asked about my personal background, first, before getting into the puberty side. But then we got to the topic and he told me how rare it was for an intersexed person not to be identified at birth as checking genitals was a standard procedure after delivery. I had also wondered about this and it was one of the things my psychologist, 'Samuel', and I had discussed one time. The theory was, given my troubled delivery, I was chucked aside without further examination as the doctors and nurses focused on saving my mother. I passed the theory on to Dr. Czarnecki and he took it as a likely possibility.

And so he explained to me that each fetus starts out as female with a default set of hormone receptors and then a few weeks later half of those receptors further develop for all fetuses and for 'X/Y' chromosome pairs the baby will then physically masculinize. In the case of Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, though, most if not all of the receptors remain in their default condition, in the case for sex hormones that would be for estrogen, and as such the resulting body has little to any response to testosterone once born. I could now understand why my body hadn't significantly responded to testosterone at puberty but I asked how this would explain my developing as a woman since, as far as I knew, I had nothing to produce estrogen in my body. He noted that testosterone and estrogen are very similar hormones and as such a low level of each opposite type is produced in both sexes while the primary hormone is created by the body. This is referred to as 'the backwash effect'. Thus while my body was pumping out a high puberty level of testosterone, which I had very few receptors to notice it, it was also creating a lesser amount of estrogen which my body had many additional receptors to respond to it. Thus in my case a little went a very long way.

I told him of the test of my testosterone level a few years back which had showed I was still at a puberty level of testosterone. He wasn't surprised by this as, without the receptors to notice the testosterone level in the body, the pituitary gland sends out signals for the testicles to produce more and more endlessly. Because of this perpetual demand to produce abnormal testosterone levels, the testicles often go cancerous after many years of this. It is traditional practice to remove the testicles of intersexed patients as a safeguard against this cancer potential and such would be the recommendation for me regardless of how I otherwise wished to handle the rest of my 'situation'. It was time for the physical examination and I was lead to an examination room and told to undress and get into a gown while the doctor saw another patient.

When he came in, he reviewed my body, examined my pubic area, over all body hair and facial hair level and my breast development. He asked me if my parents had been mostly body hair free. I laughed at this as I recalled a time I had once seen my father naked and hadn't realized it at the time given his high level of body hair. In the case of my mother, I believed it was average as she did shave her legs and underarms. The physical review was done, it was time for me to get dressed and meet him in his office, again. He then checked with another patient in the meantime as I got clothed and made my own way to his office and took a seat, glancing around at his books, mementos and degrees on display as I waited.

When he returned he told me that I suffered from Partial Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome given my male genitals were not fully developed and my significantly reduced response to the testosterone in my body. He doubted my body could masculinize any more than it already had but he wished to redo the testosterone level test to make sure I was still in the high range. With this as the diagnosis one option was to remain 'male' and have surgery to remove my breasts and the testicles and a surgeon could also remove the excess tissue currently engulfing my under developed penis which would allow me fewer problems with urination. If I wished I could go an additional step and have a penile implant put in place which I could use to participate as a male in sex. I noted that I had never actually been interested in having any sex. He said this was also not uncommon as testosterone triggered the sex drive for both men and women, and without the receptors in my brain to be triggered by the testosterone in my body, I would likely never have a biological sex drive. Such was the case for many intersexed people, if not most.

My other option was to live the rest of my life 'female'. In that case I would still need to have my testicles removed as well as my existing penile 'nub'. Again this would make peeing easier as I would have a straight path for urine flow and I would no longer have to live the rest of my life with my breasts bound for social reasons. In this case a surgeon would also perform a vaginoplasty which would allow me to have sex as a female, if I wished, as well as resolve any questions about my physical sex. In this case, I would also likely need an estrogen supplement to replace the estrogen level currently produced with the testosterone in my body. As part of looking into this option, he would first want to give me an estrogen injection to see what my response to it would be as, if I didn't tolerate estrogen supplements, then it would make less sense to take the female route.

Either way, at the very least it sounded like I should have the testicles removed to be safe, even if I pursued nothing else.

This was a lot to think about and he recommended I should spend some time discussing it with my counselor. I agreed. In the meantime he asked if he could give me a B12 injection to see what my response would be to it. I saw no reason not to and he left his office to get it as I remained and mulled everything over.

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The Morning After

103

I arrived at the mobile home before nine the next morning to find that my sister and her daughter were already gone. Checking on my mother, she thought they had gone at least an hour earlier and she had been alone since. But she pointed out that she had called my not as older brother and he would be getting emergency leave from the Air Force and flying out to take care of her. When I asked her when he'd be arriving, she said he hadn't figured out the arrangements yet, but when he did he'd be here to take care of her. In the meantime I told her that I'd be moving back in temporarily and would be bringing my computer here to keep me busy as well as some books. Was there anything she needed in the meantime? More water and the bed pan.

During my drive home the previous night I had stopped at the grocery store to find some bending straws to make it easier for her to drink water so that request was quickly addressed, as for the bed pan we finally guessed that the best technique was for her to roll to her side and then I place the pan where her seat would be once she rolled back. It took two tries to get this right and then she'd need time alone to do her business. I took this as my first chance to go back to my apartment and get a car load of my stuff for the stay. The new 'speed bumps' in the mobile home park quickly became the bane of my existence as I had to very carefully roll up one side of them and then gently back down the other side with my impact sensitive computer in back. Even without the computer, these lengths of asphalt curbing were so steep that they could only be taken at less than one mile an hour to reduce the abrupt, unforgiving jump they caused in the car. It was time to empty the bed pan and my mother rolled to her side again and I had to quickly intervene to stop the bed pan from rolling onto its side as well and spilling its contents. I then emptied it into the toilet and thought to take it to the kitchen sink where I could use the sprayer to rinse it out. Returning to my mother I asked her what else I could get for her. She said she would be fine for now.

Realizing I'd have to be spending the nights using her water bed so I'd be within ear shot of her, I stripped its sheets and blankets and put them in the washer next to the bedrooms. As the machine ran, mother called me back into the bedroom where she then cried about what had happened to her. My mother cursed my sister for not having a bathroom night light so she could see what room it was in the dark. She had gone passed it, assuming it was another bedroom door and then realized she had gone too far when she found the steps, instead, and fell down them. Our mother had apparently been at the foot of the stairs for a long while calling for my sister before she finally woke up and came to see what the problem was. She hadn't wanted to take her to the hospital fearing my mother's out of state insurance wouldn't cover it and she'd be stuck with the bill, but she finally relented after a period of mother's begging. The emergency room doctor told mother she had a broken pelvis and was to be kept in bed for the next few weeks until she healed up enough for a follow-up with a specialist. I tried to imagine a broken pelvis and all I could guess was a plate split in half with the two halves waving like wings whenever my mother moved. I couldn't imagine how she had been released from the hospital and neither could she.

The good news was, in her eyes, that my not as older brother would be taking leave from the Air Force and coming out to take care of her until she was all better and I wouldn't have to be there for more than a night or two. I thanked her for letting me know, especially as I would be returning to College in a week and wouldn't be able to help her full-time by that point. After a few more days of my mother assuring me my not as older brother would soon be arriving to take care of her, she finally concluded, ''I guess he can't get away, just now.'' Not having witnessed any of the phone calls she told me she had made to him, I didn't know how much contact she actually had with him about her condition, or what he truly told her. Years later when I'd talked to him about the time, he said he had never told her he would be coming out to help her so he didn't know why she had been telling me that. To my mind, though, my not as older brother had always been deemed 'the best child of us all' in her eyes and she was likely just expressing her preference as to which one she wanted to take care of her by imagining he was swooping out to save her.

My mother wasn't sure what she could eat and eventually decided on canned Spaghetti O's as a food she could easily just swallow without chewing. At first I tried to feed her with a spoon, but she decided it was better if I propped up her head with multiple pillows allowing her to drink it down from the edge of the bowl until she was done, then I would remove all but one pillow so she could return to lying flat. And so the days went for the first week, her diet of canned Spaghetti O's being supplemented with occasional glasses of juice between the routine glasses of water. She just lay in the darkness and I guess she let the time drift by her as the days wound on. I would sit at the computer on the dining room table and surf online or sometimes watch television with the sound very low waiting for the next time she'd call me for food, liquid, or for help with the bed pan. While she had been on vacation during the holiday weekend this had happened, it soon dawned on us that I needed to call the hospital kitchen where she worked and inform them of her injury and that she would have to be out indefinitely on medical leave until she was well enough to return.

To break the monotony, Daina would sometimes sneak over for the evening and we'd quietly watch television together as I waited for the next time I was called to mother's bedside. One time Daina needed to use the restroom but, as it was next to mother's bedroom, she decided to wait until our current show was over and then go home so as not to disturb her. At the next commercial break I went and got myself a glass of ice tea and then sucked some into my mouth and gently spewed it through my pursed lips back into the glass making a peeing sound. Daina lightly punched me in the leg in response. I'm so evil.

Toward the end of the week, I called a social services group who specialized in helping older people with mobility issues and asked what services they offered. I told them of the condition my mother was in and that I'd be returning to College with the following week, asking if they had someone who could check on her during those times. I also asked what other help they could provide and requested overall advice as the only guidance I had about the whole thing was what my sister had told me. They said they would check into it and call me back. I gave them the mobile home phone number and, after not hearing back for a while, I walked to the post box to get the daily mail. When I returned mother was angry at me as they had called back and she had answered the phone. ''I don't need any help from strangers!'' she yelled at me and I told her that the help request was in part for me. It turned out I didn't need any help either to her mind and so I concluded that when I returned to College the following week that it meant she would be able to take care of herself.

In reality though I continued to live with her for the next two weeks and still took care of her except for the six hours from the late morning to the late afternoon when I took my classes.

By the third week she was well enough to get up and painfully hobble on her own. I moved my stuff back to my apartment and no longer spent the nights there. When I took her to her first specialist appointment, she found out that her pelvis hadn't been broken all the way through, just fractured. That was why staying still had been allowing it to heal over time without any intervening surgery or devices needed to stabilize it. Until the end of June I continued to check on her and be with her a few hours in the morning before College and a few hours after College to make sure she was doing as best as she could. By the end of July, she was well enough to return to light duty at her job, thus I was out of a car and back to taking the bus for my needs so I just ended up calling her once a day for the rest of the month to check on her and insure she was doing all right. By August she and I were back to our lives as if nothing had happened, having little contact once again.

But something had happened.

One day, she asked for me to come over and see her for 'something important' that evening. Rather than take the multiple hour ride on the bus, I asked Daina if I could borrow her car when she was done with work and she agreed. I drove over to my mother's mobile home and rang the door bell I had installed for her a decade earlier and she opened the door and was glad I had come. She had recently figured something out and it had been a profound insight for her and she wanted to share it with me. We sat down at the antique dining room table and mother looked to me. ''I just wanted to tell you that, when you came I couldn't understand why God would want me to have another child under those circumstances. When I didn't have a miscarriage and the doctors even revived you when you had been born dead, I couldn't imagine why God wanted you here so badly. But now I know.'' She reached out her hand and placed it on the back of my hand already resting on the table, ''God sent you to me so you would be here for the time I broke my pelvis.''

I could tell by the gentle and warm look in her eyes that this was important for her, but for me all it confirmed was she hadn't wanted or valued my life until this Summer.

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Dumped

102

I would be restarting College in a week and was getting ready for the significant change in my life having a daily task would bring. I already had my schedule and purchased my books and was starting to page through them in anticipation. When I was out, either visiting Daina, the downtown area, or across the street for my daily soda, I received a phone call from my sister living at the Wyoming/Montana border. She left a message that she was on the road driving my mother back to town and I was to take care of her as she had a broken pelvis. She gave me a time when she and her daughter expected to be at my mother's mobile home that evening.

I was dumbfounded. Our mother annually made road trips to visit my sister for a few days and this year she was going up for my niece's high school graduation just after Memorial Day. Beyond that I didn't have a clue what might have happened and checking the time and bus schedule realized I'd have to leave immediately if I was going to be to her mobile home to meet them when they arrived. At the time, Daina was busy and not at home so I wouldn't be able to reach her about the news until later. Getting to mother's place, it had been two years since I had last been there during the science fiction group's art auction and in the intervening time they had installed lengths of asphalt curbing to act as speed bumps. I guess they decided to save money on having actual speed bumps put in place and had these four inch tall, abrupt rise and decline strips put across the roads instead. As I was on foot, it wasn't an issue for me at the time, just more of a jaw dropping curiosity. Getting in the mobile home itself, I found little had changed other than the water bed in my old bedroom, which I had already heard about, otherwise everything else was as I remembered it including my mother's old bed still in place in the master bedroom. Apparently she slept on the waterbed then walked to her old bedroom for everything else.

It was around an hour before the little convoy arrived, my sister driving her SUV and her daughter driving my mother's compact car. My mother was laying down in the back seat of my sister's car and we had a chunk of time for my sister to tell me the gist as my mother tried to get out. My sister rented a split level house with a half flight of stairs from the bedroom section to the main floor. As the story went, after being there for less than a day, my mother had tried to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and misjudged the length of the hallway in the darkness, falling down the stairs. Her cries of pain had woken up my sister and when it was clear it was more than a bruise from the fall they had taken her to the only hospital for evaluation. With X-rays they found she had a 'broken pelvis' and had to be isolated in bed for the next few weeks as it healed up.

At this point my mother had gotten herself out of the SUV, but couldn't stand and collapsed to the driveway where she began crawling to the steps of the mobile home. My sister and niece just watched this while I felt we should be doing something but my sister said this was the best way for mother to get around. Stunned, it eventually dawned on me to open the front door of the mobile home for her and make sure the rest of the path was clear. As my mother crawled up the steps to the front door with grunts of pain, pausing for a moment to rest and have a cry, she finally got herself to the floor of the mobile home and began crawling to her bedroom. My sister and her daughter seemed to take this situation as more of an annoyance, describing how mother had been 'moaning & groaning' the whole nine hour drive back to Colorado and 'put on a show' trying to use a restroom at one of their gas stops along the way.

As 'it wouldn't be fair' for her daughter to miss her graduation the day after Memorial Day, they would be staying that night in the mobile home and then heading back toward Montana the following day at which point mother would be my responsibility thereafter. When I noted I didn't have a car of my own to visit mother each day, they noted that mother wasn't going to be using her car anytime soon.

Mother had finally reached the master bedroom and was crawling up into her old, traditional, bed. With her cries of pain as she did this, I left my sister in the living room area and went to see if I could help. While she had gotten her chest onto the surface of the bed, she wasn't able to lift her legs up, over the edge. She said she had to keep her legs together because of the break and I eventually figured that meant I should grasp both of her calves and lift up her legs and pivot her onto the full bed while she used her arms to turn her chest, keeping her body as straight as possible so as to not inflame the injury. Once she was lying face down on the bed, she next wanted my help rolling her over onto her back, then helping to remove her dirty clothes which had become stained and tattered during her crawls. This was my first time seeing my mother undressed down to her undies as I undid her pants and pulled them off, then unbuttoned her blouse and scootched it up behind her back and past her head while she continued to lay, then holding each sleeve taut as she pulled out her arms. She asked for me to straighten the pillow under her head and then get her a glass of water for her bed stand and get the bottle of prescription pain pills out of her purse. I did and she had me take out a pill and put it to her lips and then she tried to lean upward to drink a sip of the water and cried in pain but fought through it until she was able to get that sip and swallow the pill. She settled back down and asked me to pull the blankets over her and move the bed stand phone within her reach. With her now resting, I returned to the living area.

My sister said that they would take care of mother for the night and that I should move back in the following morning for the next few weeks, if not months, until mother was better. As she couldn't leave the bed, the hospital had given them a bed pan for mother to use when she needed to go to the bathroom. It was at this point that I learned mother shouldn't be moving or traveling until she was better. I didn't point out the obvious contradiction of this given the trip bringing mother back to Colorado and then having to crawl out of the SUV and to her bedroom. While they couldn't stay to help as they had to get back in time for my niece's graduation, I mentioned that I was entering full-time college classes after the following week. My sister thought I should then probably cancel my college classes for the Summer so I would be at the mobile home all the time to take care mother...

Given that they weren't willing to skip a graduation ceremony to care for my mother for a handful of days, and reflecting on mother being the person who had repeatedly abused me as a preteen and then harassed me during my years of health problems in late nineteen eighties, I considered the idea of canceling my return to College to take care of her and thought: LIKE HELL!

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Display

97

Just about six months since I had started seeing my new psychologist, 'Samuel', we had discussed at length my mixed-sex 'situation', what it meant to me personally and what it meant to the world socially and we both agreed that I was emotionally prepared to look into the medical part of my 'situation' and find what my options were for addressing it. One area of concern was outside support. While it was all good to have him on my side, I really should have someone in my social life aware of the 'situation' and be supportive as well. As my family members weren't an option, all of them living hundreds if not thousands of miles away except for my mother, and she had been the one who insisted I keep my 'situation' a secret and not tell anyone, I guessed I'd have to find someone else.

With March Nineteen Ninety-Two it was starting to get warm enough for Daina and I to once again go hiking in the nearby mountains and parks. Given how well our friendship had developed over the years, I decided I would tell her on one of our hikes. When we arrived at the foothills of the nearest mountain I realized, with the effort of hiking up and down the paths, that it wouldn't be conducive to a good discussion and also lack privacy given the occasional other hikers we would pass by on the trail. So I waited until we were getting back to the car and then let Daina know I wanted to talk to her about something. Apparently Daina had noticed my contemplative quietness during the hike and concluded that something was up and I had now confirmed it -- To her fears. Back in the car, Daina decided to start it and begin driving though that hadn't been my plan. Sure enough, with Daina paying attention to the twists & turns of the mountain side road, it didn't feel like the right atmosphere for the discussion and I asked her to find somewhere to pull aside so we could talk. She decided this meant she needed to drive faster, but I finally insisted she stop at the next overlook pull-off and she reluctantly did.

''What!'' was her prompt to me once we stopped and she shut off the car. While not an ideal beginning to the topic, I felt it was the best I was going to get to talk to her about my 'situation'. Let's face it, when is a good time to bring up something like that? And so I decided to start from the beginning with puberty where boys begin to become men and girls begin to become women and in my case it was 'pretty much a mixed bag'. This attempt to ease into the subject only brought a confused look so I decided to be more explicit that I had been a boy but when I turned thirteen, parts of me developed as a woman while the male parts of me withered a bit and I had only developed a few speckles of beard but nothing else. ''So you're saying you wanted to be a woman?'' she guessed, still not grasping the situation. No, not necessarily, I returned, it was a case of my body, physically, not knowing what it should be and I was seeing a doctor to figure it out.

She was clearly perplexed and asked a few questions which lead me to believe she still wasn't understanding what I was trying to explain to her. This was before the time when I had come up with that succinct line I thought I was a boy but when puberty came I got a big surprise. Perhaps I came up with this line after my much more wordier attempt to explain it to Daina hadn't been very effective. She didn't seem to want to talk about it any further and I couldn't figure out what else to say on my end of the conversation. So she restarted the car and we continued driving to her place. Once we were there, she brought up the topic again but it was still clear that she was thinking this was an emotional 'feeling' I was talking about not a physical occurrence. So I decided just to lift up my tee shirt, unclip the ACE bandage strapping me down and pull it free, letting my boobs drop out. She stood there mute for a moment then turned away. ''Never do that, ever again,'' she said in a solemn voice and I left for her bathroom to cinch myself back up.

When I came back into the condo's combination dining room/living area, Daina decided she should just take me back to my apartment for the rest of the day as she needed to think. I felt this was bad news, but didn't want to stir up any more resentments by trying to force the topic on her any further. It was a quiet drive back and I told her to give me a call later when she wanted to talk more. I got out of the car and she just as quietly left. I watched her drive away uncertain if I'd ever hear from her again.

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Saved

93

It was Friday the thirteenth – Well, no, it was actually Wednesday the eleventh -- that Daina called me on the phone and told me she was going to Denver overnight that Friday to see one of her favorite writers. So he won't think I'm trying to boost views of my blog by dropping his name, I'll call him 'Barry David'. He was a syndicated columnist who wrote humorous articles of reflection and slice of life discoveries. These articles had lead to a series of books and he had become a periodic guest on the cable news network I often watched. Being allergic to newsprint -- No, really, I am! -- I had never read any of his articles but did like his interviews. Still, I didn't like them enough to want to tag along on a ride to Denver and see him, so I turned down Daina's offer.

As the coming retirement of Johnny Carson from The Tonight Show had come to light, I had taken up watching his final broadcasts, sitting in the center of my couch before heading off for bed. I had first become aware of him and his show in Nineteen Seventy-Five after my mother had taken me to the New England apartment while still working on the night crew in my home town. I would spend the evenings with father at the family home and watch the first half hour with him until mother was off work, there was the half hour drive to the apartment town, then I'd watch the last half hour of his show at the apartment as mother got ready for bed. Back then The Tonight Show was an hour & a half and remained that way until the Nineteen Eighties. While never a regular viewer I had caught his show often since and he had become a long time figure in my life. Given his coming retirement, I decided to savor these last few months and made sure to get myself on the couch and watch his show each and every night I could.

On Thursday the twelfth, I realized I missed visiting with my former software start-up company friend, Pat, living in Denver. During the past year & a half I had been going up to Denver for overnight visits so I could get my quarterly supply of fat enzymes. To ease my schedule of taking public transportation for these trips, he had been kind enough to host me overnight so I could make these trips more comfortably and visit with him and his family. But as I no longer needed the fat enzymes to stave off my weight loss issues now that the antibiotics had addressed that, this also meant I hadn't seen him in a while to compare thoughts on recent science fiction books and musical groups we liked. Calling his work number I asked if I could come up for another overnighter that Friday to visit and he seemed happy to have me again. I then touched base with Daina once she had finished her school day and asked, instead of joining her to see 'Barry David', could I catch a ride and have her drop me off at Pat's house and then give me a ride home the following Saturday? She agreed and I set my video recorder to tape The Tonight Show in my absence.

Friday the thirteenth came and after working at the school all day, then going home to prepare an overnight bag for herself as she'd be staying with her mother at her family home for the night, Daina picked me up and gave me my ride. I visited with Pat and his family, debating about philosophy as well as discussing other life issues and his wife prepared the family room couch for me to sleep on as I had often done during these visits. Pat and I retired to the family room to talk some more before he went off to bed on the upper floor and I watched a bit more of rare television channels not carried by my own towns' cable system.

I was still awake but getting ready to go to sleep when Pat's house got a phone call some time after midnight. I was surprised Pat would be getting a call so late in the day. Then he came down and told me the call was actually for me. I picked up the family room's extension and it was Jeff. I had mentioned to him in passing that I would be visiting Pat this weekend and he had remembered it. He told me he had gotten an emotionally distraught phone call from my mother as apparently I was dead, but they couldn't find my body. Jeff really couldn't tell me much more about the story himself as he had a very hard time getting that much of the facts out of my mother when she called him. He recommended I call her and let her know I was still alive.

Calling my mother she was furious with me, ''HOW DARE YOU PUT MY NAME DOWN AS THE EMERGENCY POINT OF CONTACT!'' she yelled at me over the phone. ''HOW COULD YOU PUT ME THROUGH THAT?'' she demanded and paused long enough for me to ask what she was talking about. She wasn't very coherent but I finally pulled out of her that she had been called by the apartment manager and told that they thought I was dead as a result of a car accident and asked her permission if they could break into my apartment as I hadn't been answering the door. I asked if she had the phone number of the manager and as luck would have it the manager had given it to her and I decided I should call her next to find out the full details of what had happened. ''NEVER HAVE ME AS YOUR EMERGENCY POINT OF CONTACT AGAIN!'' were mother's last words to me on the call.

Calling the manager she was relieved to hear my voice and know I was safe and alive. At the time Johnny Carson was on television it turned out a drunk driver had left the nearby cowboy themed club that night and rather than curving to the right when driving home on the road, he curved left, jumped the curbing of the road and planted the front of his pickup truck through the living room wall of my garden level apartment. As the manger's apartment was directly over my own, she and her husband got up to discover what the crash was. The driver had managed to pull himself out of the passenger window of his truck and had begun running the rest of the way home. The manager's husband started to give chase but, given that he didn't have shoes on, soon thought better of it and turned to come back to the apartment building where he realized the front of the truck had broken through the wall where my couch was placed and wondered if I was all right. When I didn't answer the door after his repeated knocking he feared the worst and had his wife dig through my apartment application paperwork to find a phone number to call.

The manager said I should come back as quickly as I could as the police were there going over the accident scene. I agreed and thanked her for the information and then figured I should call Daina and ask her to take me back now, rather than wait until the next day. This being before the days of ubiquitous mobile phones, I cracked open the Denver phone book and looked through it trying to find the likely phone number of Daina's family home. Finding a number, I gave it a call only to get no answer. Did I have the wrong number? I didn't see how but finally picked another phone number with the same last name in the book. It turned out I had reached Daina's eldest brother and I quickly introduced myself and told him the gist of the situation and asked to confirm the first phone number I tried. It was the right number and I thanked him and went back to calling Daina's family home again, still without an answer. Had something happened to Daina as well that night and her mother was out of the house as a result? My mind raced with what this all meant and what I should do. As it was clear I wasn't going to be able to get home anytime soon, and since my longtime friend Jeff kept to late night hours anyhow, I called him back and told him the story, asking if he could go to my apartment and see what was going on for me. He agreed and in the meantime I went up to Pat's bedroom to let him know as well.

Perhaps I should have asked Pat for a ride back home at the time, but as Daina had brought me to Denver, I saw her as my ride back and kept trying the number to her family home off and on for the next few hours, still with no answer. Jeff called back by three in the morning to let me know they had pulled the truck out of the wall and the police were done with their work there. They were just going to leave the hole in my apartment bare with my living room on display to the elements and any passersby but Jeff convinced them to get a sheet of plywood and nail it over the center of the hole to at least partially protect my stuff until I got there. He was heading home himself as there didn't seem to be anything else he could do. I thanked him and noted my problems trying to reach Daina so it seemed I wasn't going to get back anytime soon.

I called her family home periodically throughout the rest of the night with no answer and finally decided I should try to get some sleep myself. I didn't get more than a nap, though, and finally Daina's mother answered the phone soon after seven in the morning. She was angry that I was calling so early but at my request went to wake Daina. I told Daina the news and she agreed to come right over and pick me up. She and her mother had been home all night, but the only phone in the house was on the first floor next to her mother's bedroom, so Daina hadn't heard it ringing herself. I concluded that her mother must be a very sound sleeper.

When we got back to my apartment we first saw the single sheet of plywood hanging over the hole in the exterior wall and found the apartment door, which had been broken down, had been pulled back into the doorway, though it could no longer be latched and locked. The rest of the apartment was fine, but the living room section was littered with bits of concrete, wood and plaster. The spine of the couch had been cracked by the weight of the truck and various parts of my stereo system had been dinged by the flying debris. My computer system, right next to the hole, had been completely spared as the force of the crash had been aimed away from it. In total I had shy of two thousand dollars worth of damage as I later tallied for the insurance claim. As my apartment couldn't be secured anymore, I realized I had to find a place for my electronics and asked if we could take them to Daina's condo for the time being. She agreed and with the first load to her place we picked up her camera to take pictures of the damage as we returned for the second load.

Never before had I gotten an out of the blue opportunity to go to Denver for an overnight stay, and never has it happened since. Had I been home that night there was no doubt that I would have been on that couch watching Johnny Carson as the bumper of the truck would have broken through the wall and plowed into the back of my head. The driver side front tire would have continued to roll in and crushed my spine into my lap. I could never believe it was all just a profound coincidence and have ended up with the only conclusion possible to explain how my life was spared...

'Barry David', at least for that night in my life, was the hand of God.

While I toyed with the idea of writing him soon after to let him know, the events of life soon pushed that thought aside and I didn't get to it until many years later when I mailed him a thank you letter and told him of that night. Though I hadn't included contact information as part of my letter he must have gotten the address from the front of the envelope and sent me back a signed postcard saying ''Wow.''

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Thanksgiving

92

As a surprise gift my not as older brother, who was currently stationed in Washington, D.C., sent my mother and me airplane tickets to join him and his family for Thanksgiving. Now with his second wife and two daughters of his own, he wanted to have a full family Thanksgiving to fill their new townhouse. He also roped in my eldest brother and his wife to join us! While I had seen my not as older brother off & on over the years when he'd visit my mother during some of his leave time, I hadn't seen my eldest brother since leaving New England over eight years earlier. Adding to my anticipation my high school friend, Luke, had also moved to Washington, D.C., with his longtime girl friend as he had taken up a job with the Library Of Congress.

I knew my other high school friend, Van, had visited him from time to time there and pulled out his old home phone number and gave his family a call. I reached his mother and reintroduced myself to her after all the years and then asked if I could have Van's current phone number. She was willing and I was off to call Van. To my surprise I immediately reached him and chatted with him briefly. This was our first chat since his confessional phone call to me so many years earlier. I told him the news of going to Washington and asked him if he had Luke's current phone number and if perhaps he might have the chance to come down to D.C. himself for a small reunion. While he felt the whole idea was fun, he declined and said he couldn't. And for that matter he didn't seem interested in talking about his life either, but he was willing to give me Luke's phone number and wished me the best of luck. I gave him my apartment phone number should he ever want to call me sometime and catch up and he said he might.

Calling Luke, he seemed happy by the news I'd be in town and confirmed that we could meet and catch up on life, perhaps even having dinner. I was thrilled and then realized I'd probably need to pull out a bit of money from my checking account's line of credit to afford side items during the trip. Not ideal, but given this once in a lifetime circumstance I wasn't going to hesitate. As Irony would have it, after a year since the antibiotics, I was back to my ideal weight and my very balded head had sprouted a carpet of fresh hair so when I saw Luke I wouldn't look that much different from the last time he saw me eight years earlier.

Daina agreed to look in on my place while I was gone and get my mail and she gave me a ride to my mother's where we picked her up on the day of the flight. Daina dropped us off at the little local airport and stayed with us until we boarded. The flight would connect with Denver's Stapleton airport where we would then get on a direct flight to D.C.. Even though we had an hour & a half layover in Denver, as a side thought once we got off the small hop plane I suggested we confirm the departure time of our next flight. It turned out it had been canceled due to mechanical problems, but they would be able to get us squeezed into an earlier flight that was leaving in ten minutes. With a brief stop at a payphone to let my not as older brother know we'd be early, we rushed to the gate number and boarded the plane as the last passengers, ending up with separated seat assignments.

When we arrived at D.C., he met us and we went to the baggage area to retrieve our luggage only to find it hadn't made the flight given the sudden change of plans, it was still in Denver awaiting assignment to a future flight. The airline took my brother's address & phone number and told us they'd deliver our bags once they arrived at the airport. We were out of the building and onto the famous 'beltway' highway for the next hour or so until we reached my not as older brother's new place. Along the way he pointed out various beltway adjacent sites to us and even pulled off for a bit to drive us around the Pentagon where he now served. As my eldest brother & wife had arrived the day earlier, we were already prepped for a full family dinner. I found out our tentative plan of events for the week and then called Luke to let him know and better firm up our own visit plans.

The first day our family spent unwinding from our flight and seeing the local sights, visiting the local mall and returning to the townhouse for Chinese take-out and to await the over a day delayed delivery of our luggage. The next day was dedicated to visiting the National Mall, seeing the various monuments and spending the afternoon at the Smithsonian's Air & Space Museum. Of all the wings of the Smithsonian, I think they chose the Air & Space Museum for me and I'm very thankful for it. The next day was dedicated to the Thanksgiving meal itself, with a nighttime drive back and around the capital to see it bathed in golden lights. Friday was a routine day of visiting and each family member doing various errand runs before we again gathered for a meal at an Italian restaurant, and then me itching furiously from the apparent red food coloring #3 in the sauce as we went out to see a movie. The following day was a quick drive up to and around Baltimore before we dropped off my eldest brother & his wife for their flight from the Baltimore/Washington airport. Sunday we gathered our belongings and were off to Dulles airport for our own flight home.

We didn't have any family conflict until Thanksgiving day itself.

Asking my eldest brother about all that had changed in New England since I had left I found out he now had a computer of his own, which was novel to me as I had originally been the only family member with a computer, and then I expressed surprise as well that our rural neck of the woods now had cable television! ''WE AREN'T A BUNCH OF BACKWARDS HICKS!'' my eldest brother snapped at me in reaction to my surprise. I was stunned by this as, for me, New England hadn't changed in my mind since I'd left it eight years earlier. I was delighted by all this news, so I was shocked that he took offense at my questions and tried to apologize.

Later in the afternoon, mother felt the need to bring up her ceaseless retelling of the time she dislocated her knee and how she was alone with me and I just stood there throwing rocks at her as she lay helpless on the ground writhing in pain. A story which she had first started telling in front of me soon after we moved to the New England apartment in Nineteen Seventy-Five, she seemed compelled to tell it to any new friend I might bring home. As I was too young at the time to know for myself what had happened, I had come up with the defense of pointing to the small brown birthmark on her forehead and saying, ''That's where she got that bruise from,'' as my only way of shielding myself from the story.

Given that she had a new audience to tell this story to, my not as older brother's wife and two kids, she couldn't help herself and told it again. As she did, I poised to give my follow-up comment but when she finished I didn't have a chance as my not as other brother burst out, ''That's not what happened!'' She had made the mistake of telling the story in front of other family members who knew better. He compared memories with my eldest brother about the day: My not as older brother had been the one alone with my mother as the rest of the family was away with our father in the Volkswagen bus. This news made more sense to me as I knew my sister had been the one taking care of me until she went to College. My not as older brother had called the ambulance at my mother's request and the rest of the family had arrived home just as the ambulance was loading mother to take her to the hospital.

Mother was mute and paled as she realized the mistake she had made by telling the story in front of my brothers. Not only had it embarrassed her, perhaps bringing her own memory into question, but I now knew for certain that she had been telling this story to all of those friends of mine over the years just to poison me in their eyes, and not because it was true. I had the proof that it had been a false story and she wouldn't be able to tell it again in front of me now knowing I had the truth. Mother just remained silent for the next hour or so until we loaded up for the nighttime drive around Washington D.C..

I visited with Luke midday early in the week, perhaps before the family made to trip to the local shopping mall. He must have gotten some time off from work to meet me as his girl friend was at work herself at the time. We discussed life in general, and compelled by years of habit during our high school time, I brought with me a box of computer disks to show him my programs of the past few years in Colorado. It turned out his plans to become an engineer hadn't panned out. In fact all of my high school friends who had gotten into the 'advanced placement program' I was barred from had all intended to become engineers and all of them had washed out. With some family working in the D.C. area, Luke had fallen into a small job helping out with document preservation at the Library Of Congress and was thinking of taking it up as his profession.

We met again for dinner the Saturday before I left and he and his girlfriend took me out to eat. I noted my attempts to write for television. They also knew someone who had been trying to sell scripts to 'The Other Show' and it hadn't worked out either. I told them of my years of health problems and surprise cure just a year earlier, I didn't explain why it had taken so long for it to have been addressed. I told them I was now getting back on my feet and hoped to return to College to complete my degree. When I asked about Van, they really didn't know what he was up to anymore. They thought that he might have been looking into becoming a veterinarian after his own college plans hadn't worked out, but they weren't sure as Van had seemed to withdraw more and more over the years. At the end of the meal they offered to pay and, given my tight finances, I didn't protest too strongly and thanked them.

We parted promising to keep in touch. He soon moved to Texas for a scholarship in document preservation and a few years later I lost touch with him. When I got home, I would call Van for that chance to better 'catch up', but after leaving a message on his answering machine, he never called back. Given Luke's note about Van withdrawing from his old friendships, I didn't call again and pry, remembering my own times wanting to withdraw from friendships rather than pass on bad news about my life.

On the flight home, this time I was seated right next to mother and she reverted to her old compulsion to derisively dismiss and belittle my two brothers' wives and my new nieces as she did with everyone she met in her life. Having become sick of her doing this over the many years since she took me from the family home to the New England apartment, I asked her if that was all she had for her memories of the trip: Nothing but negative bile and no happy times? This befuddled her and while I had thought I might have to ask if there was a free seat elsewhere in the plane I could take to avoid her for the next few hours, to my thankful surprise mother kept her silence for the rest of the flight.

When we arrived back in Colorado, then caught our connecting flight, Daina picked us up at the airport and took mother home and then me. She offered to take me out to dinner so I could bring her up to speed on the trip. I agreed.

In less than two weeks, I would be reported dead.

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