RIP Helen B. Phelps 07/06/1917 to 01/05/2012

Phelps, Helen B. 94 July 6, 1917 January 5, 2012 Helen B. Phelps died peacefully in her sleep. She was born in Orornogo, Missouri to Maggie Mae Strawhun Taylor and Virgil E. Taylor. Virgil was in the US Army fighting WWI at the time. She was raised by her grandmother whom she called Mom, and sometimes by Maggie whom she called Mother. Helen married Jim Brown when she was 16 and they had two baby girls who were stillborn. (Margaret Sue and Helen Rosalie). After they divorced, she married Albert Charles McCorkle, the man she called the love of her life. Their first child, John Patrick died a few hours after birth. Their next, Sandra de Helen survives them both, in Portland. Their third, son Howard Allen, also lived only a few hours. Their last child, Alberta lives with her husband Tim Mobley in Jefferson City, Missouri. They were caring for Helen and with her at the time of her death. Albert died in 1951, and Helen remarried. Her last husband was Lloyd Phelps and he also predeceased Helen in 1973. Helen has four living grandchildren, five great-grandchildren, and one great-great grandson. She retired from Rawling’s Sporting Goods factory in Newburg, MO, where she was president of her union local for over 20 years. Helen was known for writing poems all her life, often to commemorate special occasions. After Helen moved to Portland, Oregon to live with her daughter Sandra in 1981, she often helped design and build costumes and props including a giant lavender satin hand, and a bat that flew through the audience. Helen led an active life and will be deeply missed by her family and friends, including many in the LGBTQ and theatre community.
I wanted to run this ad in the Oregonian with a photo, but I can't afford to run an obit in the Oregonian. It costs more than NINE HUNDRED DOLLARS FOR ONE DAY. I especially wanted to run the obit in JUST OUT, but Just Out predeceased my Mom by four weeks. So I hope my friends who knew my Mom in the 80's will find her here. Mom always supported my theatre work, came to my plays, entertained my friends with her character. This is for you Mom.

Good Grief

Pema Teeter, the Story Charmer, is doing an amazing and beautiful series on her blogsite (www.storycharmer.com) to commemorate the tenth anniversary of 9/11. What she is doing is genius, and is breaking my heart daily. (I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one.) This is a good thing.
My dad died when I was seven years old. He dropped dead of a massive heart attack when he was only 42, leaving a 33 year old widow with two young girls. It was 1951, and I lost not only my dad that day, but also my mom who then had to go out and work two jobs, and also our home to renters, while we moved into a 15 foot camping trailer. My sister was ten days away from being two years old, and we were days away from Thanksgiving. Christmas was a 15 cent coloring book and lots of sad faces. Tears were discouraged.
I spent the next two years praying every night to die and join my dad in heaven. If I hadn't been raised in church and taught that suicide was the only unforgivable sin, I would have killed myself. Instead, I spent a lot of time trying to trick God: staying out in the cold trying to get pneumonia, walking too close to Hwy 66 trying to get sucked under the wheels of semi-trucks, staying too long on the railroad tracks hoping I'd trip as I jumped out of the way of the freight trains that came by across the road from our house. None of it worked. Only time caused me to give up my quest for death at such a young age.
I think it was the death of my first step-father that shook me out of my deep depression, because my mom was already going out with the next man she would marry. And when she married him we were going to move into town. That was going to radically change my life.
I may have moved forward a lot sooner had grieving been encouraged in any fashion. Instead I was told not to cry, to forget about my dad. We severed all contact with my dad's family, all those aunts, uncles and cousins I had grown up with to that point. All were now erased from my life. Mom remarried only four months after Dad died. Today I realize she did it so we could move back into our house, and she could work only one job instead of two. Then I thought she was trying to replace my dad, and I hated my stepfather and withdrew from my mom.
Grieving is good, necessary even. When we repress those feelings, they do not go away, they just go deep. I believe I'm carrying about fifty pounds of tears in my body to this day. Will this be the year I let them go?
What are you holding on to?

Life and Death

This week I visited with an old friend who is waiting to die. Those are her words. She was diagnosed with breast cancer 6 years ago, had radiation and was pronounced cancer-free. A year later it metastasized to her bones and lungs. She moved into hospice several years ago. She became one of the few people to live longer than expected. Finally she has been given 9-12 months to live, but she is eager for the 6 months mark so she can take advantage of Oregon's Death with Dignity law. Her doctor promised at the outset to help her end her life when she had only 6 months left. For a long time she still had enough quality of life left that she was in no hurry, but this week she told me she is marking time. She sleeps as much as possible to speed up the process.
This morning I learned that another friend, one I haven't seen in years, a much younger friend, died last week of a heart attack, and is at this moment being laid to rest. I missed the service because I learned of it just a little too late. She was a great talent and wonderful spirit. She directed my solo show on my 40th birthday, one I decided to put on for 50 of my closest friends to show "what forty looks like" to the total mortification of my teenage daughter. She had no idea I would strip naked. My director didn't judge me, she helped me do everything to the best of my abilities. I may have been my most creative self under her tutelage. She leaves a great hole in Portland and the world. RIP Carolyn Holzman.
And that is life.
Death. Dying. Holes ripped in our universe, scars left on our hearts as we experience loss of loved ones, and even of those we never knew. Consider 9/11. As we approach the 10th anniversary of the day the World Trade towers came down, the Pentagon was attacked, and Flight 93 was hijacked, we are reminded of lives that were lost, which reactivates all the grief we still have stored in our bodies, our minds, our hearts. My friend Pema Teeter is doing a beautiful thing over on her blog from now till 9/11/11 -- she's writing a story a day to help us all heal, and she's inviting you to write as well. Check it out: http://www.storycharmer.com/

The Rapture

Over on FaceBook I've written a few things, mostly questions about what will happen after the rapture. Last night my friend Vicki Cheatwood blogged about the rapture in such a deep way that I realized my questions were just dancing around on the surface of what I was trying to ask. What I am actually feeling.
I was asking things like will I still be able to garden, and what will happen to all the animals that get left behind, and who is going to deal with all the stuff that is left behind by those who rise up ... Vicki asks a more serious question: if you knew the date and hour of your end time today, what would you be doing? are you anywhere near where you want to be? are you doing what you want to be doing? are you with the people you want and need to be with?
I am. Finally in my life, I am. I am writing every day. I am with my daughter and grandkids. I am in touch with my son and his daughter. I talk with my Mom every week. I am surrounded by great friends whom I see regularly. I have a garden again. So, yes, this is exactly where I want to be.
Am I ready for a whole host of my family and friends to rise up in the rapture and leave me behind? No. I have abandonment issues. The truth is I'm no more ready to lose them one at a time. It's this whole topic of death, letting go, being left behind.
Which is really the issue of attachment -- and time for me to go back to sangha, find a Buddhist sangha group and renew my own spiritual practice.
What has all this talk of the rapture brought up in your life?