Date:         Sun, 16 Jun 1996 23:28:09 EST
From: gilbertsmith <gsmith@social.chass.ncsu.edu>
Subject:      WHTMACAIDAOSD 1 (AGAIN)
To: Multiple recipients of list WORDS-L <words-l@uga.cc.uga.edu>

WHAT HAPPENED TO ME AT CLEMSON AND IN DALLAS AND ON SEPARATION
DAY 1

1)  So I finally get all my stuff together to set out for Clemson
at about 1 p.m. on Monday, much later than I intended, and the
m/m gives me a very very warm, snuggly, cuddly, provocative hug
to send me on my way, most likely as her own little insurance
policy to guarantee that I will not allow thoughts of others to
interfere with the memory of her during my six days in the woods
of racy South Carolina.

2)  Have to return a movie to Blockbuster on the way out of town,
so I take the back roads through Southwestern Wake County and get
lost.  Find the highway, finally, the low road to Charlotte,
which I take for three reasons:  a) to pay a visit to the
cemetery where m/m #1 was buried after dying 13 years ago today,
June 3, on the future m/m #2's birthday, which m/m #2 interpreted as a
deliberate act directed at her very own self; b) to check out a
Goodwill Store known to me in Asheboro; and c) to make a stop at
the Yes Cola 7-11 clonestore.

3)  I get to the cemetery and find her stone under the huge
magnolia tree and find that no, she did not die on June 3, the
m/m #2's birthday, rather on June 6, the birthday of the son of
m/m #2, and the interpretation was that dying on the son's
birthday was a deliberate act directed at her very own self.
There she lies, under the stone that bears not my name, but the
name of husband #2, the husband who never put the Thomas Wolfe
Angel Statue on the grave like he had promised, the husband who
rather promtly married a friend of m/m #1, a friend who then
insisted that husband #2 (of the m/m #1 *and* of the friend) get
rid of all <remembrances> of m/m #1, which he did by bringing
them and dumping them on the front porch of husband #1 and his
m/m #2, which act m/m #2 interpreted as, yes, a deliberate act
directed at her very own self.

4)  So there she lies, and I talk to her as I always do, and feel
her presence, and then I marvel at how many of my family and
friends and associates die the first week of June:  the m/m #1,
the m/m #1's father, the m/m #2's step-father, my father, my
grandfather, my uncle, one of my significant others between m/m
#1 and m/m #2.  Her stone proclaims:  "Why seek you the living
among the dead.  She is not here.  She is risen."  I like that.
She is risen, but she *is* here.  Because I say so.  I wonder if
she has forgiven me.  Probably not.  I marry women who do not forgive.

5)  I run my fingers over her name on the stone, then move on
toward South Carolina, stopping briefly at the Goodwill to buy a
cap to shelter my poor eyes, troubled by my contact lenses which
should have been renewed by now, from the afternoon sun.  Time
for a Yes Cola.
--ggs