HOMOVISION REHAB with THE SWARMITE: LIVING & DYING

It’s been a mean few days for the families, friends, admirers and onlookers of Matt Lucas, Kevin McGee, Stephen Gately & Andrew Cowles. Our moments of silence go out to them. So many times we think we are in control of our lives, that we have really made it yet none of us can predict the time and nature of our death and those around us. It is this spiritual component, this acceptance of powerlessness, this act of surrender to not knowing when & how has cemented my life together. For some reason in this lifetime I have been surrounded by mass death, close death, high wire living and triumph over adversity. I arrived 5 weeks early, nearly died at birth, stayed in an incubator for 6 weeks and when I was 6 months old went back into an incubator for another 6 weeks with meningitis on the spine. No wonder as an adult, drink & drugs bounced off me. I defied death.

In 1970 I created chronic active hepatitis B virus within my body, in 1981 cirrhosis of the liver as a result of that virus and liver failure throughout the ’80’s way up until 1995 when I sero converted to just chronic Heb B status, changed my DNA without medication using rebirthing breathwork, phychic surgery and stubborn perseverance. I was on the original Human Interferon trial in 1982 but it did not work, but everyone else died on the trial except me. Don’t say I haven’t earnt the right to live today. They say that love brings up everything unlike itself for the purpose of healing, so what does death do? It makes us think about our very being.

Being around the early AIDS/GRID cases ( G.R.I.D. Gay Related Immune Deficiency ) in 1982 and a founder member of the THT Graphics and Promotions Group in 1984, seeing all my friends lose weight overnight and die within weeks was a mere rehearsal for an even bigger challenge. I was 6 years clean, sober and off the fags when my best friend did not turn up to see The Joan Collins Fan Club, the early incarnation of Julian Clary, at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on the South Bank. A big mystery because Barry booked the tickets. I saw the production with an empty seat beside me not knowing that Barry had been killed in his own bed with 67 stab wounds and his head decapitated the night before. It was between Christmas and New Year – 27th December 1987 – everyone was away and I was due to travel to Kent for New Year as planned, so off I went not knowing why Barries phone just kept ringing. The police would not break the door down as it was Christmas (he might have gone away) so 4 days later I rang the police again to enter the premises and I would pay for the broken door. They found carnage.

This is when my life changed and I realised that I know nothing. I had just returned from Australia after gaining residency there, a job and a home but my medical bills were too high, so I came back to the UK. Before I left for Oz 6 months before I said my last goodbyes to my ex lover James who had KS, now James was holding my hand as the police escorted me into the blood stained bedroom. Later I had to identify Barrie in the mortuary, as CRIMEWATCH was filming a reconstruction elsewhere. In my GREAT PLAN I was supposed to be living in Sydney Australia, James was about to die of AIDS and Barrie had a global career as an Arts Administrator yet here I was witnessing the debris of murder in a bedroom, proving that I know nothing, my plans are mere words. Some greater force of circumstance is at work.

Another weird thing happened – seeing the debris removed the anger from me around the murderer instantly. This was the work of a madman and I didn’t need to mirror it. It was the toughest time for me yet it gave me a foundation to eventually losing the 50th person to AIDS in 1990 and saying no more, enough is enough. Since then I have never attended an AIDS funeral but the deaths, the suicides, the overdoses of people around me increased. In 1994 -1996 I relented and spent 2 years just working with those with CD4’s less than 10, some in single figures, preparing them for completion of this life and afterlife, in and out of hospice. We had the funniest, best of times as gay humour cackled daily in the presence of life, forearmed for death.

In my great plan of recovery from alcoholism and other active addictions I have found that planning is futile, great goals ahead are time wasters if we don’t LIVE in the moment embracing every opportunity. For this reason I have created a fabulous life that has nothing to do with money, power, status and prestige for Barries murder proved to me that I KNOW NOTHING. It is the greatest act of surrender to the higher self, a surrender to WIN not lose. For the last 7 years I have travelled the world, 3 months of the year, leading seminars, laying in the sun, riding shopping malls, taking risks and constantly rebranding myself. Each day a new beginning. Now my time needs to be channeled elsewhere.

When I think of how and when I will die I think of my mum and dad. Both drank hardly at all and they never traveled abroad for holidays. My mum died in 1975 visiting my brother in the Army in Germany, her first trip abroad. She died at 12.30am with a heart attack on the dance floor while my brother was DJing – having the time of her life, what a way to go. It was always a source of constant embarrassment as kids that my Dad only drank a shandy or on special occasions a cherry brandy. Soon after Barries’ death my Dad went to live in Spain age 67 to get himself out of a rut.

After a few years he became a local character and Captain of the Local Pool Team playing at home and away. He had the time of his life. In 1992 at an away game in a bar he asked the barman “Do you have Cherry Brandy?”. “No mate, sorry,” came the reply. At which point he fell off the bar stool and died straight away with a heart attack. Both parents rarely drank, never went abroad yet both died in BARS in a foreign country. Some cosmic joke. So you see, I know nothing. I have angina but have no idea when I will pop my clogs or how I will croak, that is up to the great unseen, my only role is to live NOW without wasting time. I hope it’s on the dancefloor like Mum and Dad – and quick – no dribbling gay Nana with long term illness. People know that I want my ashes scattered in the steam room of the Sauna Hispalis in Seville so I can be around hot guys ad infinitum. The best sauna in the world.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dominicspics/

Many of HOMOVISION’S younger readers may not have experienced close death but maybe the reality that two gay men in their thirties can hold our thoughts to ransom in just 7 days will encourage everyone to review themselves and those they leave behind. This month I celebrate 27 years sobriety, clean of all drugs, waking up each day to untold possibilities, surviving it all and if I can survive all this then so can you. When a boyfriend leaves you or you lose a job it feels like the end of the world, but feelings aren’t facts. You may feel like leaving your body as internal revenge or drink yourself stupid sometimes – think of the people around you watching, hoping, even praying that you will seek solace in another way of living and thinking.

There is no time for resentment, bitterness, suppressed anger and doubt. Think in today’s quiet time of the family and friends of Kevin & Steven and give thanks for the present support around you. It is ironic that in this same week the first public HIV/AIDS Memorial in the UK was opened by David Furnish in Brighton for those to remember, to remind ourselves of the ones who held us together in past trying times of lost loves & family friends of all sexualities. Those people are our history. Take a train ride, lay some flowers, take a deep breath of sea air and gratitude . . . and start LIVING, trusting and feeling pride inside, get a group together, celebrate life, death and the lessons of change that may need to occur in order to grasp continued inner peace.

More thoughts on Loving, Living, Dying and other facts of life can be found on twice weekly blogs at http://www.theswarmite.com or http://www.twitter.com/mygaytherapist