Stephen C. McKinney Memorial Thread (1969-2001)

[Han-shan]

If you drop your mind from pondering the question and just let your heart and soul speak, the answers come on their own. A person's soul is the well where all the answers wait until they are drawn up from the asking. May they be right or wrong, or in the grey shade of things, there they are.

See? Pretty much what I said about Stephen a couple pages back.

[ShadowLurker]

“My brother seems to think he is nothing special. He doesn’t realize light shines from him, and music lives in his voice. He doesn’t see himself as we see him. But, you see it, and I see it, and all who know and love him see it. You are right, Nathan, the world will be weep.”

Even those who never met him, those such as I, see it Tracie. And, I weep.

"If you drop your mind from pondering the question and just let your heart and soul speak, the answers come on their own. A person's soul is the well where all the answers wait until they are drawn up from the asking. May they be right or wrong, or in the grey shade of things, there they are."

And a soul such as yours, Stephen C. McKinney, would hardly be wrong or grey, but true and pure, it speaks to me and we've never met. Such a loss on my part. I'm so grateful that your sister has entered my life, she mirrors your wisdom and your heart. I can understand how you credit her for your wisdom, as she credits you with hers. Special people, beautiful people, amazing people.

[Furls Fire]

Well, not to cause trouble (Moi ), but, my belief about Jesus is that he was a very wise, very good, very loving man. So I don't have any problem with what Nathan said.

Why would such a statement cause trouble, Fist? He was/is indeed a very wise, very good and very loving man.

If you drop your mind from pondering the question and just let your heart and soul speak, the answers come on their own. A person's soul is the well where all the answers wait until they are drawn up from the asking. May they be right or wrong, or in the grey shade of things, there they are.

See? Pretty much what I said about Stephen a couple pages back.

"If you drop your mind from pondering the question and just let your heart and soul speak, the answers come on their own. A person's soul is the well where all the answers wait until they are drawn up from the asking. May they be right or wrong, or in the grey shade of things, there they are."

And a soul such as yours, Stephen C. McKinney, would hardly be wrong or grey, but true and pure, it speaks to me and we've never met. Such a loss on my part. I'm so grateful that your sister has entered my life, she mirrors your wisdom and your heart. I can understand how you credit her for your wisdom, as she credits you with hers. Special people, beautiful people, amazing people.

Huggles Shadow.

[Stephen C]

August 30, 1996 1:16am

Though the sun shone brilliantly today, I’ve been in the dark. Slow in its going, this day, not the gentle slowness that gives peace and pause to a troubled heart; but an agonizing slothfulness, a dragging of the clock that makes holding moments undesirable. I did not want to hold these. I woke in this darkness, this dread, and knew it completely, intimately, utterly. This thing that gave the day its shadow. My enemy was waking up. I could feel it pulsing through my blood as my dark heart pumped it. I became violently ill, there in the bed, so quick, so without warning my enemy attacks. This is the day.

My war begins.

Hours later, here in the hospital, while being poked and stuck and invaded by various hands and instruments, I thought of Nathan James. “When it’s my time, I’ll welcome it.”

My courage fails me as this battle begins, I shut my eyes against it, and the darkness only grows. I see my enemy lurking there. I know, I know, I’m making no sense. But what sense is there to make of this? What answer? I cannot question, I don’t even know the question. Who my enemy is, how it came to be here, these things I know. But, they are not that answer to the question. There is no sense, no good response. Ah, Stephen, you prattle on so, you knew this was coming, you knew all along. Your great test is now upon you, the onslaught of this will, in the end, be your undoing. And will you, like Nathan, welcome it? Welcome the end? Long for the end?

Yes.

And

No.

Would I taste the poison in my blood if put a drop of it on my tongue? I can smell it, feel it, hear it laughing. So, why shouldn’t I be able to taste it? Oh, McKinney, stop this. Stop stop stop stop. This self-pity looks really ugly on you, more so than that KS growing on your face. And you have God, you have your family, you have Tracie. She knows, she’s coming.

“I dream of you all the time, but not as you are now, but at the end. Your face all festered…” Isn’t that what he said? Nathan, are you my personal prophet? My seer? Were you sent to me so I could help you, or are you my warning? Just a week ago you came to me, out of the rain, I didn’t write you down that night, I didn’t write anything that night, isn’t that strange? I don’t even remember all you said.

“There isn’t much time left, not here anyway. I can’t get my little girls out of my mind. You know, Steve, I’ve been reading books. Books about the here-after, and how there is this bright light and your loved ones are there inside it to greet you as you cross over. And, I keep seeing them in that light. Then I think, oh no, your not going that way, your going the other way.”

Why do you talk so, Nathan? The other way? No, not you. Ah, these noisy, intrusive machines make remembering what you said impossible. Why didn’t I write you down that night? What kept me from the pen? Too hard maybe, because I do remember this…

“It’s soon to begin with you, Steve McKinney. My dreams of you, the way you look in them, it will be soon. It’s in the air around you. You look………………..tired.”

I remember the word “tired” seemed to be a last second replacement for another word. “Sick” perhaps?

“I feel fine, Nathan” I had said, and it was not a lie, I did feel fine, yet, now that I look back on it, things did seem a bit dimmer then usual. I attributed it to the rain, the gloom. My enemy was casting its shadow even then.

He nodded, and left. He said more, but this place, this antiseptic chamber of horrors, drives his words from my mind. My heart can’t even recall them.

My sister wrote something. And, for reasons unknown, it is playing over and over in my head now. An earworm, keeping time with the bleep of the machine that’s tapping out my heart’s life.

“The crossing undetectable, no door or gate, or ripple in the air, just a difference after entering. In silence we walked the avenue leading to death. No birds sang, the air seemed thick and suffocating. Daylight paled, seeming to whither, breath became still. We know at last. All things come here to meet their end.” -- Tracie McKinney Hammon

Ah, yes, here. My sister, sweet Tracie, do you even begin to know how much you fill up my soul? As this battle begins, you will be the light of my courage, my faith. It is your hand I will reach for, grab hold of. Your face I will see in my fevered dreams. What a gift of God to me you are. He blessed me with you. What have I to give in return? Myself. That is all, but is it enough?

The sedative now takes me. The time for oblivion comes upon me. Will I see in my dreams what Nathan sees? Now, I begin to fear. I am afraid.

[Fist and Faith]

I should have known his writings about this are just as intimate and detailed as evey other topic. This isn't going to be easy. TV and movie writers have done what they can to make us understand what people in Stephen's position go through. But very few of the ones who have actually gone through it write with both the clarity and emotion of Stephen. I don't know how I'll get through many more entries like this one.

[Furls Fire]

I actually debated putting this one up. I finally decided to because he spoke of Nathan.

These are the ones that are the hardest for me to read, having lived it with him, having watched him suffer thru this hideous illness. This was only the beginning. What makes it even more difficult is that as he grew sicker, his acceptance grew stronger. Near the end, when he was in excruciating pain, his sight gone, his hair gone, his face covered with lesions, his body nothing but skin hanging off his bones...he begged for God to take him Home. It became too much.

In the last days, he had slipped into a coma. I had been there for a month, August 2001, and in the first week of Sept I came home here to Oregon, because it seemed that he was beginning to stabelize and the Dr's were trying to arrange hospice for him. I was going to bring him here. So much red tape, so much delay. Awful time that was, the country was reeling from terrorism, the towers had come down, grief everywhere. And here I was, trying to bring my brother home to die. I never succeeded. Stephen slipped into a coma on Sept 21, 2001, I flew to SF on Sept 22, 2001 and in the wee hours of the morning, on Sept 25, my brother came out of his coma long enough to turn his face in my direction, say those beautiful last words..."Even the blind can see this light, what a glorious passing this is."

I will never forgive myself for leaving his side that early September. There were other members of our family there, of course. But I should have been there. He was the first person to enter my life to totally fill my life. He needed me, and I wasn't there. I never got the chance to say "I love you." before he went. He spoke with his last breath, and then he was gone.

Okay, I will stop now. These are hard entries, and get harder. If they are too much and you all wish me to stop putting them up, I will stop. Just say the word.

"Tracie, I think I heard God talking to me last night. He was whispering. Do you want to know what He said?"

"Yes, tell me."

"He said, 'not this time, but the next. It will not be long.' What do you think He meant?"

"I'm not sure, Stevie. What do you think He meant."

"I think He meant that I'm not going to grow old and that the next time I see the light, I'll go through it." --In Stephen's hospital room, 1983, recovering from the hit and run. He was 13.

Some things, you just don't forget...

[Fist and Faith]

Well, if you have the strength to type it out, I think I can find the strength to read it. I'm sure Stephen's wisdom and strength will be seen throughout. Aside from getting to know you better by learning about Stephen, this wisdom and strength is why I love his writings, and they'll make it possible to endure the diffuicult aspects.

[Furls Fire]

You know, it is hard to type them up and read them, but it's only because I lived it with him and the memories those particular entries bring are not happy ones. But, they are Stephen. In order to know who he was, as a whole, these need to be put up too. Because, his true self, his wondrous, beautiful being was expressed just as fully in those entries, if not more so, than in the "happy" ones.

I know in my heart that he is now in such a peaceful, glorious place. He is no longer in pain, no longer suffering thru the endless days of his illness. That's all gone, and now, he's a special angel, free and beautiful and well. And there are times I will smell his cologne, or feel a hand brush my face and a breath of a breeze like someone walking past me. Or I will hear his voice whispering in the silence, or singing softly a favorite song. It's those time when I know he's with me and that makes me very happy.

Josh Groban has a song on his new album "Closer", and it just rings of Stephen. I have been playing it over and over lately...

You Raise Me Up

When I am down, and oh my soul, so weary
When troubles come and my heart burdened be
Then, I am still and wait here in the silence
Until you come and sit awhile with me.

You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains
You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas
I am strong when I am on your shoulders
You raise me up to more than I can be

Peace

[ShadowLurker]

Tracie, you are an amazing person. To be able to share this most intimate and beautiful part of you so openly is just astounding. I could never do it, I doubt many could. Your strength is inspiring. Please continue sharing. You and Stephen have done so much for me, and I'm sure others as well.

Love ya, sweetheart

[Furls Fire]

[duchess of malfi]

I was thinking of your brother last night.
I was at a party at a friend's house and one of his guests was partially blind. I had been helping out in the kitchen, so when this particular man came through the serving line and it was clear that he could not see the food on the platters well, I walked with him and described the foods and filled up his plate with the things he wanted...
Afterwards we all sat talking and he told me he had been a teacher for over twenty years, and talked about some of his students...it was obvious he missed teaching, and I think he must have been very good at it...he had such a gentle manner about him...would have patient and kind with the kids...he told me he liked talking to me because my voice reminded him of that of a beloved friend he had in San Francisco whom he had not had a chance to be with in a long time...he seemed lonely, so I sat with him and talked for a long time, and I patted his hand (Damelon can tell you that I am one of those "huggy/touchy" people)...
His walking stick was a rainmaker and he liked to give it little shakes every now and then just so he could hear the beautiful noises...
After he left, my friend who was the host of the party thanked me for sitting with him. The man was blind from complications of AIDS, and many people would be afraid to have sat with him. I looked at my friend and told him that I had thought that might be the case, but having worked in hospitals my entire adult life, I knew I had nothing to be afraid of. This man had been so thin, and he had that "glow" about him that you see in very ill people sometimes...its as if they know they might not have much time left, so they burn with life...
People like this man and your Stephen humble me...if I were to become blind I think I would be lost in despair...but he has found a way to still walk with beauty wherever he goes...and rather than despair he showed patience and gentleness...

[Furls Fire]

That is just beautiful Duchy. I have met many many people stricken with AIDS, oddly it brings out the best in people. Oh, I've met some that are lost and angry too. But most of the people I know with it are in that peaceful place of acceptance. They move along in their days quietly and gently.

There is one man, he still lives in San Fran, one of my brother's best friends, that I am sill in contact with. His life is very hard now, he too, is beginning to go blind and has lost the use of his left arm. His kidneys are failing, and he's bone thin. But, he smiles and says he sees well enough to paint and at least he isn't left handed. They find the strength inside somewhere to move on, until it's time to lay down and rest.

Sounds like a beautiful person Duchy, I hope you get to know him better. I know I would like to talk with him. I wonder, was it his choice to stop teaching? Or was he "forced" to stop? That is one of the things I fight against, the discrimation of AIDS victims...

Peace

[duchess of malfi]

he had to give up teaching when he lost his vision. I was amazed at his grace and his quiet courage...

[Furls Fire]

I'm sorry to hear that It saddens me when this bug takes from the people it afflicts the things they love the most.

Stephen once said. "When I come to the time, when I am unable to do all that I love, my writing, my music, my drawing, my singing, my expression, then I hope the Father will let me come home. Because that is when I will truely be without life here. When I lose the ability to enrich my little corner of this world, it is time for me to leave it."

Peace

[Fist and Faith]

I can see the wisdom of accepting the way these people you two are talking about have. I mean, it's either that or live in rage. But I don't pretend to know that I'd actually have what it takes to be that accepting.

Fantastic conversation, you two!!

[Furls Fire]

Oh, I don't know Fist. I think people are stronger than they think they are.

"The soul is a deep well of strength and courage, all you have to do is dip in your ladle and drink."

Guess who said that? It's there, and not only in times of sickness. You find it in the face of crisis, or deep need. It's the mother who throws herself in front of a moving car to save her child, or the fireman who runs headlong into the burning building to save the person trapped under the rubble, or the passenger on a hijacked airplane who bands his fellow passengers together to thwart the plans of terrorists to fly a 747 into the white house..."Let's Roll". It's that, and we all have it. And I believe, if you needed it, Fist, it would be there if you dipped that ladle into your well.

[Fist and Faith]

I'm not saying that I think it's NOT in me, just that it's a lot easier to imagine having that attitude when I don't really need it. Know what I mean?

[Furls Fire]

ahh, okay, I thought you were saying that you didn't think it was in you, or you weren't sure if it was.

Peace

[ShadowLurker]

Oh, I don't know Fist. I think people are stronger than they think they are.

"The soul is a deep well of strength and courage, all you have to do is dip in your ladle and drink."

Guess who said that? It's there, and not only in times of sickness. You find it in the face of crisis, or deep need. It's the mother who throws herself in front of a moving car to save her child, or the fireman who runs headlong into the burning building to save the person trapped under the rubble, or the passenger on a hijacked airplane who bands his fellow passengers together to thwart the plans of terrorists to fly a 747 into the white house..."Let's Roll". It's that, and we all have it. And I believe, if you needed it, Fist, it would be there if you dipped that ladle into your well.

Sweetheart, you amaze me, just like your brother you know exactly what to say and how to say it. And not just here, but in our daily conversations in the instant message box. You light up my days with your words of wisdom, and through those words I am beginning to find my inner strength that had been drowned by my fear and pain and lonliness. Giving up no longer seems to be the right answer and that is because I have gotten to know you and Stephen. <big smile, sweetheart>

No blushing now.

[Furls Fire]

Oh hugglessssss Shadow!!

Like I said, we all have it inside us. It's there in you, you just have to reach down and grasp it with all your heart. I know how hard it can be, I know how desperate things can seem, I know the way of the pain, and I know how easy it seems to just give into it, let it have it's say over you. What you need to remember is...it's not all of you. You are not just this, you are not just pain, you are so much more. And in this life, what you are in spite of this, is worth the fight to preserve yourself. Why let this win? Accept it, yes, but by God, don't lay down to it. It must not have its way, not yet.

Yeah, easy for me say, I'm not the one stricken with this hideous, life-stealing, disease. But I lived it, Shadow, I saw it, I felt it, I was witness...and I still witness it as my work with AmFAR continues. And everyone I know afflicted with it, fight it, dare it to destroy their spirits. It can't, not if you don't let it.

Oh sigh, I'm sermonizing again. I'll stop....

HUGGLESSSSSSSSS again Shadow. Rest easy my friend.

Peace