Til death do you part -- other voices (LONG)

[Guest guest]

DEAR CREW, FORGIVE ME IF THIS IS OVERKILL, BUT WHEN POSTING MY THOUGHTS TO THE CREW, I BCCed TO THE PEOPLE I MENTIONED OR THEIR SPOUSES. TWO PEOPLE , GAIL PETITO AND HAROLD HORN, RESPONDED TO THE AND ASKED ME TO PASS IT ALONG (SLIGHTLY EDITED IN HAROLD'S CASE). HIS COMMENTS ARE BELOW AND A FEW MORE FROM HIS POST PERMITTING ME TO EDIT SLIGHTLY FOLLOWED BY GAIL'S COMMENTS. THIS IS A NEW SCREEN NAME FOR YOU ALL BECAUSE STUPID AOL WASN'T DOING THE JOB, SO I SWITCHED CREW TO MY OTHERWISE UNUSED NET MAIL PERSONAL MAIL WELCOMED HERE OR AT STEVEWEEB@.... STEVE (WEEB, aka SILVERMAN)

P.S. NEITHER LISA NOR GAIL KNEW IT, BUT I HAD ALREADY PLANNED TO PROPOSE ABOUT THREE WEEKS AFTER THEIR INTERCHANGE, AUG. 1, WHEN LISA AND I HAD KNOWN ONE ANOTHER A YEAR AND A HALF. I EVEN ALREADY HAD THE RING READY AND SIZED WHEN THEY WROTE!In a message dated 7/25/01 10:30:38 AM Pacific Daylight Time, HHorn8996 writes:

Thanks Steve, for forwarding this, Hell, I knew nne and (her man) earlier and maybe better than Joan claims to have known Mari. However, I refuse to get into a pissing match with Joan, cuz obviously, she is very wrong and you're very right. Joan could not have known the powerful bond that existed between them, or she would have given this up long ago. I do know one thing for sure= Mari would be appalled about the battle still waging over her. How is it possible that I KNOW this? Back when nne was one of the first administrators with you, Jordan, Walter Slaughter and Jenn, I believe, she resigned because of a simple disagreement....it was over her proposal to use a "pilot" listserve from my new ISP that was being offered FREE. I don't know the particulars yet and don't care to learn them now. Mari simply resigned because she thought it would be best for everyone. And I remember her writing to me just afterward. She said "Jordan got so mad with me!" I interpreted this to mean Jordan had forced her out, when JD was only upset that Mari would quit over such a small thing. (It really didn't matter to me one way or the other...altho we'd have been on listserve a year earlier!) Aye yii yii....Um, I lit into Jordan and chewed her out mightily for "being so mean" to a mutual friend. I was like, "How could you do it?" When Mari read that post, she was shocked. Right away, she wrote to me and said "Please apologize to Jordan. It was my decision to leave. I was not forced out. I won't be satisfied until you apologize and mend fences with Jordan." Walt sent me a searing email, too (I'm lucky he wasn't litigating yet...ouch, but I deserved it, just as Joan deserved your words.) Perhaps the best personal perspective of all came from Lovley, who knew both (her man) and nne when they were sweethearts at Gallaudet. "I was so happy for them." Sigh, how long do we have to keep fighting over people that you know would tell us = "LET IT GO!" Well hell, Mari is right here, pleading with me, you and Joan to do just that. (We talk....she wins allllll the debates.) Pls forward this to the digest=One more thing....if this doesn't stop the fighting in its tracks, I'm gonna come back and make you all feel sorry. Enuf of this shift. Harold (me lady and me head for 33rd anniversary.... I get arounnnnnnddddd..... yeh yeh yeh yeh)

AND ADDTIONALLY FROM HIS PERMISSION POST: There's another part of this that Joan refuses to believe, apparently= nne asked (her man) to find someone else to make him happy. She couldn't have been "heartbroken" when he fulfilled her dying wish. That wasn't nne. Her ultimate act of love was to urge (him) to find someone else before she died. Wow....I don't know if it would be the same for me. Possibly, but for one so young as nne= If you love someone enough, you'll certainly want them to be happy. That is all she wanted for (her man).

AND GAIL'S:

Subj: Date: 7/27/01 2:16:32 AM Pacific Daylight Time From: jpetito@... ( Petito) Reply-to: jpetito@... To: STEVEWEEB@... (Steve SilvermanSteve, It's 2am, and please forgive the lengthy reply, but I just cannot stop thinking about the e-mail you recently sent me. 'Til death do us part'. Wow. Potent words to me now, yet when I said them on February 12, 1995, the commitment behind them was no less sure and strong as it is today. I would like to share something with you, if that's okay. Not long after 's passing, wrote to me wanting to ask some questions and talk about issues that involved being the special person in the life of a deaf and disabled man. Her questions were honest and up front, and her candor spoke volumes to me of her growing love for you. Today, as I read the electronic dialogue between yourself and Joan regarding whether or not the words 'Til death do us part' mean anything to anyone, I thought I might forward to you most of what I wrote to , sharing some of my feelings on the subject. Feel free to edit it and share it with Joan and/or others. I will also paste a copy of the Valentine I wrote to this year [at the end of this], in the hopes of encouraging Joan that, indeed, there are those of us 'out there' that believe in 'Til death do us part'. I don't know if what I shared with was right or wrong, appropriate or inappropriate, if it was applicable or if it missed the mark altogether. All I know is that I babbled (that's my specialty). After all, I was QUITE emotionally muddled at the time that I wrote this. Oh, how I wish that was here to give the fella's side of this story (sigh) ... July 9, 2000 Hello , Thank you for understanding my need to grope through life without . These days are crazy enough, but good friends are helping a lot. Well, I don't know about being a role model, or giving "advice" ... but I can "share" with you! I also realize that by the time I finally send this off to you, your relationship with Steve may have grown and/or changed. In other words part or none of what I have to say may be of any help you. Oh well, here goes: "Men with NF2 ... and the women who love them." It does sound like a talk show teaser, doesn't it? Well, if in my attempt to answer your questions, I come off as a wee-bit scatter-brained or if I begin to babble, please forgive me. That's pretty typical for me. Oh, and I may also (anonymously of course) borrow bits and pieces - or maybe a lot - from this note to you, to incorporate into something I want to write about on this subject for a future issue of the NF2 Review. You prefaced your questions to me with a statement about being "the special person in the life of a deaf and disabled man". For me to answer your questions, I must try to do so, naturally, using my relationship with as a reference. And from the beginning, I knew that our relationship was going places ... fast! Within three weeks of dating I knew that he was my "special person"... the one with whom I wanted to spend the rest of my life. I waited all my life (I was forty-years-old when we married) for and, oh, how it was worth the wait. He was truly "the one whom my soul loveth" (Song of 3:9). A number of people have told me, both before and since 's passing, that the love and life that and I shared together, although it was in such a short period of time, was more than most people in a lifetime will ever know. I think I agree. What a glorious love we had! Interestingly enough, though, in all my life I never envisioned that the man that I would one day fall in love with would come wrapped in a package of multiple disabilities, courtesy of NF2, yet that's the way it was. But 's wrapping paper also consisted of an amazing dose of God's grace, too. And love, true love born of God, does conquer all. Yes, God was, is and always will be an integral part of my life, which would, naturally, include my relationship with . We both shared a strong faith in Jesus Christ, and recognized that each of us was a gift to the other from Him. With Him as the center and the circumference of our life together, it enabled us to work through the "normal problems" faced by all couples, along with the "special adventures" that come from living with NF2. Loving and living with someone who is different than yourself can be a challenge. Ask any married couple! Believe it or not, there are couples out there who may not have the same challenges such as what you and Steve face, yet they still find their own differences, whatever they may be, just as difficult. You brought up the matter of a social life together. Hmm. A social life. Hmm. Well, and I did have one together, but to say that 's deafness and other disabilities made no impact on it would be good fibbery. I'm guessing that due to our commitment to each other, we considered ourselves a "team," and so together we sought out social activities that would not exclude one or the other. For example, when we went to the movies, it was either a movie that was not dialogue-laden (lots of action doesn't need to be "interpreted" - you can pretty much follow the so-called plot), or it was a "captioned" flick. And I don't necessarily mean a foreign film. Within the last few years there have been a small crop of movie theaters across the country, working with various organizations such as Tripod Captioned Films, that have actually begun providing mixed couples such as yourselves a choice for movie watching. They've been experimenting with different methods of film captioning such as "open-captioning" (sub-titles), or "rear-window captioning", in which, on one occasion, we joined Steve and other friends to see 'Titanic'. As far as people-type socializing, like with family or friends (both mine and his), well you just do what you have to as best you can to include, not exclude, that person in on the conversations taking place all around. That's not always easy ... or hard, for that matter. Each situation is different. But, I learned quickly that signing skills are not all that it takes to be able to include a deaf person in on a conversation. Manipulation is a key word here. For example: my signing is "fair", but my skill at manipulating a conversation among hearing people is not impressive. When I say "manipulating a conversation," I mean trying to control it in such a way as to include in on it as much as possible. You really have to assert yourself. Of course, sometimes it's just not possible to control it, such as when there are several conversations going on at the same time. It's truly an art (smile). Now, regarding conversations with other DEAF people, well, my skills are worse. My receptive (understanding) skills are just plain terrible. That's due, in part, to the fact that never signed to me; he didn't have to - he always used his voice. So, while I had a lot of practice signing to someone, I had little, if any, practice understanding another person signing to me. I continue to try to improve though. always said, "Never give up," so I keep trying, keep learning. Just be patient with yourself. Concerning sign language, well, when I first began to date I had a bit of an advantage over you. You see, I had taken a couple of college classes in sign language ten years prior. At the time I didn't know anyone who was deaf ... I just thought it was a beautiful language. and I both realized later that God had clearly been preparing me for my life with . I am wondering if perhaps you are at a place in your relationship with Steve where you feel it is evolving, and maybe you are trying to sort through your feelings. Do you feel the relationship is developing into something more akin to a long-term commitment (say, for a lifetime)? Is that what you want ... from anyone right now? When I promised my life to Petito, I put my life into 's care knowing that within his own life there would be a lot of uncertainty. I knew his disease was progressive. But I knew that together, the three of us - Jesus, and me - could and did face anything that NF2 threw at us. Even though we had such a short time together, I would do it all over again in a heartbeat. You need to decide if loving Steve, and all that comes with him, is worth it to you. This is not a matter of learning to live with deafness or disabilities - that's easy; it's a matter of do you love this person enough to love him as he comes, and come what may. Period. was always honest and up front with me regarding all that his life contained - including NF2. Yet, although his was a more severe case than most folks, himself honestly did not see that our time together would be as short as it was. None of us knows the number of days God has appointed to us, but 's vision of a long life together was contagious ... I believed the same. I never saw this coming. And I continue to struggle with his absence. Sometimes, I think that I just can't do this, that it's too much. Then God will give me an exquisite memory of , and reminds me that just as He had a plan for that included HIS condition (NF2), the Lord also has a plan for me that now includes MY brokenness. Well, I don't know if I've helped you ... I hope so. Take care and I hope to see you and Steve again soon. PS - Because our anniversary fell so close to Valentine’s Day, every year I’d always write up a little Happy Anniversary/Valentine’s Day sentiment to to run in the local paper. I didn't have the heart to break the tradition this year, so I managed to put something together. I’m not much of a writer, but in my Valentine I hope I was able to write of the love I still, and always will have, for that man. I would like to share it with you ... would you like to read it? Okey dokey, here goes ... My Dear Mr. Petito-head, Without a doubt, my most favorite thing in the whole world was gazing into that rascally handsome face of yours … more specifically, your eyes. A more beautiful pair, I cannot recall. They were the surest, truest eyes I’d ever looked into. Whenever other people talk about “looking deeply” into the eyes of those they love, they often describe the experience as becoming ‘lost’ in that person’s eyes. Funny, whenever I looked deeply into your eyes, I was always ‘found’. And those eyes held so much … light and laughter, purpose and pain, courage and comfort, anguish and joy. They just seemed to contain the whole world. Sometimes, I could swear I was looking into the eyes of Jesus Himself. In them I saw completeness and unconditional love. Those eyes held everything I am - and everything I’m not - and did not look away. And in those last days, those eyes would sometimes look at me as though they were taking in a long, cool drink … as if they knew it had to last for a while. I can only imagine what your eyes are seeing now. Without a doubt … those eyes now look deeply into the eyes of Incarnate love. And a better resting place they couldn’t find. No more pain, my love. More importantly, no more having to drink my coffee. So, today, as you lift your cup of Heavenly latte, I will lift mine here, and together we will toast the day when my eyes, too, will open to find they’ve found their way home to Incarnate love … and to you. Happy Anniversary and Happy Valentine’s Day. Ti amo. Mrs. Petito-head P.S. I can’t wait for you to show me what those sunsets look like from the other side (smile) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------- Again sorry for rambling, Steve. I'll stop now, as I think I'm developing a nasty case of carpal tunnel syndrome (stop smiling). Take care, Gail Petito