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Reposted here from Queerlandia.com and QueerVisalia.com:

Two memorial services are planned for EricJames, who succumbed to suicide Wednesday, January 11, in Visalia, California.

EricJames, as he was known to his friends, was 19, and his death has struck a cord world-wide. News sites and blogs around the world have carried the report, with people writing how the news has touched them with sadness, and has strengthened their convictions to work harder on suicide prevention, and the acceptance of LGBTQ+ people of all ages.

Two public memorials are planned:

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

College of the Sequoias 915 S. Mooney Blvd, Visalia The Theatre Arts Department will hold a public memorial at 3:00 – 6:00 pm. See their Facebook event site, here. A map to the College is here.

Saturday, January 21, 2012

The Spiritual Awareness Center 117 S. Locust St., (map)

Due to capacity considerations, this memorial has been moved.  Same time, Saturday at 1pm.

New location:  The Lamp Liter Inn, 3300 W. Mineral King, Visalia map.

Facebook event page, here.

It’s completely normal for people who knew him to wonder if they could have done anything to prevent his death.  From his closest friends, to casual acquaintances, people are left to wonder, and hope, that they didn’t miss the opportunity to help.

A friend commented about this a couple of days ago, and it got me to thinking about it as well.  I was reminded of the circumstances of his meeting EricJames, at a public launch of a website geared to help LGBT youth find support and resources.  I, too, first met him at this meeting.  EricJames sent each of us a Facebook friend request some time after the initial meeting.  We both turned down the request, as we each tend to only approve them if we actually know the person.  Neither of us made the connection right away, and there was no follow up to remind us where we met.  My friend, and I, once I recalled having also been the recipient of the request, wondered if we might have contributed to the negativity he felt in his life.  If we did, it was not intentional.

The people who experience the suicide of a loved one, friend, or even casual acquaintance, often suffer guilt about the death.  One wonders if they missed signs of depression, or failed to notice the dark cloud the victim was living under.  Did we contribute by deflecting a request for “friends” status?  We can only hope not.

Many wonder if they had known of the difficulty someone is facing, whether they could have helped.  Sometimes, it is possible to help someone navigate the mental anguish, to emerge on the other side.  Sometimes, no amount of love, caring, respect, attention, or friendship is enough to overcome the depression.

Even with the resources he had available, the Trevor Project (where he was an intern), his friends in the community, and all the other means at his disposal, it just couldn’t save him.  We’re all sad, angry, upset, and distraught about his death.  We have to remind ourselves that we’re only human, too, and that none of us have the ability to see everything all of the time.  We all did what we could, many tried to help, and did, but in the end it was simply not enough.

I’m sorry I didn’t approve that friend request.  I’m certain, however, that had I done so, it would not have changed this sad course of events.  The overall situation was such that I doubt any of us could have successfully changed the outcome.  Depression and suicidal thoughts are sometimes just too strong for others to alter.  We simply have to live with the results.

If you find yourself in a dark place, and are thinking suicide is your best option, please talk to someone.  It’s been said that suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.  Never forget there are lots of people out there willing to help, even if it’s only to listen.  The Trevor Project can help, if you just ask.  Friends and relatives can offer support.  Take the chance, and let someone know how much you are hurting.  Maybe we can help.

Thoughts jumble
Fingers fumble
Electrons tumble
Photons mumble

Words on a screen

Phosphors glowing
Diodes shining
Plasma glistening

Thoughts
Ideas
Passions

Are you listening?

****

Every once in a while, something will happen that reminds me that I am my father’s son.
At times, it’s disconcerting as hell, other times it’s a nuisance, and sometimes it’s just amusing. I had an experience this morning that I’m not sure about, since it’s several hours later as I write this blog, and I’m still thinking about it.
The most common experience that makes me think of him is when I cough. I make the exact same sounds as he did, and those are the sometimes disconcerting moments. He was a heavy smoker all his life, and eventually died of throat and lung cancer. I, however, have never smoked, and haven’t been around a smoker since I moved out of his house. Some of the family from his side also have the same cough, and many of them were or are heavy smokers. I’m hoping the common sound is related to the structure of our genetically similar bodies, and not due to some other trait we all share that has contributed the deaths of many of my relatives.
I sometimes do things, that once I recognize them, I find amusing. I’ll notice that I’m walking with a gait that resembles his, and I wonder…. am I unconsciously being a little boy, and copying my Dad? Or does that style of moving have more to do with me having a body that is a very close structural copy of his? I’ll notice I’m sitting in a position that he sometimes sat in, and again I wonder. Is it just the long legs and no padding on the butt that results in this orientation, or something else? I had a bad case of hero worship when I was a child, and desperately wanted his approval. I wonder if sometimes that little boy sneaks out of some deep corner of my memory, and still wants Daddy’s attention?

I long ago recognized his faults, and he had many, and reconciled myself to the understanding that he was who and what he was, and he wasn’t willing or able to change. At a point in my mid-to-late 30′s, I realized the he recognized me as an adult, with some wisdom and intelligence. That was a watershed realization for me, since I had long believed that he didn’t really think all that highly of me. Once it dawned on me that my parents were looking to me for advice and help, I started thinking of myself as an adult. It also was the time I started seeing them as real people, who had flaws just like everyone else.
Towards the end of his life, we came to an unspoken understanding about our relationship. I would do whatever he needed me to do in regards to his medical problems. I would drive him to the VA hospitals in Fresno or Palo Alto as required, putting up with his smoking during the 3-4 hour drives up and back. I’d occasionally tell him a dirty joke I’d run across on the internet, or complain about the government bureaucracy that I deal with in my job. He would occasionally tell me a story about his past, but most of the time we rode in silence. I thought at the beginning of the 8 years of this that it was a great opportunity for us to get to know each other better, but that didn’t really happen. His part of the understanding seemed to be that he would treat me as an adult worthy of both his respect and consideration. We had some fun discussions about politics, always taking oposite sides, and I would complain everytime I was at his house and he was watching Fox. I never told him I was gay, although I did tell him some stories about friends and various trips we took to San Francisco Pride. If he knew or suspected, he never said. My mother says he never mentioned it to her, either. We don’t know if he just didn’t know, or if he did and just didn’t want to tell her. (she knew some years ago) I don’t know if he just didn’t want to talk about it, or if he was oblivious to the obvious.

The middle of this blog grew a bit bigger than I had originally intended. This started out to be a short blog about something that happened this morning, and look what it grew into!

Anyway, here’s what happened this morning, when my father visited me.
I was sitting in Denny’s just after 2am, waiting for a take out order to be prepared. I was sitting on a couch near the cash register when I glanced out the window. With the position I was sitting in, and the lighting inside and outside casting shadows on me and the glass, for a split second, I didn’t see my own reflection. I saw him sitting there looking back at me. That was one of those instants of eternity, where no more than a moment goes by, but when time also stops.
I suspect I’ll have more of those moments as I get older. I’ll let you know.

Apollo 17 / NASA

The Moon.  It’s a real place.  A world of it’s own, that hangs in our sky.  It may be the very reason life exists on this planet.  Formed when a planet the size of Mars collided with the (then smaller-than-now) Earth, the results of that chaos formed the (more-properly designated) double-planet system we see today.  We often talk about the Moon orbiting the Earth, but it doesn’t, not really.  The Earth and the Moon both orbit around a common center of gravity.  That center is some miles below the surface of the Earth, but it is not the center of the Earth.  The Moon is considered the largest satellite (even though it’s not, not really) of a planet, relative to the primary’s size, in our solar system, with the possible exception of Pluto/Charon.  Now that Pluto has been downgraded from planet status, the Moon may hold that title without challenge.

I took my telescope out into the back yard tonight, and had a look-see.

Craters, rills, mountains, maria, highlands and lowlands all filled my view, as I watched the image slowly sweep past my lens.  The motion of the planet, unfelt and usually unnoticed, is clearly evident when looking through a telescope.  Using the higher power lens, I could easily see surface features, the center peaks of craters (formed by the rebound effect of the ground due to meteor impact).

It is still amazing to me, some 39 years later, that astronauts from the USA walked on the Moon six times.  Twelve men, 260,000 miles through space, in fragile little spaceships, went there, walked there, and returned.  Another amazing (and sad) thing to me is that we never went back.  The next humans to set foot on the Moon will most likely be Chinese.

As I sat looking through my telescope at the moon, I saw an image much like this:

I could easily see those craters along the terminator, with their central peaks poking up into the sunlight from the center of the craters.  The higher, rougher terrain at the lower right was clearly visible in the telescope, as was the darker maria at the left.  What I find most mind boggling, is that this light in the sky, this huge orb hanging over our heads, is a real planet, a real place, somewhere we could go, if we wanted.  We went there six times, with the technology of the mid-60′s.  Think what we could do with today’s technology.

Since the Moon and Jupiter are visually close together in the sky right now, I also trained my telescope on the largest planet in the solar system.

This is close to what I saw, except for the lone moon on the left of this image.  I could clearly see three moons to the right, and when I put the higher powered lens in the scope, I could easily see the bands in Jupiter’s atmosphere.  The Great Red Spot is too small for the resolving power of my scope, but what I did see was fantastic.  (Photo of Jupiter by Naoyuki Kurita)

I often look up in the sky, saying hello to the Moon, Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, and Venus.  When the skys are clear, and the area free of artificial light, I’ll look around at the various constellations, pick out the dippers, the north star (Polaris), the Pleiades, and a few others depending the time of the year.  There’s a cool iPhone app that lets you readily identify what you’re looking at, and where things are that you can’t see.  For instance, in tonight’s scope-fest, the app told me that if I had a better telescope, I would have been able to see Uranus in the sky to the west of the Moon.  I used the app to discover that Saturn as almost directly below my feet, on the other side of the solar system.  No ring watching for a while, as we’ll have to let the orbital paths of the planets bring us around to view Saturn during nighttime hours.  Yeah, there’s an app for that.

Space Cadet Jim, on deck and on duty.

]]> http://jimmiejoe.com/2012/01/02/moon-watching-2012/feed/ 0 Jim Reeves apollo17 moon_luna jupiter_satellites_Kurita http://jimmiejoe.com/2012/01/01/symphony-of-science-onward-to-the-edge/ http://jimmiejoe.com/2012/01/01/symphony-of-science-onward-to-the-edge/#comments Sun, 01 Jan 2012 22:43:47 +0000 Jim Reeves http://jimmiejoe.com/?p=3084 ]]> This is too cool!

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 8,000 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 7 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.