My Memories of October 1998
Karen Deal Robinson
ON THE MORNING OF THURSDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1998, I opened the Rocky Mountain News at my breakfast table. Inside, on one of the back pages, was a small story about a gay man who'd been beaten and left for dead, tied to a fence outside Laramie, Wyoming. He was now at Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins, Colorado, in critical condition.
That was all; there were no more details.
My heart caught in my throat. Though I am not gay, nor, as far as I know, is anyone else in my family, I've always had a fond spot in my heart for gay men. It goes back to my high school days, when the only two boys in my circle of friends were gay. I imagined one of those boys being treated as this man had been, and it brought tears to my eyes.
The next day, the story was on the front page. The man's name was Matthew Shepard. He was 21 years old scarcely more than a boy. My own son was 17 at the time.
I couldn't imagine what Matthew's mother must be going through. I found myself bawling in the shower that morning, not really knowing why.
That night I went to a candlelight vigil on the lawn outside Poudre Valley Hospital. It was a familiar place: both my children had been born there, and my son had had three arm fractures treated there. I'd had my tonsils out at that hospital when I was four and had stitches there when I was eleven.
But never before had I grieved there. I looked up at the lighted windows of the hospital and wondered which one was Matthew's room.
I met a friend in the crowd. She said to me, "I saw the picture of Matthew in the paper, and he looks just like my own son"
She broke off. I hugged her, and we both wept.
Then I met another friend, who told me she had been working for a human rights campaign in town that day. Someone from the other side had said to her: "It's too bad for us this happened now. It will really hurt our cause."
My friend told me that she then stared at the other woman and replied: "Too bad for you? What about for him?"
There were about 200 people at the vigil, and we sang softly, so as not to disturb Matthew and his family. We sang "Dona Nobis Pacem" and "Gentle, Angry People." To this day, I can't sing those songs without crying.
The next morning in church, we prayed for Matthew. But I didn't really know what I was praying for. The newspaper reports said that if he lived, he'd be a vegetable. In the end, I prayed that God would do what was best for him, and I believe that prayer was answered.
Then we sang "Gentle, Angry People"; and when we came to the line
We are gay and straight together,
And we are singing for our livesI burst into tears. I thought of the gay couple sitting behind me, who had been together for thirty years. They were the sweetest, most gentle people I knew; how could anyone hate them?
ON MONDAY MORNING, I drove to work, listening to the radio. There was a story about the homecoming parade at my alma mater, Colorado State University (CSU). One of the floats depicted a scarecrow, with the words I'M GAY painted on its chest and an anti-gay obscenity on its back.
My hands shook as I drove. The boy who had found Matthew had thought at first he was a scarecrow; the float was an obvious reference to him. What a cruel jibe at a boy who lay dying not a mile away. As I remember, the fraternity responsible for the float was kicked off campus because of it.
The rest of the way to work, I composed a poem about Matthew, which you can read elsewhere on this site.
ON TUESDAY MORNING, driving to work, I heard that Matthew Shepard had died. I felt drained. It was an absolutely beautiful October day. I knew that his dying was the best thing for him, as badly injured as he was.
And yet I grieved for him grieved more than I have for my own friends and relatives. I'm still not sure why, except that he was so young and small and so undeserving of such hatred.
Wednesday night I went to a vigil at the CSU Student Center. Apparently I wasn't the only one who had been outraged by the homecoming stunt.
There were about 500 people on the plaza, all holding lighted candles. One by one, people came to the microphone. I read my poem. Then a student who had known Matthew at the University of Wyoming told this story:
One night, Matthew and some friends rented a limousine for an evening. When someone asked him whether the expense was worth it, Matt said, "Life's too short not to do things like this sometimes." They didn't know then how very short his life would be.
OVER THE NEXT MONTH, I found myself bursting into tears at odd moments. My husband took me on a drive in the mountains. The aspens were golden, the skies were dark blue and I couldn't stop crying.
Finally, I went to a performance of the Rainbow Chorus, a local gay-straight chorus, with the idea that it would finalize my grieving. It mostly worked.
ABOUT A YEAR LATER, I read in the paper about a group calling itself the BEAR (Bringing Equality and Respect) Project. They were planning a memorial walk for Matthew from Fort Collins to Laramie, about seventy miles. They were planning to take a collection of teddy bears to the fence and then set up a traveling exhibit that would promote tolerance. People from all over the world had donated bears to the project.
I couldn't go on the walk; I had to work. But I decided to see them off, and I gave them a bear to take with them. I didn't want it to be a big bear, because I didn't know yet that the bears were going by van, and I thought they might have to carry it. I had a little bear I'd been carrying in my purse for many years. He was about three inches high, and I called him Pocket Bear. Once, when my son was seven and had broken his arm, having Pocket Bear with him had comforted him there in Poudre Valley Hospital.
I went to Vern's Place in LaPorte, just north of Fort Collins. Vern's is an old familiar landmark, famous for its cinnamon rolls. There I met Jerry Switzer, who was a friend of Matt's, and the BEAR people. I gave him Pocket Bear, and he gave me a hug.
Later I got an e-mail from him that said he'd carried Pocket Bear in his shirt all seventy miles along the walk, had taken it to the fence, and had then given it to Judy Shepard, Matthew's mother. She said she'd keep it and use it to promote the BEAR project.
I've always meant to write a poem about Pocket Bear and how he took my hug to Matthew's mother, and yet I never have been able to write it. But I'm so grateful to the BEAR people.
Just this year I met a gay toymaker and told him about Pocket Bear, and he said he'd donated a bear to the project, too. Small world.
In October 2001, I thought a lot about Matthew. It was another beautiful Colorado October, just like the October of 1998. My mother was very ill and was in Poudre Valley Hospital, up on the fourth floor. She's since recovered, but for a while, we didn't know if she would live.
On the TV news, I saw that we were getting ready to invade Afghanistan in retaliation for the terrorist attacks of a month before. As I sat by my mother's side and looked out the window at the place where the vigil for Matthew had been, I realized that exactly three years before this, Matthew had been dying here.
There's a song written by Rabbi Jack Gabriel, a local rabbi and musician, called "Subtle Is the Way of God." It helped me get through that October in 1998, and it helped me get through the October of 2001. Part of the chorus goes:
I am fighting my despair,
There's no answer I can bear.
Are You there?I'm still fighting my despair. It's hard not to give up hope sometimes. But sites like this one help.
After Matthew died, I wrote in my prayer journal how horrified I was by the protesters at his funeral. I closed my eyes and tried to listen for God's voice, and this is the answer that I heard:
I know that scale doesn't always matter, and that's why it seems that one bigot weighs as much as thousands of people with lighted candles in their hands and tears in their eyes. But the glow from those candles will make a difference. I can't tell you how or when, but it will come. The 80,000 hits an hour on the vigils message board have to tell you something.
Oh, please, please don't give up. And please believe that your own tears are powerful. Your little poem will travel, I promise you. Even if no one else reads it but the few who already have, other people will write it. You are not the only one not the only one who saw something infinitely precious dying on that fence. I was there. I was there in that turned earth that made the boy on the bicycle stop. I was there in the candlelight and the songs.
Please don't lose faith, Karen. You're not alone. Keep speaking out. Keep trying. The right will prevail, but only as long as you don't give up.
Colorado Photos by the Author
(1) Alberta Falls Trail Rocky Mountain National Park
(2) Mountain Scenery Near Leadville
(3) More Leadville Area Mountain Scenery
Text and Colorado photos copyright © 2002 by Karen Deal Robinson. Used by permission.
Rose photo and camellia graphic by Deborah Simpson.
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