Men of the Skull Interlude X: Goodbye

 

Interlude X: Goodbye 

Friday, September 20, 2013  Russia: Coast Guard Boards Greenpeace Ship in Arctic

The body was in drab.  It was Tom dressed in a suit.  The shirt was purple, as that was Lisa's favorite color.  I knew that under his shirt was an Underarmor constriction shirt to hide Lisa's breasts.  His black hair was slicked back and his hands were folded over his abdomen.  He was heavily made up.  In the hairline I could see why.  The skin was hot pink (a side effect of carbon monoxide poisoning.)  I looked at the face for a moment, and I could see Lisa's feminine features.  This... guy... whom I never met, was indeed Lisa.  

Tom.  An army veteran.  A contractor.  A former male exotic dancer called “Lance.”  Tried desperately to fight against an inborn torment.  As do I.

 

What can I say?

Lisa Empanada was gone.

 

Lisa was a Sister to me.  She was close as blood.  Closer.  We talked about everything and anything.  We explored the darkness that I knew, and that eventually took her.

We laughed.  Oh, how we laughed.

And we cried.

Lisa, to the world, was about happiness.  She had endless compassion.  Full of love.

Some would say it was love that caused her to do what she did.  They would be wrong.

Lisa was no stranger to Love.  When she passed, the internet became a tidal wave of love for her.  People related stories.  Wrote poems.  Quoted songs.  If Lisa saw it all, she would roll her eyes, blush,  and laugh.

Lisa was loved because she loved.  She loved everyone.  But the love her life was her wife, Sandy.  They are truly soulmates.  

And Lisa left her behind.

She planned her death.  Meticulously.

On Monday September 16, the sun rose on Lisa's last day here on earth.  She left work at noon, and her foreman said she had a strange and sad look to her face.  The last person that we know saw her alive was a neighbor who saw her cleaning out the back of a Painting van.  The same van that she used to attempt suicide months ago.  The one with the gas powered compressor in the back.  She never cleaned out that van.  See, she wasn't the tidiest person.

She left a couple of things in the house for Sandy, including a short message, written with lipstick on a mirror.  Sandy showed me the mirror.  The message. 

From there, the details are known only to Lisa and God.  

So what can I say?

 

Lisa's last phone call was just after 10 AM to the foreman of the job she was working.  It lasted under two minutes.  She said "I'll be back to stain the stairs."

  

Sandy spoke to the man who found Lisa's body.  She told me what he said.  The van was there at 3 PM. ( Last prior sighting was 11:30 AM.)  The man saw it pull up and park across the road from his house, but this was not unusual.  The next morning, the van was still there, so he went over to look in it.  He looked in the front window and saw what he thought was a Hispanic sleeping in the back.  He went to the rear doors and opened one.  Lisa's foot flopped out lifelessly.  The man called the police.

 

Lisa was found with the pink stuffed animal, Mudsey, under one arm.  Keys were in the other hand.  Between that arm and her chest, facing out, was the wedding picture.  It slid there after she died.  The necklace and wedding ring were on her.  Tina's makeup bag was next to her.  In the bag was her carry letter and her driver's license.  The machine was NOT running, as it automatically shuts off after 4 hours.  

            The police who moved everything to the front seat to remove the body.  Lisa died with representations of her loved ones with her.  Since the estimated time of death was somewhere between 6 and 9 PM, and the van was parked there at 3, what did Lisa do before starting the compressor?  My educated guess is that it took maybe ten or fifteen minutes for the van to fill with the poison gas.  From there, it would take ten minutes for her to die, quietly.  She just fell asleep and left this world.  

 

I like to think those hours were filled with Lisa fighting for possession of Tom, trying to stop what was happening.  Maybe she sat crying in the van.  Maybe my estimate is all wrong, and it took her hours to die.

 In any case, Sandy didn't go upstairs to see the note left for her until 9 that night.  By the time the search began, Lisa was already gone.

 

The person driving the van was Tom.  Tom was Lisa's birth name, and Tom was a tortured soul.  He drove the van to a different part of the city, miles away.  Maybe he went elsewhere first.  No one knows when he parked the van.  Tom brought with him something to represent each of his children, his "carry letter" stating Lisa was Transgender, and his drivers license.  He brought a framed wedding picture.  These items he laid on the front seat in plain sight.  A necklace with LISA in script letters that Sandy gave him.

And he brought a pillow.  Sometime during that day or night, he started the compressor, lay his head on the pillow, and waited for the carbon monoxide to do its work.  Which it did.

It did.

And Lisa died.  Tom took her from us.

Sandy returned home from work, saw what was left for her, and started calling around, and texting people.  She called the police and filed a missing person's report.  

 

The message written in lipstick on the mirror: “Truly Madly Deeply.”

 

Their wedding song.  Her promise to Sandy.  Broken.

 

Tuesday September 17, 2013.  Lisa and Sandy's Eighth Wedding Anniversary.

 

I woke early that day.  4 AM.  And I saw messages from several people asking if I'd heard from Lisa.  I hadn't, which was unusual.  In fact, my last message from her was Saturday early morning, September 14, at 12:44 AM.  She wished me a happy belated birthday, as well as something else, which I will not write here.  That one is just for me.

It was odd I hadn't heard from her for a couple of days.  I wondered if I'd pissed her off.  But she had pushed me away.  As she had with everyone over the previous week, one by one.  She had her plan, and wasn't going to be deterred.  Not this time.

I contacted Sandy, offered to help.  She said it wasn't necessary- that the police were on it.

At 1 PM, I received the text that I expected and dreaded from Sandy.  And with it, I left work and headed south toward Baltimore at high speed.

"They found Lisa in Essex.  She's gone."

And with that, my life changed.

My Sister was gone.

From the funeral

I read once that people who attempt suicide have three things in common, and that all three need to be present: “Thwarted belongingness" or feeling alone; "Perceived Burdensomeness" or feeling like a burden; and "Capability for Suicide" or I am not afraid to die.

Lisa and I talked a lot as we moved forward through our lives.  She would come up to Pennsylvania for transgender events.  We would hug and laugh when we were together.  It wasn't until later that we cried.

And when she suddenly stopped her Facebook account in the spring, we spoke for hours as she fought the Darkness.  She was suicidal.  She had a plan and wasn't going to be turned from it.  She attempted suicide, but her daughter found her in time.  

She got help.  And with Sandy's love, we thought she turned everything around.  But it was a lie.

She was not afraid to die.  Nor was I.  And we understood each other.

 

She went full time as a woman, except for work.  There was a party for her thrown by her family.  I was honored to attend.  An Affirmation Party.  On her 52^nd birthday.

Lisa was angelic and happy.

After her party, I wrote her a letter that came to me in a dream.  I sent it to her via FB message.  And she wrote back.

I can't comment other to say...thank you so much. I am crying but I don't know if I am happy or sad. I feel pain for what could have been and for what I might have done to you and others, yet those missteps brought me to a real life dream come true. Yet still those feelings, that pain, so familiar to both of us is haunting. Thank you Sophie! 

She used what I wrote as a part of what would be the finest thing I ever read from her.  And the most horrific.  But I'll get to that in a moment.  

Then we discussed my transition plan, and she wrote this:

It is a sometimes seemingly horrendous journey. Thankfully we don't have to do it alone. Take my hand.......

I am so thankful that you extended yours 

 

And so I did.  We would transition together.  Sisters.  A promise of shared experiences. Never alone.

 

So what can I say? 

We all thought the darkness was gone.  It wasn't.

No.  It never left her.  And she knew we were all watching, so she hid it from all of us.  

 

After her April attempt, Lisa told me many times that I saved her life.  I didn't.  And I have found myself thinking about that.  Was that a waste of time?  And it struck me.  No.  It wasn't.  It bought us all five extra months of Lisa.

We all had five months more of her in our lives.  Her smile.  Her words.  I personally had one of the most moving and affirming experiences of my life thanks to her party.

Right now, I'd give everything but my wife and daughter to speak to Lisa for just a minute.  To hold her close and feel her tears.  But we had five months of "borrowed time" already.

Lisa broke all her promises.  She promised we would transition together.  She promised to call me before the Darkness took her.  She didn't.  And she's gone.

 

Friday, September 20, 2013   Joseph N Zannino Funeral Home,  Baltimore, MD.

There was to be no funeral.  Lisa didn't want one.  Yet two viewings were scheduled.  The first was 3-5 PM and the second was 7-9.  Unannounced was another viewing for family only from 2-3 PM.

 

I walked slowly up the stone steps to the door of the funeral home.  Inside the light seemed dim compared to the brilliant sunlight outside.  To the left of the small foyer was a small guest book, which I signed.  Once past the foyer, I saw my friend Hayden, dressed all in black (which actually wasn't unusual for him.)  He pulled me aside and said "Sandy wants you to have this."  

He gave me the Four-leaf Clover necklace that I had sent to Lisa a lifetime ago (was it only a couple of months?)   I looked at the small silver charm and necklace in my hand, and my eyes began to mist.

 

There were maybe sixty people there, mostly family.  I saw few people I knew and spoke to them briefly, with my back to the casket.  Then I turned to face it.  

 

I knelt at the provided kneeling thing, and said a prayer for Lisa.  I then looked into the lifeless face... and bitched her out for over a minute, crying the whole time.  "You were supposed to call when you felt this way.  Now look at you- decaying in men's clothing!"  I then stood and headed out the door, all but bawling.  

 

Funeral Home that night

There was a break for dinner. I was sitting on the curb when they told me.  A mess.

 

When everyone returned from dinner, the funeral home was packed!  So many people!  So many transpeople had come out to pay tribute and say goodbye to Lisa.  Maybe 120 people, mostly us.

 

I re-entered and went back to the casket, where I waited in line for my turn.  The room was stifling hot- packed with people.  My personal Hell.  Eventually it was my turn.  I knelt again, and said another prayer for Lisa.  I then quietly caught her up with events in my life, as I used to when she was alive.  Again, I cried the whole time.  This time I reached out and touched her arm.  Stone cold.

 

After I hugged Sandy again, I went to the back of the room.  Someone had made a book of pictures of Lisa and her writings.  I was told I was "all over the book."  And I was.  In it were several pictures of Lisa and I together.  Also there was the piece I wrote for her, as well as her description of receiving the necklace I gave her.  The necklace that was then zipped into an inner compartment in my purse.

 

Soon a priest appeared.  He was older, Italian, and spoke with an accent.  He summoned "immediate family only" to the front of the room.  So it family in the front, transgender people in the back.  I stood next to my friend Cecilia from Harrisburg.  Many of us looked at each other in confusion.  Why was there a priest there?  Lisa was anti-religion!  I found out later that Sandy asked him there for her comfort, as she was Catholic.

 

The priest started by referring to "Brother Tommy" and led everyone in prayer.  Then he started in with "everyone knew about Tommy's identity issues" and kept on going.  "The pope has ordered we clergy to be tolerant of these poor misguided individuals" and "God will forgive them anyway," Cecilia and I held hands, both of us squeezing very hard.  All of us were so incredibly angry!  This... person... was not only insulting the deceased but also insulting over two thirds of the people in the room!  I had a clear line of sight to his face and glared at him angrily.  My eyes never leaving his face.  I was so pissed off!

 

The priest finished with a prayer, and left quickly.  He was a busy man.    

 

Lisa’s daughter, Kay then stepped to the spot he had vacated and introduced herself.  She spoke of how she was Lisa's daughter, and how so many of us never met Tommy, only Lisa, and continued from there to paint a loving portrait of the Lisa we all knew.  She always referred to Lisa, not Tom, and to her as "my mom."

 

She redeemed the service in all of our eyes.  And I told her so. 

After Kay finished, there was another line to visit the coffin, and I joined it.  Eventually it was my turn.  The moment I dreaded was here- the moment I prayed would never, ever come.  It was time to say goodbye to one of my best friends.  To my "transition buddy."  To my Sister.  

 

To Lisa.

 

I saw her last at the Southern Comfort conference in Atlanta.  I cried on her shoulder for an eternity.  The last thing she told me was that only by being whole... by being Sophie, could I be the best possible parent to my daughter.  She urged me to be the best parent to my daughter that I could.  When we hugged goodnight, she held me firmer and longer than ever before.  I thought it was because I was upset. 

I know now she was saying Goodbye.

I never said goodbye to her.  Tom deprived me of that.

All we have left are memories and questions for which we will never know the answers.  What were her last thoughts on Earth as she drifted off to that final sleep?  Was she smiling and at peace, like she wrote before?  Or did she cry, knowing who and what she was leaving behind?  

We know the last thing she heard- the sputtering rumble of a gas-powered compressor that was her chosen method.

Now we are all without her.  And there is pain.  Why did she do it?  She told us all.

She felt she was hurting Sandy.  And she couldn't stand it.  A burden.

Yes, Tom died of Carbon Monoxide poisoning.  That's a medical fact.  But Love was not the true reason Tom did this.

No.

Tom died because he was transgender.  And that fact led him to his death.  As sure I am of my daughter's love.  Being trans, Lisa believed she no longer belonged.  To Sandy.  To anyone.

Tom died, taking Lisa with him.  Taking my Sister.  My dear friend.  

And I cried for days.

 

I again knelt and offered one last prayer in her presence.  I then looked into her pale, dead face and told her how I loved her, and how I would carry her in my heart all the days of my life.  That I would live by her example of welcoming everyone, and of loving all.  I placed one of my business cards in the crook of her left arm, on the back of which I had written "Goodbye Lisa.  I will always love and miss you."  I then said that to her as I held her lifeless right arm.  I then said goodbye, crying like I'd never cried before or since.  I turned my back on the coffin, on Lisa, and left the funeral home.  Now I had to do the impossible: go on with my life without her.

 

She was cremated the next morning.  All the beauty that was Lisa.  Her smile, her eyes, were now ash.  

 

From the funeral, the family and a few transpeople went to Lisa’s favorite bar, which was close to where she lived.  After a drink, I walked to Lisa and Sandy's house.  Sandy had asked me to come over.  Upon arrival, I sat with Sandy and her daughter Tina.  We sat and spoke quietly about some private things.  I looked over at a table and again saw the wedding picture that Lisa had with her in that horrible van.  It smelled of fumes.  Still does.

 

Sandy and Tina told me some private things that made me cry again, but I also smiled through my tears.  She then led me downstairs to the basement, where, hanging everywhere were Lisa's things.  And she pointed out several full suitcases- all full.  Lisa was quite the shopper!  As she and I were the same size, Sandy started stuffing a bag with dresses and tops.  She tossed in six wigs, two of which had never been worn.  She then disappeared around a corner and said "wait here a sec."  

 

She returned holding a white floral dress: the one Lisa wore to her Affirmation Party.  Sandy said "you should have this."

 

I said "I... I am not worthy of this."

 

Sandy said "I can't think of anyone Lisa would've wanted to have it more than you."

 

I took the dress and looked at it.  I then placed it in the bag.  I still have never worn it.  It hangs empty in my closet.

 

We spoke for a little while longer, and then hugged.  I took my leave, and placed the bag in my car. 

 

At 1:30 AM, we were in the driveway of the house where I was staying.  I went inside and removed my black dress- the dress I was wearing the night I met Lisa.  I never wore that dress again.  I pulled off my wig and collapsed into bed without removing my makeup and slept a dreamless sleep.

  

 

Over the years, I’ve looked for a silver lining to all this. 

 

I previously mentioned the article on Suicide.  And it fit Lisa to a T.  As it has me a few times in my life.  And survived. 

I was so close to calling out to my Sister "Hey Lisa! Wait up!  Let's explore the Light together!" and following her away.

So what can I say?  I didn’t follow.  I learned that my sisters are there for me.  They've proved it those horrible days.  I know I will never be alone.  And even if they are not, I will always have Lisa in my heart, where I will keep her all the days of my life.

I would transition to the Woman I truly am and carry Lisa with me into the life she denied for herself.

A saying I heard later applies: “I am because she was.” 

 

There have been many ways people have said "Goodbye" over the years.  I could paraphrase Shakespeare.

"Goodnight Sweet Princess.  And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest."

 

I think it's appropriate to give my sister Lisa the last word.  This is from a piece she posted on Facebook on December 24, 2012 at 8:27 AM. The last line is so appropriate to her memory.  it distills Lisa to her essence.  

Can you take some stuff away from us? We have too much of somethings that no one should have so much of. Could you please stop by on Christmas and take away the doubt. Can you remove the tremendous pain and grief from our shoulders...so many of us are buckling under the weight. Could you take away the nightmares that haunt our waking hours. Can you take away the feeling of loneliness? Can you take away the skepticism that we can ever manage to believe in the magic that moves us?

Santa, can you take away our fears. We have too many of them already. If you can, please do. Because so many of us are trapped by fear and doubt, by regret and a lack of confidence.

If you could just take this stuff away ... or find a way to help us to, I know we can be stronger and soar higher. I know we can be the Angels on Earth we are destined to be.

 

The angel flew and left me here—

As I was destined to be.