Brant Gaede Posted November 4, 2012 Share Posted November 4, 2012 Amazing grace how sweet the soundThat saved a wretch like meI once was lost but now am foundWas blind but now I see'Twas grace that taught my heart to fearAnd grace my fears relievedHow precious did that grace appearThe hour I first believedThrough many dangers, toils and snaresI have already come'Twas grace that brought me safe thus farAnd grace will lead us homeThe Lord has promised good to meHis word my hope securesHe will our shield and portion beAs long as life enduresYea, when this flesh and heart shall failAnd mortal life shall ceaseWe shall possess within the veilA life of joy and peaceWhen we've been here ten thousand yearsBright shining as the sunWe've no less days to sing God's praiseThen when we've first begunAmazing grace, how sweet the soundThat saved a wretch like meWe once were lost but now are foundWe were blind but now we seeRIP: Rodney Rockford SmithDecember 19, 1975November 2, 2012--Brant Peter GaedeI love you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caroljane Posted November 4, 2012 Share Posted November 4, 2012 Dear Brant, you would not have posted such an outcry, if you did not wish your friends to understand.Please share the story, if you can. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brant Gaede Posted November 4, 2012 Author Share Posted November 4, 2012 (edited) Rodney was my domestic partner for almost 18 years. The rest deleted. I can't take the chance his mother might read it.--Brant Edited November 4, 2012 by Brant Gaede Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
william.scherk Posted November 4, 2012 Share Posted November 4, 2012 Hearts with you, Brant. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted November 4, 2012 Share Posted November 4, 2012 Good Lord.I feel for you, Brant.Deeply.Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guyau Posted November 4, 2012 Share Posted November 4, 2012 .So sorry for you, Brant. Such a horrible end and loss. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xray Posted November 4, 2012 Share Posted November 4, 2012 Oh my God. Brant, what a horrible tragedy! My heart goes out to you and all others who witnessed it. So sorry about your poor friend. This is so heartbreaking. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
9thdoctor Posted November 4, 2012 Share Posted November 4, 2012 Wow, what an awful story. What can one say? So sorry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caroljane Posted November 4, 2012 Share Posted November 4, 2012 Oh Brant, there are no words. I can only tell you one thing I know, and that Stephen knows. When your one love dies, the love he gave you does not. It is yours forever, the deepest riches of the world, and the person who has become part of you remains so forever, dearly with you beyond the nightmare of pain and sorrow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ellen Stuttle Posted November 5, 2012 Share Posted November 5, 2012 I don't know what happened. I didn't see the part Brant deleted. Apparently something shatteringly awful. I'm sorry for the loss, Brant, whatever the particulars.Ellen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Posted November 5, 2012 Share Posted November 5, 2012 I am so sorry for your loss, Brant.I have not mentioned it yet but my brother has stage four pancreatic cancer. Yesterday he had the hospice people come for the first time. He was operated on a month ago to remove some of his intestine and he has not had a good day since. It is a horrible cancer.Peter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guyau Posted November 8, 2012 Share Posted November 8, 2012 .Brant, "there is a land of the living and " Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Campbell Posted November 8, 2012 Share Posted November 8, 2012 Brant,What terrible news.Heidi and I recently lost a good friend to cancer, but what we went through cannot begin to compare.Robert Campbell Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonathan Posted November 8, 2012 Share Posted November 8, 2012 I don't know what happened. I didn't see the part Brant deleted. Apparently something shatteringly awful. I'm sorry for the loss, Brant, whatever the particulars.EllenI'm just seeing this thread for the first time now, so I've also missed what happened. Whatever it was, Brant, my heart goes out to you, brother.J Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BaalChatzaf Posted November 9, 2012 Share Posted November 9, 2012 I lost my mother to cancer. She had breast cancer which metastatized to her bone. A thoroughly hideous death.You have had a lot of pain and you have my condolences. Ba'al Chatzaf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Posted November 10, 2012 Share Posted November 10, 2012 Selected Poems of W.H. Audenby W. H. AudenStop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,Silence the pianos and with muffled drumBring out the coffin, let the mourners come.Let aeroplanes circle moaning overheadScribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public doves,Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.He was my North, my South, my East and West,My working week and my Sunday rest,My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.For nothing now can ever come to any good . . . . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brant Gaede Posted November 16, 2012 Author Share Posted November 16, 2012 I just buried our +15 yo cat Vajram in our backyard. He died at 4:30 this morning, likely 2 weeks to the hour ago that Rodney died. I remember bringing him home as a kitten and how excited Rodney was to name him and his half brother, who came a week or so later. That was Pavakah, who died several years ago. He gave them last names too, now mostly forgotten. One meant something like "Eternal Fire"--maybe that was Vajram Makacah, dunno. I buried him with a few of Rodney's funerary flowers I brought back with me from western North Carolina. I left the red artificial rose planted on top.Losing Rodney and the way he was lost to me, family and friends, was so traumatic it has wrenched me into a new personal reality in which a big chunk of me is missing and will stay missing. The only way I can transcend this is to grow myself bigger so the ratio of me to loss grows too. Swatted to the floor and stomped on and a with household of obligations, I can't start doing this now. In 16 and a half months I'll be 70. I'll start in 12.--Brantedit: Vajram means "Diamond"--means eternal fire, from within the diamond Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guyau Posted November 16, 2012 Share Posted November 16, 2012 Good to hear from you, Brant. Sorry about Vajram on top losing Rodney. Our cat died several months after Jer. That was unexpected and crummy, making me even more alone.Hoping week by week you might win more memory portion for the good things with Rodney. I had a long time really getting back to memories of the good years with Jer, or for that matter, getting my head away from his last days and hours in the hospital room. I was with him when he died. We were alone. That was such a horrible thing to endure, and I cannot begin to fathom the extra horror you endured and how colossally hard it will be to get the ending into balance with the full time of your years together. I cried a couple times a day for a year. I was a step better by a year and much better after three years. I could eventually have my memories of him without all the pain of the end. Hoping you can live so long as to reach that meadow of clear and warm memories and of knowing the fortune of love you had and have. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted November 16, 2012 Share Posted November 16, 2012 Brant,Almost anything I could say about hanging in there would come off as a platitude, so I won't say it. Pain of loss is pain pure and simple and it sucks.I have to risk one, though. I hope it doesn't piss you off.You have wisdom. That's not a replacement for what you have lost, but it's something. It can warm you a little on a cold, cold night.And, there are many people out here who care about you.I am one. So is Kat.Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brant Gaede Posted November 17, 2012 Author Share Posted November 17, 2012 Thank you everybody.--Brant Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anthony Posted November 17, 2012 Share Posted November 17, 2012 Brant, MSK and SB expressed well what are my own thoughts of your loss. In the grief of loss, none of us is an island.Be well.Tony Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brant Gaede Posted November 23, 2012 Author Share Posted November 23, 2012 http://www.westmorelandfuneralhome.com/obits/obituary.php?id=224067 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BaalChatzaf Posted November 23, 2012 Share Posted November 23, 2012 http://www.westmorel...y.php?id=224067Jebus H Kryst! He was just a kid. Bummer.Ba'al Chatzaf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brant Gaede Posted November 23, 2012 Author Share Posted November 23, 2012 That was his high school graduation photo. Some months later he disappeared from North Carolina, from family and friends. His mother spent every cent she had trying to find him for the next 18 months. Everybody kept telling her he was dead, even presenting her with a body. She would have none of it. I finally got them re-connected. You can imagine how she felt hearing his voice again, with no preamble. We still don't know why he did that except it was part and parcel of what eventually killed him.--Brant Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caroljane Posted November 26, 2012 Share Posted November 26, 2012 That you started this thread, Brant, with Wesley's haunting hymn - instinctively with music - has so made me remember. Bereavement echoes, I will only speak of my mother's funeral, she died so unexpectedly that I could do nothing but focus on choosing the hymns and composing the eulogy. And after the funeral I could do literally nothing, but listen to Handel and plan my own funeral, because I knew, absolutely, that I had to get it done because there was no reason I should not just drop dead too at any minute, and I still know that. I could do nothing but this, trying to decide at what point to have "O Grave Where is thy Victory" played in the service, for two days. And this interesting interval ended in a DUI which I well deserved. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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