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My brother Dale, is dying. Cancer has robbed him of the rest of his life. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer a year ago. Received treatment. One morning he had a stroke. Killed the left side of his body. Diagnosis: metastatic brain cancer. Too deep. Finality. Today, Wednesday 29 January, he is in bed, at home. Can't do anything for himself. On morphine. In and out of sleep. Pre-coma. Eyes roll into his head. Doesn't recognise his family. Skin jaundiced. Face swollen. Body thin as a rake. It's simply awful. This is for you. We were never that close. You once said that I should stay away from your children because homosexuality is a disease. You didn't want your children to turn gay. I was hurt. But not as hurt as you, because you didn't expect your brother to be gay. Your children grew up without me in their lives. I missed that so much. You punched me the night I came out to mom and dad. Over and over again. All over. You screamed how filthy I was in your eyes. Deranged. Diseased. Evil. I cried even while you and Dad hit me one after the other. I forgot about it as the years went by. Forgiveness you will find in heaven. We became friends. Eventually. I took you to a gay bar once. My friends crowded around you. You were so handsome then. Your ego inflated by all the attention. You found them fascinating. But that was the only time we went out together to party. I wish we had spent more time together bro. You did well. Although I am still shocked that with all your money, you never once helped me look after Mom before she died. I remember phoning you, asking you for a measly two hundred, and you said no. Just like that. NO. It wasn't for me. I never asked you for anything. It was for our mother. You bought a fancy speed boat, owned fancy cars, and even claimed early pension. I remember how disgusted your family was when you walked out of their lives and divorced them and your wife for a younger woman. Don't get me wrong, I love your new wife. She's had very little sleep in the last year whilst looking after you. Changing your clothes. Making your bed.Taking you to the toilet. I remember how you swore our Mom when she discovered you were having an affair with another woman. How we followed you one night and found you sleeping at your mistresses flat. How you sped through the streets trying to get away from us. And your first wife forgave you for the sake of your young children. Three years ago, you started inviting me to spend time with you. We went skiing, had fun on your boat on the lake, began to forge a bond. But you never once apologised. Now, seeing you like this, I weep for you. You were the best brother I never had. And I love you. I hope that your pain will end today. That you will fall into coma. I'm not selfish by saying this. Your quality of life is ended. Time to go home.

Something happened the other day, the details of which I prefer not to share. Something that threw me out of whack far enough that I decided that GA was not the place for my poetry. I was sure I was making the right choice about that. However, I've had to rethink it. I've had lots of PMs, lots of comments and one PM from a reader who said she never has contacted an Author before, but she did me and she told me what she thought of my choice. That was very humbling. All the replies and comments were humbling to be honest. Most of them were full of love and dismay. And I feel awful. I let one person put me in this place mentally, and I feel like I've hurt or let down so many people that I care about. Do I apologize? I feel like I should. So to all of you, who commented, liked Adieu, PM'd or e-mailed me. I'm sorry if I let you down, or upset you, or whatever it is. I truly am. I love GA. Have no intentions of leaving. I'll still write and blog and maybe some poetry will find it's way here again. I'm pretty certain it will. And I'll try to be stronger in the face of hate, in the future. tim

Tuesday, in New York, another young teen felt he couldn't take anymore. For whatever sad reason or reasons, this 12 year old boy hanged himself in the bathroom of an apartment he shared with his mother. For months he had been harassed at school by bullies, for his intelligence, his height, and his deceased father. After enduring incessant taunting for months, Joel Morales transferred to a new school, but the bullying persisted at his new school. Kids chased Morales, threw sticks and pipes at him and teased him for his smarts and his 4-foot-9 stature. Morales’ anguish reached a breaking point when bullies taunted him about his father, who died when he was four years old. His mother, Lisbeth Babilonia, found him hanging in their apartment at about 11:30 p.m. Tuesday, hours after she had organized a search party when he didn’t return home on time from an after-school club. A classmate told Morales’ family that the boy had said he was tired of the bullying and told them the details of the remark about his father that sent him over the edge, according to the News. School officials declined to comment on the alleged bullying, citing privacy issues. How many kids are going to die, or kill themselves, before adults in this country demand school officials and our elected officials put a stop to the bulling in our public schools? How many before we make the officials accountable for their actions or inaction? How many? Perhaps it's time for the bullied students of America stand up and make their voices heard throughout this land. NOT through violence, not through hate for the hate, but by their feet. Walk away from the schools that refused to stop the harassment, the hate, the violence, the bulling. How can any child be expected to learn in an environment as they find themselves in? No wonder our country's youth scores so low on tests compared to other nations. They don't have time, during the school days, to learn and study, when they are always looking over their shoulders for who may be coming up behind them, for an attack! Or watching their feet, as they are walking the halls, for fear someone will tripped them. Or having to hear the racial, homophobic, or ethnic taunts. Every student that has been bullied should stand with every student that is being bullied, and every student that knows in their hearts that what is taking place in our schools concerning bulling is wrong, should also stand with these students and say, No more. stop the bulling or we will strike and not return to school until new rules are in place that stops the bulling. Every parent that has a child in school should stand with these students and back them. One day it could be your child found hanging and all life gone from the body. It's time for a change, and not the type promised by politicians. It's the kind of change that starts at the grass roots of this country, We The People. This story can be found HERE Please, give a damn.

The following video by Clayton Jennings is not a pro-gay film; however it does point out the hypocrisy of many self-described "religious" people.