We once lived in an era that turned back the moments in time when the heterosexual was the dominant ruler and controller of society. Now as we fast forward into the millennium a new denomination holds the destiny to the new world as we know it today. Let us journey through two men's lives as they set a new precedence that runs from Washington DC to Down Town USA. Let us share with you the testamentary foot prints on how we conquered marriage, success, adoption and our own assimilation. Are we two gay men or are we two people who choose a sexual orientation different from yours. We hold the credentials for setting the foundation in paving the path by allowing Federal Laws of America to allow sexual orientation to being a protected class under Title 7. After nearly seventeen years of being partnered we have become married as husband and husband. Being the first husband and husband to adopt as father and father in New York State has made us the poster child for generations to come. Let us tell you how to adopt locally without money through the raffs of the Child Welfare System. Let's journey down our memory lane tell you how Daddy and Daddy have five beautiful children who have all had our DREAMS COME TRUE, now yet yours. The Child Welfare system provides many free services and incentives for adoption and foster care that also focus' on single parent adoptions as well as husband and wife adoptions. This book is dedicated for people in need of family's not people in need of money. Remember it takes a Village to raise a child.
Daddy & Daddy Against The Odds
By Gregory A. MillerAuthorHouse
Copyright © 2012 Gregory A. Miller
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4685-5229-4 Chapter One
Recently I have been coming to terms that I am a middle aged man who has come to accept the fact that age is only number and that now is the greatest time of my life. Many people always wish that they could turn back the clock and drop twenty years off their age. Not me, I wouldn't change a thing. All the mistakes I have made in my life have given me the wisdom and knowledge that I carry with me in day to day life. Many say that being fifty is the new forty and I am still analyzing that perception.
Of course I like many others have many regrets in life, but I believe I made those mistakes and poor choices the first time around in order to never make them again. I am not your typical guy across the street and by society's standards many people do not believe that I am normal. I have a passion for the Civil Rights Movement and a mission in life to advocate for those who have been classified as a minority or for those that feel they stand alone. I being a minority in my own way can feel the pain that others feel who have been targeted, singled out or branded as a minority. I will tell you a little secret and that is that everybody has something about themselves that someone else does not like. So I ask you, is everybody a minority or is the world that we live in moving to slowly to the times?
I grew up in a small incorporated village on the South Shore of Long Island back in the early 1960s. Life in those days was so simple and laid back for the children. I believe it was very complicated for the adults. We had minimal technology and everything was done manually. Our imaginations had taken us to places that this generation good never imagine. The creativeness for recreation was very original as well as entertaining. Even they food industry was so minimized; things we buy today were all homemade back in the day. Nevertheless I am one of five children and the second to the youngest and now the baby since my brother's death in 1969.
Life appeared to be normal until I reached Junior High School and the hormones started kicking in and that's when it all begun. In my time people were a lot more reserved and lived a religious and pure life. Once I reached the seventh grade I use to day dream in school and admire others in my mind. I knew something was wrong when I still considered girls to be yucky and the guys were cute. Being brought up in a strong Catholic setting we did not have a lot of teen sex and we followed our beliefs. I am quite sure that not everyone lived free of sin, but I did.
Once I reached the ninth grade just shortly after my mother's death I had to grow up very fast. I went from being a child to being a survivor. I actually was raised to have childhood jobs like folding newspapers in the drug store on Sunday mornings to washing dishes in the local coffee shop after school. I always new how to earn a dollar from the age of twelve onward. At sixteen I was forced to drop out of school and get my first fulltime job. Having to support yourself at a very young age left minimal time for friends and socializing. Because I had so many obligations has stalled my social life and made me what some would call today as a late bloomer.
Even at my first job as a busboy I worked with other young guys like myself. There was one guy who was my age who was very handsome by my standards. Not realizing what gay or straight really meant yet had left me in the closet. I never acted on my impulses and I never dared to violate the coworker professional relationship. While searching for my sexual identity I attempted to do what society expected from me. I did have a crush on a cashier whose name was Linda. And I even dated her several times. Something was not right because I adored her as a friend but just did not have the attraction for her that I should have had. By the time I reached my eighteenth birthday is when I realized that I was gay and that I did in fact like guys. This is when I had become a minority and had to learn to live a segregated life. Even in the 1980s gay life was not accepted and gay people had to live a double life. Because of whom I was and what I liked had me remain in the closet. All relationships were kept in secret and nobody from my neck of the woods dressed or acted as gays do in this generation.
My friends and family properly had me figured out, but I did not break my blue wall of silence. During my time people did not confront you or ask too many questions unless they were fighting with you and that is when their true colors came out. In my nearly fifty years of life I can honestly state that I have had three serious relationships with partners in life. Living the life as I call it has been one challenge after another. So many times in my life I have questioned myself over and over. I always asked myself why can't I be like everybody else and why can't my partner in life be accepted like those of married folks.
I have been blessed in many ways in life and then again I have had a very hard life as well. When the people of the world can sit back and say oh isn't that a nice couple, do you think they will marry and have children. People never said that about us.
For so many years I did what all of you must have done from time to time and that was to compare myself to others. Now I realize that you cannot live by similarity nor can you be what others want. I often wondered why some people seemed to have it all and life seemed so easy and perfect for them. Sometimes when we are looking in through the peep hole at others we only see the sugar coating. I have learned one thing and that is everything isn't always what it is viewed to be. It's like a perfect sugarcoated cupcake that looks so good on the outside and then you bite into it and it tastes like crap. Life can also be the same as that cupcake and only ages and wisdom will teach you how to mix up these ingredients.
As a child I had a nickname and it was I know I know. Oh when I look back and think of the mistakes I have made it makes me laugh now. I lacked a little thing called patience and I always wanted to do the things I did not know and never listened to anybody. I believe that when you have a debilitating perception that you have to compensate in other strengths in life. With my "I know" attitude I was seeking acceptance from others but I seemed to always fall by either destroying my project or injuring myself. My second mistake was not accepting criticism and I had an excuse for everything. Once you can pass these two obstacles in life you will bloom into a perfect flower.
I write in a weird way and I jump around a little and that is because I tell a story like an instruction book and it all comes together at the end. I love metaphors and setting the stage for a punch line so just bear with me. When you think you are lost at the crossroads suddenly you will find yourself at the finish line and the victory will be yours.
Because I not being like most, has made my life so complicated and that resulted into making a lot of mistakes and this is what has held me back from finding my assimilation. It took me a long time to figure this out. However this is where I differ from the perfect family who appear to have it all. In reality they do not have it all and the possessions that people own and the vision of their perfect life is just the foundation for the perfect storm.
When I was in my twenties I compared myself to many other families that I resented because they had it all and I was working my menial civil service job and they were on the roller coaster of life. They had what I thought was the American dream and all appeared to be peaches and cream. The beautiful house and cars, the vacations and money. Boy did I envy them and could not figure out what the hell was I doing wrong.
What is the American dream to live as the Brady Bunch or Leave It to Beaver or the Andy Griffin Show. They all had the perfect stay at home mom and the professional dad and the perfect little home at the end of the cul-de-sac in down town USA. I never had the opportunity or the giving right to hold a guys hand in the street or do the romantic things that heterosexual folks do in public. I always felt that missing link when I would visit family and see them as normal and me being casted as the freak. Straight folks do not realize that they send vibes and messages from the way you are treated and from the innuendos that slip out. It is my opinion that gay people have a telepathic sensory and that they have that special gift of reading people and this I believe is because we are seeking acceptance and have a lot of paranoia.
Many ask what is "dream come true" and for me it is to be treated fairly and equally as anybody else in life. Not only that we also want what everybody else wants and that is the slice of American Apple Pie.
Over the years I have been lead to believe that gayness was dirty and it violates every belief in life. In some Countries It has been said that it is against the law to be gay. What is gay life to me, it is just a preference. I am no different than any other guy except that maybe my sleeping arrangements differ from others. I have learned that a relationship is not based on sex which is probably only five percent of the relationship and that number drops when you have little children. I have been racking these thoughts through my mind for many years. I remember as a teenager I would go to the roller skating rink to skate and during the course of the evening the roller rink would change the sessions. The skating events would go from all skate to men only then to couples only. They actually would announce of the load speaker when it was couples only the men and woman could skate or two women, but never two men. During ladies only they could also hold hands. A few guys have tried to do the same but it was banded and so were they from the rink.
As a child I can remember looking at my father's Play Boy Magazines that he hid in the garage and you would always see two women making love. That is a hot scene for heterosexual men and they all wanted to be in the middle. So I ask myself why it isn't hot for two men in a magazine or two men to skate in couples only. I can't figure out who establishes the ground rules in life. I do realize that as in every denomination in life that most minority groups have people in their class that label the entire group by their unethical practices. I assure you that all gay people are not the same. If my memory serves me right, back in the Roman Empire days, sex had no labels and they were the ones who created the sex dungeons.
My husband and I do not have any heals in our closet or do we dress up in drag. We do not practice roll playing with our gender or alter our physical appearances. We both live as men and dress as men, if I wanted my man to look like a woman then I would have married a woman. The second big rap that gay men receive is that we are pedophiles. I can tell you that the large majority of gay men that I have ever met are not a pedophile. Pedophiles are in a class of their own and are frowned upon by gays just as much as they are frowned upon by society in a whole.
When I was younger I attempted the bar scene and met a lot of interesting people. Most people classify gender groups on an uneven scale. What I have observed is that every gender class has different personas such as identity clashes. There are gay guys that act very feminine and those who have the dungeon tough guy character. Gay women are the same way, they have women who want to be guys and look like guys and then woman who love just being a woman.
This part of gay life has never interested me. I am friendly to all gays and respect their choice on how they want to live their life, but it's not for me. I am ashamed to admit it, but I have been embarrassed in public when observed with gay people who struggle with identity issues. Basically the message that I am conveying is that yes I am gay but other than my choice of partnership, I am no different than most.
If you were to scroll through my phone book or observe our friends that we associate with, you would probably notice that ninety- percent of the people are straight. Well as I say sexual gender is a choice and how you choose to live with it, is also a choice. In my family we choose to live a life with simplicity.
It was August of 1995 and I was battling with a straight mans world as a Law Enforcement Chief and as I finally reached the peak of my career and I thought that I finally had assimilated in life. During the past seventeen years I had only lived with two men and no not at the same time. My fist partner William had his own bedroom as I did in the same home. When I was living with partner number two Chino after five years, he was battling for his life with a bacteria poisoning in his stomach that he had contracted in Ecuador and my first partner of twelve years William was battling for his life with prostrate cancer. During the first week of August on a beautiful summer day the phone rang and William's sister Arlene had informed me that William had just passed away. Chino and I were discussing Chino's funeral arrangements when we received the call.
It was a gray time in life and my dreams were just falling apart piece by piece. Approximately a week later Chino had informed me that his time has come and could I call him an ambulance. We had several false alarms and I told Chino that I would follow the ambulance to the hospital in my car. Before I could get dressed and get to the hospital I received a phone call from the emergency room and they had instructed me to get to the hospital as fast as possible and to bring the health care proxy with me. Upon my arrival about ten minutes later I was asked by the attending doctor to exercise my decision on the Health Care Proxy. That was when I had to make the hardest decision in my life. The doctor said that he could revive Chino for maybe a few days and put him on life support but it was just going to delay his death and extend the suffering. I informed the doctor that it was time for Chino to rest in peace and to enforce the do not resuscitate order. He died within five minutes.
Now you say how gay couples are segregated, well I will tell you. During the five years that Chino and I were together I was what you would call the bread winner. I was the one who paid the rent and built our little apartment into what was our home. Chino's family had no money and they asked me if we had life insurance which we did not. I managed to raise six thousand dollars for the funeral. While I was at the Funeral Home Chino's family had robbed my home, they took everything of value. Is this what you would do to a married couple, I think not.
You say why I feel that gays are discriminated against or is it that we live segregated lives. At his funeral were all of Chino's friends and family. My family never showed up or anyone from the job at the Police Department. The Police Department gave five days off for death of a family member or a spouse but not for me. I can remember that after the funeral I had gone home all alone by myself, I never heard from Chino's family again. This was strange because I saw them every week for five years.
Just prior to these dark days I myself was involved in a very serious motor vehicle accident that nearly killed me. About six months back I was on patrol as a detail commander for Special Operations for the Police Departments Intelligence Division. At seven AM I was dispatched to a radio call for an officer down and I was instructed to respond 10-10 which means lights and siren. As I was proceeding north on Madison Avenue crossing 48th Street I was struck by a vehicle proceeding cross town. My vehicle flipped from 48th Street almost to 49th Street. The roof of my vehicle was crushed forcing the roof light bolts into my head and pinning the doors shut. I struggled to get out but could not and just when I was happy to be alive the vehicle began to smoke. Being that my police radio frequency was tied up with the other emergency prevented me from calling for help. I finally switched frequencies and called the officer down call on the executive frequency. Of all days I had no driver this time and I was trapped and bleeding all over the place. My job was dispatched as a commander down trapped with injuries in a burning vehicle. The few minutes it took for first responders seemed like forever and I thought that heaven was calling me home.
For the first time in my life I felt very respected and important
after I heard on my radio the mutable responding units. My entire division responded nearly fifty officers and supervisors. I lacerated my liver, fractured my neck in two places, tour up both knees and split my head open after it went through the driver's door window.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Daddy & Daddy Against The Oddsby Gregory A. Miller Copyright © 2012 by Gregory A. Miller. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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