[Usually this blog contains rather impersonal bits of news and things that interest me. Today's posting is much more personal, a bit of personal history.]
Reading about the death of gay Cpl. Andrew Wilfahrt in Afghanistan yesterday opened a personal repository of memories more than half a century old.
I recalled the day in October of 1955 that I learned that Sp3 Gregory Bartoni, a Korean linguist attached to the ASA, had been killed in Korea. No, not from warfare, since the Korean War had ended three years previously, but rather a tragic jeep accident on an icy road. He had also died in a foreign land, far from his native home and his immediate family. Also far from his military lover, who was stationed on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido.
Gregg and I had first met at Fort Devins, Mass. where we were assigned to a two man room during the first part of our 'intelligence training'. Later we would both attend a year's training at the Army Language School in California, where he was assigned to the Korean department, and I would be studying Russian. Both languages were necessary during the 'cold war' of the time. We both eventually worked collecting intelligence for the Army Security Agency, a super secret military wing of the National Security Agency.
I know it may sound a bit corny and perhaps overly romantic, but it was love at first sight. And we were both aware of it from the time I walked into our two man room. I remember well that Gregg was reading a book by John Donne, a contemporary of Shakespeare, and listening to some Vivaldi. We spent that first evening drinking beer and getting to know each other. We found that our interests, in classical music, opera, literature, botany, film and art, dovetailed like a perfectly mitered joint. His family was from Greece and Italy, and mine was from Slovakia, though I also had a bit of Mediterranean ancestry.. Both of us had joined the military not out of any über patriotic reason, but rather as a way of escaping the draft and not having to shoot anyone or be shot at.
We knew that somehow destiny had arranged for us to become lovers and lifetime partners. It was certainly not something that we announced to all our military buddies, but rather they adduced it for themselves, and were accepting. They knew us first as individuals and worthy of their friendship, and if we happened to be gay that was our business. [This was long, long before the introduction of DADT.]
Towards the end of our year's language study we drove down to So. California to spend the three day 4th of July holiday with my mother, since my birthday also occured during this period. Bozhena, my mother, almost immediately adopted Gregg as a second son. In fact it was during dinner at a restaurant that weekend that she casually mentioned that we seemed to be very much in love. So I didn't have to have the long dreaded , "Hey mom, I'm gay" talk with her since she had figured it out all by herself, and as I learned, even approved of my choice of a life partner.
Gregg was sent to Korea, and I went to Hokkaido, both horrifically cold in the winter months. After a year of writing at least once a week, we made plans to spend a lengthy R & R in Kyoto. And then we planned to visit some gay language school friends stationed in Kyushu in southern Japan. This was in September of 1955. Certainly the most memorable vacation of my life and Gregg felt the same.
In October two of my letters to him were returned to me having been stamped "Undeliverable". Perplexed I wrote to the unit commander where he was stationed, and soon received a reply that he unfortunately had been killed in a jeep accident. The first love of my life had been unceremoniously snatched from me and my future shattered.
Some six months later I was visiting with a Buddhist priest friend there in Hokkaido, an elderly gentleman of immense wisdom and compassion, who was the abbot of a small zen temple.
Then suddenly I was talking about Gregg and his death. I was even talking about our relationship, not knowing how Shimizu-roshi would respond to my revelations. He was silent. Then he began to gently explain that it was normal to love and expect our relationships to last forever, but it was this very aspect of human behavior that the Buddha had pondered and attempted to comprehend. The message of Buddhism was that all of life was impermanent, transitory, and whenever we attempted to hold on too tightly, we were bound to suffer the consequences.
Reverend Shimizu sighed ever so softly. We had been speaking in English, but he suddenly reverted to Japanese and said, "Hardest of all to love are the cherry blossoms." Then, as if to make sure I understood, he repeated it in English. He gazed out of the open room, the shoji had been left open to let in the gentle night air. He looked to the verdant hillside beyond, now bathed in the light of the nearly full spring moon. In the foreground there was an old cherry tree and even in the pale moonlight, petals could be seen drifting to the ground below. I knew that his phrase held a special significance, but had not yet grasped the meaning.
He continued, "There is a seventh century collection of poetry, The Monzen, which begins with the lines, 'Time passes and nothing endures, the delicate cherry blossoms least of all".
The pauses in his conversation were obviously as important as the information within the words, phrases and sentences. "The blossoms in spring, the song of the nightingale in summer, the red maple leaves in autumn and the first snow of winter are the most moving of all beautiful things,.......... but which of them lasts forever?..........Human life is no different."
"Perhaps most important, and difficult, is to learn an appreciation and acceptance of the moment. Like the refreshing breeze of summer your young friend has moved on. Your life was enriched by his presence, inspired by his knowledge and comforted by his love, and now you are faced with the ultimate reality that nothing physical lasts forever."
He continued by quoting the entire poem of that anonymous author of so long ago. Someone who, it appeared, had faced the same emptiness that had gripped my being.
Time passes and nothing endures,
the delicate cherry blossoms least of all.
A storm in the night and we are parted from the blossoms;
They are gone in the morning.
These few words and tears alone remain.
Love them, those blossoms that fall so quickly.
Realize that the ancient pine too,
After a thousand years, will wither.
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