Dum spiro, spero.

My father is dead and I am an old, grown up man. He can’t come to me anymore and tell me that I am a waste.
My dad used to describe me that way every time, when as a young man, I was rehearsing and our house was full of music and my singing. I always did it when he was at work. But sometimes when I was singing in my room and my background music was loud I could not hear him opening the front door of our house and then, as soon as he opened the door, and heard me rehearsing, he used to scream; “shut up you moron and start doing something useful!”
He even kept telling me this when I was already climbing up the ladder of the show business and been named one of the most promising talents in the country. So, despite the obvious signs of my bright future as an actor and a singer, my father’s talk convinced me that I am nobody.
It stayed with me for the rest of my life.
But now, after 30 years, when my life is going fast toward its end and my father is six feet under sniffing fake flowers, which his wife, and my so called mother, brings often to his grave, even though she hated him for the most part of their marriage, I must rebuild my confidence and forget these two monsters.
I am the best!!!
I can do it!!!
I know I worth a lot of respect!!!
This is my mantra and I am not going to stop repeating it over and over again. I must believe in myself! And I will.

I have to admit that even though I know my sister loves me a lot she became the same coward as my father used to be. She does not see me as an actor or an artist. She sees me as a guy who is wasting his time. She remembers me from the time I was on stage. She even came to my theatre once to see me perform. Still, she seems not to understand anything of what I did and want to do again.
There are moments I see her as a simpleton whose life resembles a life of horse with blinds on. I know, such people are the salt of our existence and without them people like me would not be alive, but still, I am sort of disappointed that my sister deprived herself of the ability to smell proverbial roses.
I see people like her as a pavement for the people like me. We walk over them not seeing them and perhaps not even respect them, but I do respect my Sister and I love her! If not for her I’d kill myself long time ago.

I promised myself that all I do from now on, well, from few weeks back, when I kicked Andreas’ ass, I am going to do with iron conviction that I am the best!

But, as I wrote above, Tom called and said that book reading people are on their way and he will sell me to them…He sounded very serious!

This anther gig I supposed to try needed my voce smaple for the company, which need an actor. So I recorded my voice sample and Tom will try to sell it to them. Money is not great but still, it is money and if this is going to materialize I will be feeling significant financial improvement.
There is another gig, which Tom is trying to get for me, but this one is just one time gig. Oh well, money is money.
If I’d get the contract, I wrote about few days ago, I will be so all right I’d be thinking about smiling for the first time in ages.

Another great news. Couple of months ago Tom was in the States working on the record of one of the best metal rock groups in the world…I won’t say which one. Nevertheless the record is already out and is making a big splash in the States and there is a lot of talk about the Grammy Award…He will be on the “payroll” on the cover as one of the sound producers. So, I work with such a guy.
Yeah, I have to admit, sometimes he is full of shit. He cheats me financially, I know it, but I am letting him get away with this. After all, I must come back and be known again in the show business so, I treat this moment in my life as a little investment in my future and I am not going to fight with Tom over the doe. The money he offers me is not good, as I already said, but it is decent and makes me feel all right.
Besides, I never thought I will be working in my profession after a year of living in Poland and after 25 years of not working at all as an actor.
Well, my pain did not leave me yet, but I feel better.
I am glad I can do gigs in English too. It gives me a lot of satisfaction.
Americans did not want me, now American companies who have their offices in Poland want my voice and like it a lot.

So, I am stuck here waiting for death. It must come. I remember when I was already on The Other Side in 1994 and I was sent back with the message that “when my time comes I would know first.”
Since then I am here and I have no idea why was I sent back?
I rather be dead..

I finally ate something. I fixed myself French fries and two fried eggs with some sausage. I ate half of it and the rest ended up in my dog’s stomachs.
I lost some weight and I am glad. I wish I had no problems so I could just go and look for more opportunities. Well, I do not know if I can since I already have an agent. I am sitting at home waiting for a telephone from the agency. I think it may not ring at all, but in the back of my head I still have some little hope.
Dum spiro, spero.

Last night I have been surfing on the net and I stumbled on a web page with horoscopes. I never believed in horoscopes nor tarot or anything of this sort, however, 32 years ago ( I was 20 years old then) a gypsy woman stopped me in front of the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw, when I was walking to the Congress Hall where I had a rehearsal for the upcoming concert, and she told me that I will go over the big water where I will be happy. She wanted to tell me more but I did not have any money, which she demanded from me.
Well, about 20 years later, in America, a drug queen came to me in one of the gay bars and gave me a tarot reading, which clearly showed that within the week I am going to lose my job. Well, I lost my job.
But still, I think that was just a fluke.
None of the horoscopes, ever, said anything, which came true.
And the one I found yesterday on the web page also said some idiotic things about some success, which I am going to enjoy this month and that I will become visible on my job, that I am going to sign very lucrative contract and other crap like that.
I could only laugh at this bullshit. Unless my audition will bare some fruits and I will get a contract…
But I won’t. I know I won’t.
One can ask me why I am saying it and why I am so negative? My whole damned life was negative, that’s why. I have never been happy for longer than few hours. I must admit that my loneliness did not feel bad then, forty something years ago, until I met Marc and found out what love is all about. I craved it during my whole life and with Marc I found out what being loved meant. It did not last but still, I know I have been loved.

I am a Sagittarius. I do not know if I should believe in astrology?
Why should I believe in something, which is based on…I do not even know on what… on nothing, I guess?
On the other hand those who know astrology say that Sagittarians are usually lonely and have a lot of charisma, they also have a lot of potential in art and politics and they like to socialize despite their loneliness, which does not come from the lack of social life. There might be some truth to it.
I am a loner, I have strong ego, I am opinionated (as all Sagittarians supposed to be) I am an artist who was and is interested in politics, I am ready to take a risk if I want to get something. I am bad with money. I can’t save anything, I like to party and be among people. I want to be in the center of action. I want to lead.
And here comes my twin Sister who is not like meat all.

She is a loner, all right, but she has a boyfriend. She never got married, does not have any children, she is not lesbian, does not socialize because sie does not like to do it. She is also very careful, does not trust people and is good with money. She is a leader and a manager and a very good one, but she does not like to be flashy and in the center of the action. She stays on the side, watches and analyzes and acts on reason. I never do.

Well, how than I can believe in something like astrology if I am so different from my Sister and we are of the same sign, born on the same day, same hour, same year. How I can believe in numerology, which tells me that I am number 7, for I am, and I have plenty of digits one in my date of birth, which supposed to suggest that I am going to become some kind of famous a person a leader and a powerful man.
One may say that I was on my way up there and…Marc happened…does it mean I missed the boat?

Sagittarius: Encyclopedia II - Sagittarius - Notable features
The constellation's brighter stars (from left to right on the map: τ, ζ, σ, φ, λ, ε, δ, η and γ2 Sagittarii) form an easily recognizable asterism called the Teapot. The stars δ Sgr (Kaus Media), ε Sgr (Kaus Australis), ζ Sgr (Ascella), and φ Sgr form the body of the pot; λ Sgr (Kaus Borealis) is the point of the lid; γ2 (Alnasl) is the tip of the spout; and σ Sgr (Nunki) and τ Sgr the handle. [1] [2] α Sgr (Rukbat) isn't the brightest star of the constellation, having a magnitude of only 3.96. (It is not shown on the map as it is located b ...
See also:
Sagittarius, Sagittarius - Notable features, Sagittarius - Notable deep-sky objects, Sagittarius - Mythology, Sagittarius - Astrology, Sagittarius - Notable and named stars
Read more here: » Sagittarius: Encyclopedia II - Sagittarius - Notable features

For more dictionary entries, see » Sagittarius Dictionary

So there. All about my sign. Oh well, perhaps not all of it but there is some information about it here.
Should I believe in this?
It’s nice to be seen as a strong sign associated with fire and power. But where is this power and success?
I am desperate. It is obvious that I am looking for something, which may tell me that I still have a chance and my choice to end my life is not the best one.

I am waiting. I do not want to die, of course, so I am waiting to see how things will develop. If my pain won’t go away I will go.

Last night I ordered pizza. I did not have pizza in about two months.
I called Pizza Hut, which they have here in Poland. I ordered hot classic pizza with cheese, pepperoni and jalapenos.
They brought it in about 30 minutes. Well, to tell you the truth it wasn’t our own Chicago made pizza, which is the best. It wasn’t even as good as Domino’s Pizza but as for Polish standards it was OK, I guess. Since I quit smoking and drinking alcohol I have a bit more money and I can afford such treat. My dogs love pizza too. Leo was a pizza lover, my middle dog, who passed away on 19th of February of this year. Leo ate jalapenos and onions like there was no tomorrow. His son Baby likes pizza too but he does not like to eat crust or jalapenos or onions. His mom Gina likes crust and eats it well. Leo ate everything. I missed my little boy, all red 10 lbs of love. My dogs are the miniature dachshunds. I missed Leo very much. I hope when I die I will meet all my dogs, which I had a loved.
I will have a bunch of best friends up there. I hope that, Lord the German Shepard, Puszek the Maltese, Cuma and Negra the Giant Schnauzers, Casper the mutt Husky mixed with something like small Collie, and finally Leo and the rest of them, when their time comes, will play with me on the fields of love and eternity.
To be frank I would like to have all my dogs with me when I die.
Just my dogs if they could talk to me and I could talk to them so we understood each other very well and they could tell me the truth about their life with me and what they think about me.

I know that there is something after we die. I have been there in April of 1994. I did not go there all the way for I was sent back but I now that there is something there. I know there is total calmness, and the feeling of love is everywhere. When I was there I did not want to go back, I was so close to happiness. But they did not want me.
Well, I can’t even say who did not want me.
I do not know who it was who told me to move back in my clod and sleazy body. I hated that moment as one of the creepiest experiences I have ever had.
But there is something after we die. I know it for sure.

I am sitting in front of my computer and I am reading the news, simultaneously listening to the BBC World and the CNN.
As usually the media is riding the story of alleged terrorist attack with liquids, on British and American airplanes.
I can imagine a man with a bottle of milk screaming; I have a bomb in my baby formula.
It is just unimaginable that professional terrorists who, allegedly, were groomed and bread for the cold blooded attacks, did not know years ago that they were able to make a bomb from some liquid ingredients.

To me it is just a huge bull shit invented by the Bush and Blair criminal governments to scare the people of both of the countries and stir anti Arab sentiments, which Israeli government demanded to take away world’s attention from the war crimes perpetrated by Israeli neo-Nazi-army on Lebanese people.

I decided to make my mobile number confidential. I do not want anybody I call to know it. Poland is a scary place where you can be invigilated and even blackmailed and police won’t do a thing to protect you. Especially when you are a foreigner with a Jewish sound name.

So now you must be puzzled asking yourself how I can be so anti Israel and in the same breath talk about anti-Semitism in Poland. Well, I am not an anti-Semite in the first place. I am even suspecting that there were Jews in my family. My paternal grand father had Jewish last name, which I am carrying now. Moreover when I checked the list of Ellis Island arrivals I found the names just as mine, which were the name of a Jewish family who came from then partitioned Poland to the USA in the year of 1906 and 1914.
Am I a Jew? Well, I do not know? To be a Jew I have to come from a Jewish womb. I did not, and I was baptized in Roman-Catholic Church and I grew up as a Roman Catholic in Roman Catholic family. But it means nothing. In Poland one is a Jew if one is not liked by the Polish people or has last name, which sounds Jewish.
My last name sounds Jewish despite my grandfather’s claims that his family came to Poland from Germany and got naturalized in 18th century.

Poland is not a good country for a person who grew up in civilized world. It is a country where the Roman-Catholic Church is the decisive force. Where backwardness is the moral obligation.
Where anti-Semitism is as palpable as Catholicism, and both do go together like a horse and carriage.
My last name is not too good for Polish reality. And Polish reality is not too good for me. I hoped, however, for I was born here, that I will be able to revive my career. I hoped that my friends with whom I begun my career 33 years ago would remember me. I am sure they do, but I am also sure that they do not want to talk to me because I am gay and I lived in America for such a long time and, perhaps, I am a Jew.
This is Poland, which I misread despite my Sister’s warnings when she told me that this place is toxic. She was right. It is toxic.
Now I can’t do anything. I have to stay here because I do not have money to go back to USA. If, but only if, our US Embassy in Warsaw could help me with money I could fly back there. But what for?
I do not have anything or anybody there.
Double whammy.

Thunderstorm is hanging in the air. I am looking toward the massive structure of the Palace of Science and Culture and see grey sky and hear some thunder. I love thunderstorms but here in Poland they are not as good as in Chicago or in America for that matter.

All of the sudden I started thinking about my Sister. We live about 5 miles from each other. We can visit one another and since I hate her idiot boyfriend she could visit me here. She has car and she can drive over here. It is just about 10 minutes drive. She does not do it. She calls me one or two times a day and that is it.
She helps me a lot with money, but this is it. We do not have any other connection. It is sad.
But our lives were divided if not ripped apart by cruelty of our parents. She left our family home very early, where she was about 17 as soon as she graduated from the nursing school and she rarely showed up.
I don’t blame her, we both hated our abusive father and inept mother who never took our side.
So, all these years of being apart took its toll and she can’t get closer to me and I can’t do the same. Well, I hate her boyfriend, dumb alcoholic whom she took in and saved his dumb life.

How bad I am? Well, I am bad. I am mad. I am opinionated and I am possessive and demanding and sometimes rude and aggressive but only when I hate someone. And I hate my mother so I am incredibly aggressive toward this totally an alien woman to me.
My Sister doesn’t like it but I can’t be nice to my mother.
I am not physical and I hate physical violence. I am always nice to other people I meet and a lot of people like me.
Perhaps same amount of people hate me.

Today I feel a bit better but it doesn’t mean that the threat of the worst is gone. My pain prevails and I can feel it. I am ready to act if I will have to.

I slept a lot last night and today. Las night I fell asleep about 10:30 pm and slept until 8:45 am. I woke up, took my doggies for a walk and took my pills with some little food. I read a news on the internet and later watched the news about LHR scheme to switch to European Championships in Athletics in Gutenberg, Sweden and turned back to Heathrow news and fell asleep.
I slept for about 2 hours and woke up to walk my doggies again.
Now, at 3:21 pm I am sitting and writing. Meantime my Sister called and told me, that she would like to pay my electrical bill, which my landlord did not bother to bring to for last 4 months…
It could be impossible in my country. In America a tenant is responsible for the electrical bill and his telephone and sometime his gas bill and heating too.
Here, in Poland, it is just as stupid as this whole country’s policies are and a landlord has all the utilities registered under his name.

So, she called, my Sister, that is and told me she is going to pay the bill.
She is the greatest sister on Earth.
Yesterday she paid my cable TV and the internet bill…
If not I’d have no money for food.
This is how low I got today.
I spoke with my friend in Chicago via MSN Messenger and I told him about my predicament here and that I would like to go back to America. But he is such egotistic man, that the conversation went nowhere and I quit it after 10 minutes.

So, I am stuck here waiting for death. It must come. I remember when I was already on The Other Side in 1994 and I was sent back with the message that “when my time comes I would know first.”
Since then I am here and I have no idea why was I sent back?
I rather be dead since then.

If I want to be frank I must say that all the blame for my fucked up life I must put on my parents.
Well, there is another person whom I would like to point out, but I can’t. I am sure I was sexually abused by that person when I was a child and I blocked those events in my memory. Why I am so sure? I remember this person sleeping with me in my bed and touching my penis and even masturbating me. I was 14 years old at the time.
No, I do not want to say the name of this person. I still think that this person did for me more good than bad. However I keep asking myself did I turn homosexual because of sexual molestation? I don’t know?
I really do not remember how early this sexual molestation started?
I can recall that I was very fond of boys when I was about 9 years old. I remember I was totally asexual in terms of liking this or that gender when I was about 10-11 years old. Later on, when I was about twelve I discovered masturbation via pornographic book, which I found in the family closet. Until today I have no idea who brought it and who hid it there?
Nevertheless I read it and as I recall today I was paying a lot of attention to the parts of the book where male sexual organs were described. I liked them and when I read about them I masturbated.
Later I became crazy about pleasing myself I could masturbate six or seven times a day.
One may say that this is quite normal for a boy of such age, but I can say that this habit did not disappear since.
Am I sex addict? I guess I am.

Few years ago I was trying to figure out my sexual habits so I decided to read few books on the subject. The information I found in them prompted me to the conclusion that I had to be sexually abused in my childhood. I wasn’t surprised. I tried to recall my childhood and all the signs of sexual abuse and I succeeded by remembering a man in the summer camp who did something to me. How long he molested me? I can’t say. I only remember his action during our trip to the movies when he decided to hold me on his lap. I remember the darkness and his hands in my crotch. I can’t remember if he masturbated me or not. I was 10 years old at the time.
I know more things happened even earlier. One of my younger family members took me ones to the tent he built and masturbated in front of me and my sister. She doesn’t remember this event but I do.
He was about 15 years old at the time and we were 9 years old.
Did he do anything to me later? I do not know? I can’t recall many things from my childhood although I remember being touched and fondled by other grown ups.

I do not know how bad influence those events had on me and my sexual future? My sexual activities besides masturbation happened late in my life. Although I knew I was gay I never acted on my desires.

There was Ted when I was 17 and he was 15. We masturbated in front of each other few times. Later there was Valdi who was 17 and I was 22. I masturbated him and he liked it. Then there were few other guys but it was just another mutual masturbation.

My real first homosexual intercourse occurred in America when I was 28 years old. I met Marc, he was 21 at the time and we fell for each other instantly. There was nothing more exhilarating than our first anal intercourse. Marc gave himself to me and we stayed together for next 10 years.
After that I have met very many guys with whom I had sexual encounters. Those were pre AIDS times and nobody cared about protection. Marc decided that we should have an open relationship so we loved one another and had sex together but we agreed that we can pick up other guys and do it with them.
I did not want to agree because I thought that Marc and I should be together for the rest of our lives. Marc laughed at it and said that he is not going to be fucked by one guy only.
I remember when he told me “I love dicks and you love ass. Let’s do it and have fun with other guys.”
So we did.
He was cute but his cuteness wasn’t lasting and at the age of 25 he started to look really old. On the other hand I was looking magnificent and was able to bring home any guy I desired.
And I did bring them home in throngs. This was pre AIDS time and picking up a guy on the street was nothing for me. One look and if a guy was gay he was mine.
I can say that during my 10 years with Marc I had about 120 guys.
Later on, when he left me in 1989 I found Jorge and quit playing around. Besides, this was already AIDS time and I was very careful.
I did not know that I was already infected…
I can only guess but I think i was infected in 1984 by the guy named Federico. He was a cute Mexican guy of 23 and we were fuck buddies for about a year.
We were not worrying about HIV at the time; however the disease was already killing people. I guess our awareness was pretty low.

I kept having sex like a drunken sailor, with all the guys I wanted. I am sure during that time I got re-infected many times but to my astonishment the guys who had sex with me, including my boyfriend Marc, did not and do not have any infection. How is it possible, especially with Marc with whom I had unprotected sex for 10 years?

I found out about my infection in the last days of December of 1993. One day i found out I have candida in my mouth, which is one of the first symptoms of compromised immune system.
I went for the test and got my answer in a week. Was I devastated? I was to the extent but I knew I am going to get this. I knew it and I can’t say why I knew it.

Well, I am going in to some details about the predicament, which is a consequence of what have happened to me in my childhood. Of course this is my opinion and other people can have different one.

My life ended during the night in the end of August of 1980 when I saw Marc during my concert and instantly fell in love with him. Later I decided to leave everything and stay with him in America.
With not knowing anything about hard work as a laborer and with being a youing star and used to pampering, all of the sudden, I became nobody and did not have any idea how my future supposed to look.
Only thing I knew was that I loved Marc and he loved me.
We got along very well and sex was fantastic. I was hungry for real love and real sex and so was he? We could fuck 4 times a day and we never had enough. I thought this love will last forever.
When later he left me for a lawyer who was into leather I could not believe it. Marc became a leather man and tried to turn me into liking that fetish, but I could not convince myslef to this thing. Besides, he just graduated from nursing school and felt like a real pro while I was nothing but a cab driver. He must have figure out that he has to upgrade his status.
When he left with Bob I was devastated. Why didn’t I return to Poland then? I did not know I was infected so it was not an issue, although I was suspecting it from the time in 1984 when I started to get cold sweats at night. Of course Marc was ignoring it saying that this is impossible, that I can't to be sick becasue he is not.

Perhaps my refusal to go for a test saved my life. There was not effective meds in 1984, which were able to control the virus and people kept dying because their virus kept mutating and killing their immune systems.
I really have no idea why I am alive and why I survived the time when my CD4 cells were completely gone and my viral load was 180.000. When I got MRSA infection and prior to this sinus infections and bowel obstruction. After five surgeries I was and I am still alive.
Why?
I wish I was dead.
Who the hell decided I must go on?
Now I have to finish my life using my own hands. I have to do it. No way out.

My Sister called, I told her about Andreas’ threats and she said she is going to call him. I told her not to because there is no reason to talk to this bizarre character. When I finished talking to my Sister he sent me another (fourth today) sms in which he mailed me few more threats.
I do not know what it is all about but I can imagine that he in his mental state wants to do all he can to disturb me. I won’t answer and won’t do anything to provoke him.

I am down as I was. I feel pain as I felt it and I am sure I must finish myself. I will go on as long as I will be able to take it. But my pills are ready sitting on the coffee table. I think that dose of 500 mg will be enough to put me to sleep.
I am really sad that I have to do it but I am ready.
My good bye letters to Marcin and Rafal are already written. I will not send them tonight because I am not going to do it tonight. I will wait and see how strong the pain can become?

It is going to be mighty tough to finish the job. I know I’d have to buy me a lot of booze, and it will be my beloved Scotch Whiskey.
I will get drunk and take the pills and lie down in bed, fell asleep, my blood pressure will go down and my heart will stop.
I won’t feel a thing.

Too bad I won’t be able to see another day. I love life very much.

Before my Sister called I was lying in bed and thought about my childhood. How safe I felt then although my family was dysfunctional, kept fighting all the time and the best place for me to be was our garden or the town where I was ofetn going with my German Sheppard dog named Lord.
He was brought for us, me and my Sister, when we were born. I think we were about one year old when my Grandmother brought it for us. He grew up with us and we grew up with him. He was a member of our family and I loved him dearly. He was very intelligent and I taught him a lot of tricks, which he did with great pleasure. When I was coming from school I was always playing with him. We were walking to the market to buy things my grandmother and mother needed for family dinner. He always carried sack of potatoes for me and kids and passerby were looking at us with smiles on their faces.
I often went with him to a park Kajki, which was located nearby. We walked a lot and I threw him sticks which he kept beringin back to me. All the people in the neighborhood new us very well. I was about 12 years old and Lord wasn’t that much smaller than I. We must have looked very fanny together.
I loved the city I was born in. Elblag was an old German town, which became Polish after WW II ended. My grandparents moved there due to my granddad's job in the army. We had a nice house, which stood next to the huge army base were my granddad was a chief of staff.
I was born on 25th November of 1951 just six years after the WW II ended. Six years seemed to me a lot of time then, but ruins were still marking the ground and reminded us about the war, which was still present in my grandparents and my parents’ minds.

On our Beniowski Street there were ruins of a building, which was struck by a bomb. I remember this building since I was about 5 years old. I could see the ruins from the front yard of our house. It is amazing how such little child can remember things like that. I can even remember huge weeping willow, which stood on our front yard. My family, I am guessing today that it was my granddad and grandmother, decided to get rid of the tree. Today as an adult I think it was a very bad decision. The willow was huge, nice and I am sure it wanted to live. It survived the war all the bombs and bullets. I am convinced that all the living things including trees and plants and even vegetables and fruits do have its feelings. As they grow and live they do want to live as long as they can. Especially trees and bushes and other plants, which can live for a long time, must have feelings and do want to live.
The tree had been cut. I remember huge stump sitting on the left side of the yard. Few days later a big tractor came and pulled out the stump leaving big hole in which my father’s baby brother played with his friends. On the right side of our front yard we had beautiful lilac bush, which spread incredible scent in late April and early May.
How I loved this time. When lilac bush bloomed and we had two of them, I knew that summer time is coming and school is going to end.
Second bush of lilac stood on the south side of our garden on the side next to the window of our dining room and front room.

I am seeing the place of my birth and early youth with the eyes of my memory and even right now I can feel the pleasure and love, which was coming from the kitchen where my grandmother always cooked dinner for us.
Despite troubles, which dysfunction in our family brought on us children, the house felt like the safest place on Earth and my family the best in the world. When they did not fight among each other it felt as the happiest family in the City.
I was scared when they fought and quarreled because I did not know who was wrong and who was right? I did not know why my mother and my grandmother cried at the same time and I had no idea who should I love more at such moment.

My life which I spent in Elblag as a child lives in me like it was yesterday. I have never felt so safe anywhere. After we left Elblag, when my grandparents sold the house, our family ceased to exist the way I knew it.
To be frank, my whole world fell apart. There was no of my grandmother anymore who could come and comfort me when I was sick or sad. There was no grandmother to play chess with me or play board games or even cards. My parents did not care about us children. They left all our upbringing to our grandparents. My mother loved to mess up our relationship with my grandparents. My father hated my granddad, his father. They could not stand each other. Just like I could not stand my father, but I loved my granddad and I feared him too. He was an officer and his mmaners were just as such. Besides my sister was an apple of his eye and I was my grandma's baby.

My life in Elblag was happy and safe. I felt loved and well taken care off by my grandmother who never stopped teaching me and showing me the world explaining it to me with patients and love. When she disappeared from my life I lost the only person who meant the world to me, like nobody else before and after.
My family was religious and every Sunday I and my Sister were taken to one of the churches in the city. It was either a church of Brothers Redemptorists or the Church of St. Michael's, which was huge 14th century gothic structure sitting in the middle of an empty field cleaned from the ruins of an old town destroyed by the Soviet bombs.
Today the Old Town is there. Citizens of Elblag decided to reconstruct it and returned it to the city. I haven’t been to my City in 39 years and frankly I am thinking about moving back there. Of course not to the house I was born in and not even to the street the house stands on. It could bring so many emotions and memories I am afraid I'd not stay there at all. No, I would be afraid to move to Beniowski St. and live there in the shadows of my old house where I met the world for the first time.

With the eyes of my memory and my heart I can see the street and the houses of our neighbors. I know that Mr. and Mrs. Kowalczyk are laready dead but I know that their son Andrzej lives there and I am pretty sure he lives in the same house, which stands next to ours on the south side of the fence. On the north side of our fence was the house of Major Wisniewski whose son Tolek was my best friend until the day I moved out. I have heard he is still living there with his family and children. I am not sure if his parents are still alive?
So many memories and so many emotions. I do not know if I could move to Elblag without big heartache and tears in my eyes.

I have to write about it because I am feeling good while thinking aboit it. At least I am able to revive my memories of happiness, which I can’t find today.

Elblag was and is my city of happiness and love, clean, innocent love of a boy who trusted his little world, which surrounded him. Later the world he loved tumbled down and became erased by his family, which decided to part for ever and never be the same again.

My parents seemed to be happy when they had to leave the house on Beniowski Street and moved to a small town near Warsaw. My mother left the city much earlier when she decided to go to a school for midwives. She left me and my Sister with our grandparents who were taking care of us and did all the parental work. My father did not care about us at all. I do not even remember his presence there. He usually spent his time drinking with his friends. He was still young and irresponsible. Later my mother decided to move from Gdansk where she was in school all the way to Warsaw. She did it and o course we did not see her for next two years. One can only imagine how much of sorrow she inflicted on us and especially on me who thought that all of this was my fault.

When my mother was gone, fighting at home subsided and erupted very seldom only when my grandmother wanted to show my granddad who is the boss. I do not remember my school very much because I hated my grade school very much. After my parents took me away from the music school because of my heart problems and when my journey through the hospitals of the city ended with the cure, I was not able, according to my mother, to go back to my beloved school to continue playing the violin. To my dismay they also took my sister away from the school although she was not ill at all.
I was the kid in the family who was sick all the time and my sister was the one who was as strong as I should be. We were twins and I was born 15 minutes after her. Perhaps I was a weaker one and all the crap was falling on me instead equally on both of us.
I can’t say I did not like to be sick. When I was sick I was loved and taken care of the way only a son of a Queen Elisabeth II could be.
This kind of love never happened to me since.
I can't stop from mentioning the books. Plenty of books, tons of books, which my grandmother showered me with and inflicted eternal love for them since my early childhood.
She was the one who new what I needed. She was the one who kept buying me all the newest books. We even had our private bookenier who brought the books once a month to our door.
I also remember very well my name days and Christmases, those were the dates which I as a child and I am sure my Sister too, were waiting for like every kid in the world. We were not poor. At the time I did not know who was poor and who was rich. We just had all we needed and in many instances all we wanted. No, we were not rich in any meaning of this word. We were comfortable and safe. I felt it as a child.

When I am writing about it I feel such pain for the time, which will never come back. I am sure I could experience such feelings if I only were straight a man had my family, wife, children and grandchildren. Fate did not give it to me. Why fate deprived me of this treasure? Why should I become gay?

Now I do not have anyone. Just like my sister who does not have any children and does not have any husband. She is not lesbian.
Why such fate?
Who is responsible for all this?
I know that many people will say we are responsible for our lives. But I can’t agree with them. We indeed are responsible of our lives but the way our lives go is directed from the day one when we are born.

My first thirteen years of my life were the happiest years and since then I only tried to find same happiness and never succeeded.
Even when I taught myself how to sing and play guitar and when I started singing not knowing if I would ever sing on real stage, I wasn’t happy that much. My parents did not support my love for the music. Moreover they kept discouraging me and even tried to put me down every time I was doing something, which led me to my success.
No, it wasn’t my happy time but it was my time of “I show you.”
Yes, I think I wanted to show my parents that my calling was the most important calling in my life and that I was able to do it even without their help. And I did it.
I showed them but they showed me too. They showed me how much they hate me. They showed me how much they despise my success.
Even when I was invited to the one of two music theatres in Poland to perform and was on my way to the top, my father never went to see me.
Never!
I have no idea why he hated me so much. I was good as an actor and singer, I was good looking, I was talented and I know today that his encouragement and his love could do what nothing and nobody could. If he loved me and showed me his love I would never stayed in America. I would know that I have my home and my loving parents who waited for me with open arms.
But their love did not exist so I looked for somebody who could love me.
And I found him in Chicago. And I found death there too.

I can’t live anymore. I can’t live like that. But I am trying to travel into the abyss of my soul and search my memory to find the feeling, which today is long gone.
I want to feel it before I die. This feeling lives in me still and I can almost touch it. I can recall my grandmother and the feeling of our living room in Elblag. I can recall summer evenings when the door of our living room was opened to the garden and the scent of my favorite flowers was filling up the room. I remember the day when my grandparents bought our first TV set. It was in the fall of 1961 when our own TV arrived!
I remember how all the members of our family were excited. I do not remember who placed the antenna on the top of the roof of our house? I think it was my dad with his baby brother. All the commotion ended when the picture showed up on the silvery screen. We did have our own TV and my Sister and I did not need to go to Mr. Kowalczyk to watch “The adventures of Robin Hood” or “Zorro”.
Our TV program in Poland was only 8 hours long and there was only one channel. Nobody cared, it was our own TV and we were in XX century.
Happy times. Very happy days. I can feel them and this is the best feeling I was able to find in me in a long time.

I am old, I am 55 years old man whose death sentence is already marked in the book of Fate. I am curious if my suicide was written in that book too?
How am I going to end up?
Dead, I know I will die. I know that there is something beyond the breath. But what is going to wait for me when I end my own life?

My happy times ended 40 years ago. They won’t come back but in my memory. Am I crying over them? Yes I am.
My pain is unbearable and I must end it.
When?
I do not know exact date, but I know it is going to be soon. Very soon.
Forgive me my dear Sister. You love me, I know it, but you are not able to change my fate.
Live good and live well. You are the only person I love and will always love. I hope God won’t punish me for my decision and I will meet with you when your time comes.
I love you Hania. I missed the time when were not together when you left home in Piaseczno, when you could not stay there for our parents did not know how to be parents.
I missed the time when we could be together and did not have a chance because we did not have our own home. Our father who could fix that problem did not do it. He cared less about his own children.
I hope I won’t meet him up there. I would like to meet my grandmother. I would like to play chess with her and play cards and board games and be a small grandson to her again as I always was there in Elblag.

I loved her and I believe we meet again up there. I want to believe she is waiting for me and she can see my pain and my life and she is sad.

I know it is going to be very tough. In spite of all the talk about cowardice of a person who wants to kill himself, it takes a lot of guts to do it. I have to find the strength in me. And to be frank I do not know how?

Of course, I hate myself. Of course I know that I lost my life many years ago when I made the mistake, which appeared to be unforgivable.
I often ask myself the question; was I programmed by the Fate, before I was born, and sent to life, to go through all the pains human person can go through? I kept asking myself why others do not suffer a lot and only some of us must?
Why my weakness became the dominant part of my life? Why it was not my strength, which I have in me. Why it wasn't my music? Why it wasn’t the decisive force in making my decisions?
Why me?
Why had I made all the mistakes?

I know, many of you will laugh and tell me that I am a loser. I know I am a loser. But I want to find one, last strength in me and finish my life with one swift and painless move.
I have good pills at home and I can do it tonight.
Do not get me wrong, because you must know that in spite of all my thoughts and my conviction to finish myself off, I love life and I love to have hope. But I know that I have to die because, in my predicament, life has became unbearable.

Often, before I go to sleep, I am trying to figure out what had happened in my life and when it happened? When my fate had been decided? Was it when I was a child? Or perhaps when my parents took me away from my music school and deprived me of my only love I had and understood?
Was it my disease, which busted my heart when I was 8 years old and my parents decided that I won’t be going back to my beloved music?
What was it, what twisted my life? What happened and when it happened, that my life became one long river of pain?
Why was I born gay? Why I could not be a straight man with wife and children?

I can point the time when my paretns clearly were unable to show me their love. It happened from the day one of my life. I loved them very much and tried to show them that I am the greatest son they ever had, but all my efforts were not good enough. Was it then when, as a young guy I knew what to do with my life and they stopped me from doing it? Was it when they were trying to kill my spirit and love for the music by turning their backs on me and ignoring my success? Critisizing me every step of my way up to the top. Or was it my gayness, which they sensed despite my manliness? Or was it the day in America when I have met Marc and decided to leave my career for him? You must understand that despite my current feelings about what happened then, I loved him and it was my first real love. You must remember I was gay from the day one of my life. When I grew up in Poland and discovered I am who I am I was scared to death, I had to hide my real feelings because then in Poland being gay was like being terminally ill with a contagious disease. So, when I met Marc in Chicago I had clear choices…to love a man for the first time in my life with full and open love and be loved back or, to go back to communist Poland, become a star, get married and pretend to be whoever I was not?
I chose love for the man and betrayed my love for the music. As strange as it may sound I think I am paying for it today. I think it was the mistake of my life.

Few weeks ago somebody told me that I can’t regret anything because I can’t know what would have happened if I went back to Poland twenty six years ago?
Perhaps he’s got the point?
So if he is right why am I suffering today?
Was it written in my book up there?
Should I try to go back to God and ask him for help? But I already did. I prayed tens of thousands of times. I have to say that I did not ask God for my health, or long life. Even when I was diagnosed with AIDS. I only prayed for the happiness in my life, I asked him to give me a reason to smile. I did not care how long my life will be, if he could make me happy just for a month and then take my life I’d thank him for the eternity. After tens of thousands of prayers and the hope he will listem to me, he did not make me happy. I concluded, God does not help people. I concluded that either he does not exist or he does not care about the people he allegedly created.
If, as someone said in one of the bloggs here, God is love, why than I did not experience love in my life? Why I was not loved? Why I had been giving my love for nothing to the people who did not deserve it?

Now it’s too late, I guess. I do not have anybody who can love me the way I would want him to love me. Unconditionally and with passion. When I was ready to die, there in my beloved USA, something told me to give myslef abother chance. I went back to Poland hoping that it will be seen by the God as my attempt to reconcile with the passed and reconnected with what I left twnety six years ago. Very soon, after I arrived here, I found out that people are not sincere and do not treat men like me with respect. I am a man who is not only a homosexual but has “homosexual” disease. I am a leper whose presence here is not welcome. Even among gay people of this country I am a person who is not welcome anywhere. Was it my fault that I told few of my friends, that I am ill? Well, I treated them as my friends and trusted them, wanted them to know that friends mean a lot to me and my trust in them is the highest type of respect. They betrayed me. I found out that I am as strange to them as a Martian man, that they friendship was just a little game, that they hoped for money, which I supposed to have as an American man.
To my dismay I foud out that gay people in Poland discriminate against gay guys like me. Knowledge about my affliction is close to zero here. People do not want to hear or know about anything, which is close to the “unmentionable crime” of being ill with AIDS. Yes, in the middle of Europe in 21st century people do not know anything about the disease. They do not want to know about it. Even doctors do not want to treat us as they supposed to…
I know it is my time to die. My fate did not change. My trip did not make me happy. God did not change my life.
I must find enough strength to do it.
I can’t go back to USA. I have no money. Yes, if I had enough money for a plane ticket I’d leave Poland as soon as possible. I also do not want to be a burden on my beloved Sister. I must go away from here one way or another.
I know, I wrote about killing myself before. But I stopped writing about death because last two weeks gave me a bit of hope. My psoriasis got better and Andreas was good to me. Now hope is gone again. I have nothing and I have been betrayed. I cannot see my future in any colors, even black is gone. I feel empty, dried and ready to disappear.