Gerald Dillenbeck | + Follow Poet |
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Parting Instructions For My Oldest

You did not choose to be born,
much less Black Lives Really Should Equally Matter born
into this legacy,
your familial and civil Two-Connecticuts destiny.

I realize that,
And regret perhaps my own choices
in response to invitations for care-giving
and healthcare-receiving
were probably too egocentrically universalized
creolized so that whatever felt best to me at the time
would necessarily be best for you,
born into this diverse range of my health and pathology choices
for me,
now also for you.

No one asked, including me
Do you think a young African-American ADHD adult,
single,
poorly educated,
challenged as employable
with unresolved anger and fear issues
     about whether he is care-giving enough
     to deserve to become self care-receiving,
is left to care for
a gay virgin nerd younger adult
game-addicted brother
who believes he is actually allergic,
and perhaps alien,
to Mother Earth,
AND an oppositionally bipolar nymphomaniac youngest princess sister
with cerebral palsy and difficulty speaking,
     civilly or usually otherwise,
and concomitant difficulties
     not talking to herself while jumping
     and slapping
     and forgetting to go only on the toilet,
AND your youngest brother,
also with cerebral palsy and a wheelchair,
without capacity to speak or sign
yet with capacity to laugh and smile
with those he loves to know the best care-receiving,
and without capacity to chew and swallow well
     so he eats through a tube
     what he must not gnash with his grinding teeth,
and with midnight capacities for grande-mal seizures
requiring 24-7 same-room monitoring.

This is indeed
a great deal of operatic drama not to choose
to be born into
as the oldest,
raised by two gay dads,
old enough to have been your grandfathers,
one black, who seems afraid to be associated
     with our polycultural reputation and self-presentation,
     self-neglect, he might call us out,
and me white,
now apologizing for this mess
with which I leave you
as your birthright.

Attached are instructions
from your sister's Behaviorist.
I suggest you adapt them,
first to take better care of yourself,
then her,
then your two brothers,
as best you can,
ecotherapeutic care-giving
is also egotherapeutic care-receiving.

When another life
reaches out to strike you down,
to damage your property and/or body,
and mind,
to touch you inappropriately
and without asking permission first,
before grabbing and damaging your thoughts and feelings:

First, remind your care-receiver,
as yourself,
to ask permission to become a care-giver
to you and/or your property,
because your life does matter equally
with each other's;
not more,
but not less either.

Second,
teach your assailant
across permitted boundaries to violence and theft and behavioral restraints,
including use of civil voice,
to advocate for this assailant's healthcare-receiving wants and needs
in an appropriate
mutual healthcare-giving way,
non-violently
and more domestically diplomatic,
following universal multicultural standards
for WinWin Solidarity
of All Lives Equally Matter,
Golden Rules
applied to people,
plants,
places,
and things,
especially technological co-investments
in Earth's 7-Generation Future
of healthcare information systems
and their cooperative access
to growing Wealth Without Walls.

Finally,
mentor your siblings
with healthcare-giving greetings,
invitations,
listenings before speaking,
speaking back what care-receiving comes through
your All Lives Equally Matter channels
and challenges
about not choosing
to be left with these care receiving and giving
familial opportunities
to regenerate climates of health
and avoid landscapes of further behavioral pathology.

With apologies
for my Elder role
in your current ADHD challenged
ecopolitical and psychological karma,
but, 
you know,
as a gay white-trash farmboy
who developed a thing for urban black strong men
in the 1960s and 70s
when my life wasn't even legal,
much less of any socially therapeutic value,
I didn't think past my own parenting needs
to give life more therapeutically back
than I had not-so-well received life
in my ecopolitical time on Earth.

If you do your best self care-receiving,
you will each day and night relearn
to teach yourself as others
asking and giving permission to respectfully approach
to advocate for universal care giving as receiving,
beginning with your mentoring history
of gratitude for Earth's abundant grace
to place
and pace
you here and now
without having even to ask
to be born
into this space and time
of responsibilities for care-receiving
and concomitant authorities of care-giving
ego/eco bilaterally cooperative
WinWin healthcare systemic network building,
4D RealTime
unfolding and reweaving instructions
from and for the Oldest.

Copyright © Gerald Dillenbeck | Year Posted 2017

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