Author Archives: Peter Sanford Kahrmann

Unknown's avatar

About Peter Sanford Kahrmann

Writer, disability rights advocate, civil rights advocate.

My Mothers’ Day

Posted on by
Reply

They both died at 68, one by her own hand, the other, cancer. Both gone too soon as far as I’m concerned and both were in the light of reality, my mother.

One of the things you learn as a child who has been adopted is this; blood may be thicker than water but family is thicker than blood. One of the phrases all adoptees I know truly hate is, “Well who are your real parents?”  Hell, I’ve known mothers and fathers who are anything but loving and kind to their genetic progeny. In fact, some of the most brutal experiences some children have gone through were inflicted by one or both of their parents. Like I said, blood may be thicker than water but family is thicker than blood.

Frankly, I only use the term adoptive mother and birth mother so the listener or reader can tell who I am talking about. In my heart, there are no qualifiers, they are both my mother. There is my mother Virginia who raised me and my mother Leona who surrendered me for adoption for reasons not of her making I would learn when we were reunited on January 8, 1987.

Like any human being, neither was perfect, but both loved me and from both I learned and gained an enormous amount. Both were instinctively supportive of equal rights for everyone and both were deeply empathetic to the underdog, the castaway, the persecuted. Both were fiercely supportive of my advocacy instincts. In fact, for years my mother Virginia was my number one confidant when it came to things like fighting for the Brady Bill and against the death penalty, when it came to fighting for Gay rights and disability rights and against things like anti-Semitism. 

My mother Leona was, without question, my emotional and spiritual familiar. Time with her allowed me to learn a lot about where who I am came from. To this day she is one of the most emotionally and physically courageous human beings I have ever known.

My mother Virginia ended her life August 12, 1992 and my mother Leona died of cancer on December 19, 2001.

I can tell you that I love both my mothers with all my heart and I miss them both – with all my heart.

I love them my whole wide world and then some.

Obama’s right & Palin’s still a nitwit

Posted on by
4

President Obama is right in deciding not to release the pictures of a dead Osama Bin Laden. The common human desire to see the pictures, shared by me too by the way, is the same macabre desire that leads everyone to slow to a crawl when they pass a car accident. Not a desire whose influence deserves decision making power when it comes to releasing the Bin Laden photos.

The argument that they need to be released to really really really prove Bin Laden is dead is not a good one. For God sakes we have people who deny the holocaust! What on earth makes anyone in their right mind think releasing the photos would do the trick?

Speaking of people in their right mind, wait, I already did that in referring to the president. Let’s be fair and speak about someone who is not in their right mind: Sarah Palin. Upon learning that the president had decided not to release the photos Palin tweeted, “"Show photo as warning to others seeking America’s destruction. No pussy-footing around, no politicking, no drama; it’s part of the mission." Where are we, Sarah, in some school yard? Bad enough you’ve got some members of the public thinking you’re mighty special and as long as that lasts you’ll gouge them for every penny you can, but are you kidding me? We talked like that when we were in school, meaning when we were kids. Do us all a favor and go back to Alaska and keep your eyes on Russia.

Anyway, in my view Obama is still an extraordinary president and Palin is still an extraordinary nitwit.

From Degraw to Sackett street

Posted on by
Reply

See my words deep center of your heart

I can tell you now that’s where they’ve been from the start

From Degraw to Sackett street our dreams came true

Then I slashed your soul by wounding you

*

See my tears deep center of your heart

I can tell you now they’ve been in mine from the start

They never were your doing then or now

I loved you more than life but I didn’t know how

*

See my words dancing colors in the center of your heart

Our breaths were love joined wonder from the start

See my words now dancing life on the page

Still remembering all love lost and my age

*

See the sunrise life in the center of your heart

You were my sunshine angel right from the start

See time moving by running out for the all of everyone

Still remember I do how I knew you were the one

*

See my words deep center of your heart

I can tell you now that’s where they’ve been from the start

From Degraw to Sackett street dreams came true

Then I slashed your soul by wounding you

*

Writing About My Mother’s Suicide

Posted on by
Reply

Every honest writer knows words can take you to some painful places. For me, none more so than writing about my mother’s 1992 suicide. I am, I think, about four months away from finishing the memoir and am now writing about her suicide. There is a piece in this blog called Goodbye Mother Sunday which talks about it.

No matter how much time has passed, this August 12th will mark 19 years, the soul-tearing pain and heartbreak never goes away. There are certain events in life that are so big they freeze me in place, one giant ache. This morning, writing, a conversation with her letting me know the time to end her life was coming, my head bowed down and, although I live alone, I got up and closed the door to my writing room, not entirely clear, then or now, exactly why I’d closed it Protecting myself, I suppose, though from what I don’t know.

What I do know is that she is gone, and that, I will never get over. Despite our rocky time when I was growing up, a time that culminated into my being disowned three months after my father died when I was 15,  resulting in a nearly 10-year estrangement, we reconnected not long after the birth of my daughter in 1977 and, in the last 10 years of her life, became very close friends. In fact, when it came to advocacy of all kinds we were each others number one adviser. We both worked hard for the Brady Bill and rejoiced when it became law. She helped Laotian refugees find homes and volunteered at the GMHC (Gay Men’s Health Crisis) and we both fought against the death penalty.

My mother cared deeply about many things, but not herself. In the end, I learned, she did not believe anyone loved her. She was so wrong. I loved her and my sister loved her and her grandchildren loved her; many people loved her. But sometimes our personal histories gain so much power, they destroy our ability to see ourselves clearly. It cost my mother her life.

I will finish writing about her, her suicide, and I will finish the memoir and then, I will keep living. I know that’s what she would have wanted me to do. I know it’s what I wanted her to do.

Trump the Chump

Posted on by
1

Everywhere I turn there’s Donald Trump, not simply making an ass of himself, but finding ever more dopier ways of doing it, and somewhere in  his small narcissistic mind which, by the way, matches his facial features that are way too small for his face. Hell,  his mouth must’ve stopped growing when he was five and, as we all know, he has the only hair any of us has ever seen that actually suffers with dyslexia, he seems determined to and has succeeded in appearing as non-presidential as possible.

 

Donald_Trump_32234t

Like the spoiled brat that he is, Trump repeatedly called American leaders stupid (proves he writes his own speeches, I’ll give him that) in Las Vegas yesterday and made sure to drop the F bomb on more than one occasion.

As for his assertions that he is a financial whiz and financially responsible, that too is a joke; several times his companies have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy so he can reshuffle the deck and make his money. In a 2005 Chapter 11 filing Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts acknowledged they were $1.3 billion in debt and had only $1.5 million in assets. Yeah, great. That’s who I want at the head of my country.

Since Trump seems to like the F word, I’d like to share one of my favorite movie quotes with him. In the 1988 movie Midnight Run, Robert De Niro plays an ex cop turned bounty hunter who brings back a fugitive accountant who ripped of the mob played by Charles Grodin. At one point Grodin’s character infuriates De Niro’s. De Niro turns to Grodin and says, “I got two words for you. Shut the fuck up!”

Nuff’ said, Hey Donny?