I know a lot of you have already donated in support of me doing the AIDS Walk San Francisco.  But I just thought I would write a quick post to remind anyone who hasn’t had a chance yet and would like to.  I am only $200 away from my new $1,000 goal!  I orginally had a $500 goal and passed that quickly because of everyone’s generosity.   Then I had a $750 goal and passed that one even faster!

Now, I have a $1,000 goal because I feel as though I should keep on raising money for such a good cause…but I have to be honest here…it is also so that I can be a Star Walker and WEAR A FLIPPING CROWN WHILE I WALK!  I was pretty excited when I passed my $500 goal and knew I would be getting a tote bag, t-shirt and water bottle.  But now, I’m going for the whole shebang…trying to also get the fleece vest, pin, breakfast the morning of the walk and THE CROWN to wear during the event!  I of course am totally stoked to be raising so much money for an organization that my dad probably got benefit from at some point during the time that he lived in SF with HIV/AIDS, but did I also mention I WOULD GET TO WEAR A CROWN?

Ok, I will probably be annoyed after 5 minutes of wearing said crown during my walk,  but I would love to have the option…so I am only $200 away…if 40 of you just donated $5 even, I would be there in no time!

So if you feel it in your heart, go check out my AIDS Walk SF page at aidswalksanfran2009.kintera.org/jennaluna!  I’m walking on July 19th, so you still have a couple of weeks.

Love to you all…hug your loved ones!  Life is short, but sweet for certain!

UPDATE:  as I re-read this, it really sounds like all I care about is that crown…while I am a geek for sparkly headwear, I also am a passionate supporter of HIV/AIDS organizations and helping people with the disease, since I have such a personal experience with it.  I just wanted to clarify my *real* reason for doing the AIDS Walk at all!  Ok, I feel better now.

we spread my father’s ashes in the San Francisco Bay.  It’s actually illegal to do that, but we were able to charter a boat where the captain said he would “look the other way”.  My father lived in San Francisco for many years of his life, and next to Maui, it was his most favorite place in the world.   So before he passed he let his partner, Don, know that he wanted his ashed spread either in Maui or the bay…we chose the bay because we decided to have a celebration and it was easier for everyone to get to considering most of his friends still lived in the Bay Area.

The celebration was made up mostly of old friends of my father’s…the only real family was me…but his friends were his family.  I had actually never met several of his friends because when he lived in SF I was very young…so I was meeting some of them for the very first time after hearing amazing and hilarious stories about all of them.  There were also a few of his closest friends whom I knew very well from hanging out with them over the years.  We all met at a place called The Metro on the corner of Market and Castro, which unfortunately is not there anymore.  I loved that place!  It was a karaoke bar and a Chinese restaurant…some of the best Chinese food I had ever had as a matter of fact.  Anyway, when I got there with Don, I actually walked in a ahead of him while he parked the car…so I walked into the place and all of a sudden heard gasps and cries from a table on the side of the room.  I heard one of them say “Oh my God, if that isn’t Randy’s daughter…wow” or something to that effect.  Basically they all came up and gave me a big hug and everyone started crying.  These were all people I had never met, but they knew me instantly because I looked like my dad so much.  It killed me and I started crying too.

The celebration of my father’s life began there…with everyone buying me drinks so that I ended up getting drunk and singing karaoke all night for a bunch of gay men and lesbians…mostly Madonna and Bette songs….it was awesome.

The next day was the day we spread his ashes.  We got on the boat and took it out to an area just west of Yerba Buena Island and south of the Bay Bridge.  We each had a helium filled balloon that had a little card attached to it.  We all wrote in our little cards something to my dad or whatever we felt was important…we kept that to ourselves so I don’t know what other people wrote.  In fact, I don’t even remember what I wrote and it doesn’t even matter.  We then had a little sharing moment where we each said something about him.  There were about 30 of us on the boat and the stories were pretty incredible.

When it got to Don he ended up telling a few stories (he was my dad’s partner for 20 years), but the one I remember the most is the one about when i found out my father was gay.  He told how I had freaked out and was very confused.  You see, it was my mom who told me and my father wasn’t around (I was 12 and they had been divorced since I was a baby), although he had planned on telling me in person, a moment came along and my mom had to go with it and tell me then without him there.  Anyway, so I was very confused about the whole thing and ended up asking my mom if because my father was gay, did that mean I was gay too?  My mom’s response is Don’s favorite part of the story.  My mom replied to me, “well no honey, but if you are that’s ok too”.  Yeah, Don and I agree that my mom is the best mom ever.

So after sharing fun stories about my dad, Don and I took the bag of ashes and began to spread them out in the bay over the boat.  By the way, has anyone else ever spread ashes before?  Wow, it’s a little surreal.  My dad was 6’4″, so the bag was pretty damn heavy!  When my mom, my aunt and I spread my grandma’s ashes, it was a lot lighter.  As Don and I were spreading his ashes, everyone was releasing the balloons into the air and we released ours as soon as we were done.  Here comes the incredible part, which I have a picture of somewhere.  These balloons were all filled with helium.  But as they were being released, about half of them stayed on the water right over where my father’s ashes had just been spread.  They stayed like that for a very long time…like I don’t know how long because they were still like that 30 minutes later when  we left…yeah some went into the air and floated far, far away…but half hovered just above the water in this one spot.  It still gives me chills even thinking about it.  Maybe there is some sort of scientific explanation for it, but I don’t care…it was crazy.  I have pictures, but they are downstairs in my giant picture bin that is nagging at me to be organized…one of my many life projects that overwhelms me.

So yeah, that’s the story of the spreading of my father’s ashes in the Bay.  We had all talked about how we would come back every year and do a thing, but as you all know, life gets busy.  This is the first year that I have lived in the Bay Area during this anniversary…I almost drove over the bridge today to celebrate, but it’s not like I could have stopped…plus I think about him every single time I drive over it anyway.

I found out that my father not only was HIV+, but had full-blown AIDS.  I was 18 years old and just 6 weeks shy of graduating from high school.  My mom came over to my apartment (yes I lived in an apartment by myself my senior year…that’s a whole other blog) and broke the news to me.  It was news to her as well, so she was still reeling from it.  My dad was living in Scottsdale and felt he had to tell us because he had just been diagnosed with full blown AIDS (this usually happens when their T-Cells get below a certain level) and was very ill.  He had actually been HIV+ for about 13 years at that point, but my mom and I didn’t know.

So on this fateful day, my mom came over and told me and I was obviously in shock.  Then I just lost it.  After a bit of crying, we started talking through it…neither of us could believe that even with all the information out there about HIV/AIDS, that it never occurred to either of us that my dad (who was gay) could possibly even have it!  I mean the man lived in San Francisco in the late 70′s and early 80′s…duh.  But it was one of those times where you can’t even imagine something like that happening to you.  But looking back, I suddenly remembered that there were warning signs all along.  He had a bout of Hepatitis, shingles, etc.  It was all making sense.

After crying and discussing, my mom and I decided to go shopping and eat at McDonald’s…you can see now why spending money and eating bad food are such comforts for me now.  They have been there for me through it all…good times, bad times, etc.

Anyway, I ended up going to see my dad only a few weeks later because we weren’t sure how much longer he would survive.  I ended up getting a cold while I was there and had to leave early because as my grandmother put it “you might kill your father”…yeah, that’s a wonderful thing to tell an 18-year old girl who loves her father more than anything.  It was a horrifying experience seeing my dad so sick…the last time I had seen him he was fine.   This time he had lost a ton of weight and had lesions on his face and hands.  When I had to leave, I thought that maybe it would be the last time I would ever see him.  Yeah, that sucked.

Luckily, it was not.  My dad ended up living another 5 1/2 years with his health being up and down throughout that time.  It was a rough time and I didn’t get to see him that often, but I am so grateful for every moment I got to spend with him.  By the end, his body had been ravaged by Lymphoma, TB, Pneumonia and skin cancer…he also had peripheral neuropathy and was legally blind.  He had just fought off the Lymphoma and his health had actually been getting better, but overall it just wasn’t a fun life for him.  I miss him dearly but I am so glad his suffering finally stopped.

I guess this should just be a friendly reminder to be safe and get tested.  And to hug your loved ones…LOTS!

I just absolutely love this man…he just nails it.  He makes me wish I still lived in Los Angeles so I could go to his church…even though I am not even Christian.  Thank The Universe there are people in the world like this!

my father lost his battle with AIDS.  And yes, he was gay.

I am so grateful to The Universe for giving me a gay father.  It made me exactly who I am today, a very open-minded accepting person who will fight for GLBT rights until I don’t need to any more.  Yes I will say that I have recently been dealing with my “daddy issues” of having my parents get divorced when I was a baby and my father not being around as much as I would have liked because he was living in other places because of his job.  I think he was also trying to find himself in a time where people didn’t come out as easily (not that it is easy) as they do now.  So I have come to terms with the abandonment issues I have with my father…and I know he did the best he could at the time and I am still grateful I had the times I did with him.  I got to go to lots of cool places as a kid and visit him and that was fun.  He was just a fun, sweet guy to be around and as I got older our relationship started to blossom.  He was much better dealing with me as an adult, than as a child.  Which is why it breaks my heart that he died just before my 24th birthday.  I was just finally really getting to know him and we were having such amazing times together.

Anyway, I just wanted to say what an amazing guy my father was…he also had an amazing partner of 20 years who I am still close too….and YES they should have been able to get legally married.  Period. Dot. It’s that simple.  They were in love and should have been able to celebrate that in a legal way…there were a lot of issues when my father passed with legalities and it just would have been nice for his partner to not have to deal with that drama during such a rough time.

Squeeze your loved ones out there today and every day.  And for those of you who have lost someone close to you, I get it.