October Mourning

October Mourning

YA fiction
My children were very young when I heard of the brutal murder of
Matthew Shepard. Still I could think ahead to how I'd feel if my then
one-year-old son were killed just for being himself. My heart went
out to his parents. I also thought about his assailants. What kind
of person could do this? What families and communities raised them to
be capable of this cruelty and indifference?
Fifteen years later I have no answers. Sadly I can't say we've
advanced enough so that something like this couldn't happen again. I
just know one thing. We must never forget.
I was very encouraged when I saw Leslea Newman's October
Mourning: A Song for Matthew Shepard. It is a beautiful and moving
volume, evocative and thought provoking. In a series of eloquent
poems Newman imagines how various people involved (Matthew, an
assailant, a police officer, a doctor...) and non human entities (the
fence he was tied to, a deer, the stars in the sky...) might have
thought and felt.
One entitled What You Can Do In Eighteen Hours lists a number of
options like giving birth and studying for an exam and finally:
"...Wait to be discovered
lashed to a fence

Shivering under a blanket
of stars"
The one that got to me the most, probably because I read the
book with Joey cuddled up purring in me ear, was Where Is My Boy?:
"...Where is the sad boy who tickles my ears
While telling me all of his dreams and his fears?

Where is the sweet boy who loves me so much
His whole face lights up at my purr or my touch?..."
This is a book meant to be read out loud, discussed, passed from hand
to hand, especially since so many kids today were born since then and
need to know.
It was a very personal book for Newman to write. She was the
keynote speaker at Gay Awareness Week that was planned by the
University of Wyoming's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered
Association. One of the last acts of Matthew Shepard's too short life
was participating in a planning meeting. Ten years later she wrote
October Mourning to think about the event and the way she and the
world had been touched by it.
In my mind October Mourning is a must read for human beings.
On a personal note, one of my deepest hopes is that my children will
live to see a world in which people are not condemned for who they
love or who they are. Those of us who are parents or teachers have
the chance to teach our children well. Nearly all of us have the
chance to say "That is not acceptable" when we hear hate words like
"faggot" or comments like "That's so gay!". Marginalizing and
dehumanizing are the necessary conditions for the unspeakable to happen.
A great big shout out goes out to all our LGTB friends, colleagues,
kin, and neighbors.
Julia Emily Hathaway


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