• Bluelight
    Shrine




    A memorial
    to Bluelighters
    who have passed away

RIP ektamine

Sepher said:
Ektamine, just found the infamous MPDV cartoon I've heard so much about that you did. I done did a LOL, you absolute nutter. :D Damn shadow people, they just won't leave you in peace! :! RIP dude.

Herbavore, the song for Caleb was beautiful. Really moved me. I'll be thinking of you. <3 (((hugs))) <3
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Caleb was one of the funniest people I have ever known. He wasn't always that way. When he was little he was quite serious, but as he grew older he developed this comic side that was part dry wit, part outrageous nuttiness and 100% fearlessness about mocking anything. I have to say that there are not many tearful conversations around our house where at least one of us doesn't just start laughing thinking of something he said or did that no one else would ever do--like making a cartoon about stimulant psychosis and masturbation and actually making it funny.
 
I dreaded this day so much; I didn't want to start saying, "a year ago my son died". Your amazing friend H. put together a memorial for you with a bunch of your friends. It was good to see them, to see them going on with their lives, working out their stuff, changing and growing, but it made it so hard because you were not there among them. Every now and then someone would say this would be so much more fun if Caleb were here.



Seeing this boy hurts more than anything. It was a cryfest.



Messages of love for you:

 
Jan, I was never sure of the exact date. :( So close to my fathers death anniversary.

I'm glad his friends reached out to you.

<3
 
That looked like a suitably somber gathering, Jan. That shrine/memorial you made looks beautiful...I can't imagine what such a milestone is like to reach but it no doubt is a very sad date that probably won't get any less sad each time it comes around...The first chapter is over now, at least. I hope you're getting on well with life, I love your art (as you know) and I see the way this has affected the content and conext of your art. It's quite unique and it really is beautiful.
 
I never knew you but after this past weekend I realized that you were blessed with the most amazing mother ever. It takes a truly open mind to come on Bluelight after discovering it after the fact and join us without blame. Not only did she do that but she dove straight in to helping people with problems such as yours. She is a truly special individual and we are so fortunate to have her. So is your brother. Your death was a tragedy but after seeing the work that your mother puts in, I feel like she has helped at least more than one person back from the brink. I'm sorry you died of despair and I've felt the same way but I gotta say with all my problems, meeting your mother truly gave me a boost.

R.I.P. Caleb... I wish I had known you

<3
 
I hink about him everyday it seems at some point or another... sometimes many times a day or hes stuck in my mind for some reason... its a goood thing cept for its not as good as the real ektamine...

Ektamine is a teason i wanted to become a moderator... i have worked hard and put in real harm reduction wotk that got me my moderator position and im proud of that... but before losing ektamine... not a "close friend" at the time but a good one that i had just started to get to know who reminded me very much of myself....

Long story short, i learned that being a "smart addict" isnt a valid excuse and learned to be open and honest with myself instead of justifying things as "not as bad as" or "but i know what im doing" orthe like...
 
^much love back to you <3JJ<3 and to you, Toad.<3 I feel the same way I did when I first came here: all of you who knew my son for the person he truly was, were comforting to him while he was here; and by your fellowship and connection that you shared with him, you are now a major source of comfort to me. He deserved, as everyone does, respect and empathy and laughs and a place to be vulnerable and safe. Bluelight gave him that and i will be grateful to you all forever. You are my heroes and my solace and a very real connection to a person that I miss every day.

And now I have to post some very sad news for my family: the death of Herbie, my inspiration for my Bluelight name and one of Caleb's beloved rabbits. If ever there were a totem animal that appeared again and again in Caleb's life it is the rabbit. When he was not even a year old he fell in love with a big white bunny in a secondhand store. We named him Bun-bun. Bun-bun was Caleb's solace in life for his entire journey and he was cremated with him and so, in whatever way this transition out of the physical happens, he is with him still. Caleb and I wrote a book about Bun-bun when he was small and he wrote many rabbit stories and drew rabbits of all kinds when he was little. In turn, I painted rabbits for him and sewed many sets of clothes to hold the well-loved Bun-bun together.

The rabbit is an interesting totem. Rabbits are prey animals. They live with fear and die from fear. Death comes at them from predators in the sky and on the ground. Life for rabbits is destined to be very short. But rabbits embody such expressive joy. When Caleb despaired that we couldn't get another dog he brought home two rabbits. These two, Herbert and Mr. Jeeves, entertained him no end with their antics. They could go from a standstill to an unbelievably high pirouette of joy over seemingly nothing. If rabbits were a season they would be Spring.

Herbert was comic relief for our family. Caleb called him a dumb-ass and I called him the Burro Blanco. He was huge and docile and liked to lie around like a dog. He was the straightman to Jeeve's dignity. When Caleb died we took over the care of his bunnies. Especially for my husband this task has been a daily meditation for his son, a place to pour the nurturing he once gave his son and a way to honor him. For all of us, the rabbits are a connection to Caleb. Now once more, we fold a piece of Caleb's life into the past and it hurts anew.







<3R.I.P. Caleb. R.I.P. Bun-Bun. R.I.P. Herbie.<3
 
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I haven't really been able to come here for a while. I don't know why. I play a trick when I come here. I pretend that you can hear me. Sometimes it is comforting and I don't even care that I don't believe you can. But sometimes it hurts too much to know that I am talking to myself.

I heard something today. It was a scientist talking about a discovery they had made that cells from each developing fetus actually do cross the placenta and the DNA from that fetus, whether carried to term or not, becomes a part of the mother's DNA forever. These cells live in the skin, the blood, the organs and the bone marrow. Mothers that carried male children have y-chromosomes floating around in them. Science is always lagging behind what every mother knows.

I remember when you thought you had been me. You were two. You said,"when I was the mommy you were in me and you were small and I was really, really big!" I think about that time so much, when you "remembered" being everything that caught your imagination. Science crawls along at a snail's pace showing us, with proofs and data and tests and studies what our bodies already know. Life is poetry. Life is more unseen than seen. We are each other in ways we can barely grasp. But you knew at two.

It was an honor to share your life, buddy, and it still is. The cells of me that are you supposedly will persist in me for decades. Your body contained the DNA of not only your Dad and I but also your brother since I carried him first. We went with you then, after all, and you are here still in me. I guess in some very strange way that I can come talk to myself here and have it be more than just tricking myself but not really; because neither science nor fairy tales nor wishful thinking can get you to talk back. I just wish you could talk back. I think that's why sometimes I don't want to come here.

<3still<3
 
^ Two very deep heartfelt and beautiful posts

I don't know you very well, herbavore and I think I only maybe conversed with Caleb a couple times while he was here, but after reading this thread and seeing your posts and stuff around BL since last year I would just like to say you seem like a very genuine and compassionate person, plus a very loving and caring mother and I feel for you greatly, I couldn't imagine going through the loss you did

But I'm glad you're here with us and that you can gain some level of comfort by being apart of Bluelight
RIP

Oh and since you and Caleb liked bunnies so much you should find a cool bunny rabbit picture and use it for your avatar, I think it'd be pretty cool and sort of like a little homage to your son as well :]
 
Today this surfaced out of a box of old things. It is a letter Caleb dictated to his teacher in kindergarten when I was in the hospital.




Dear Caleb,

I love you, too. I miss you, too. I miss hugging you, too. I feel really sad, too.

love,

mom<3
 
So last night there you were. I came out the back door and you were sitting in the brown chair with Billy Emma on your lap. You kind of flinched when you heard me, like you were bracing yourself for a conversation that you knew we had to have. I was speechless. Then you looked up and got that devilish grin of yours, pushed the cat off your lap and stood up and took two steps towards me. I managed to whisper, "please be you", and you laughed and said, "I can't figure out anybody better to be". That was the whole dream. All day, I have floated in that dream's embrace. You were you. You had a body. You even had your scent. You moved with all the same gestures, you spoke with the familiar irony. You looked me in the eye and held my gaze.
 
Beautiful Jan. <3 They can be really powerful can't they. Vividly remember a time when I'd split with my first GF, was pretty suicidal over it, head a mess. Dreamt that I found my Dad waiting by the garden door, like he'd just come in from digging his plot, just hugged him so tight. I was 19-20 by this point, and seemed he was a giant, same relation in height as I'd been to him when I last saw him when I was 9. Don't know how long I stayed in his arms being soothed, when I woke it was like all the pain and turmoil was gone. He'd taken it away in the night and suddenly I was back to my self, the whole burden lifted. I've wished for it to happen again but never has. Think this was a one off. If he only had one visit he saved it for when it was needed most.
 
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