Christmas Letter -- the On-Line
Version!!
Some
links go to text pages...some to photo pages...
and some to both...
December 2000
Dear Friends,
A new year, a new millennium, a return of The
Christmas Letter. It doesn’t seem possible that Paul
has been dead a year and a half, and that we will soon be
passing the 4th anniversary of David’s
death. Life goes on for the rest of us and God has opened
a few windows following the doors that he shut. People
ask us “how do you cope?” Our answer is always
“what choice do we have?” We can all curl up
into a ball and give up, but that isn’t our style.
We are so incredibly grateful that we had Paul and David
through to adulthood, that both of them made positive
contributions in their worlds, and that both of them are
remembered for the difference they made in the lives of
their friends. It may be said that they died prematurely,
but I like to think that whatever their job was, they
finished it. It is for the rest of us to see if we can
figure out what our own jobs are.
For Walt, his own
job is continuing to work for the agriculture department.
He’s the “old man” of the office now,
where he was once the young kid in the propeller beanie.
He’s the one they go to to find the answer to things
that happened so long ago nobody in the office remembers.
He’s worked a lifetime with the government. Outside
of the office his interests and activities remain pretty
much the same--he still goes and stands at all the San
Francisco operas, builds sets for the Davis Comic
Opera Co., and works on the tech crew (when there is
one, which is rare these days) for The Lamplighters.
He and I have kept our season tickets to the San
Francisco symphony and to the Lamplighters and so we
regularly travel to San Francisco for entertainment.
His big adventure this year was flying to Boston to go
to Fenway Park with Jeri. They planned the trip for
months and just had the best time. They saw two Red Sox
games, one which they won and one which they lost.
He and I went together to Portland for
another gathering
of our CompuServe friends. It was a long weekend-- and a
very long drive, but we enjoyed ourselves and were able
to take time to visit non-CompuServe friends as well. In
January 2000 we went to Houston to help our friend Lynn
turn 50.

|
Jeri is still enjoying Berklee
School of Music in Boston. She won three monetary
awards this year and, with her job in the
school’s book store, teaching saxophone to
junior high school students, various theatre
design and tech jobs, and music gigs, she
continues to support herself while she hones her
craft. She was able to fly out and be here for
our Family
Reunion in August. |
Ned continues as producer of the
morning show on
The Arrow (93.7 FM Sacramento), and is the
overnight DJ, a job which he records in the
morning and some engineer plays at night. Marta
continues working on special events for a company
affiliated with a competing radio station. She
had a scare this year when she developed
bacterial meningitis, but she seems to have
survived it just fine. |

Where Ned records his show
|

|
Tom moved from his job with Santa
Barbara Bank and Trust and now works for a
computer software company, where, among other
things, he travels around the country, installing
and training folks to use data base software that
tracks employee benefits for small corporations. In
June of this year, he and his sweetie, Laurel,
moved into an apartment together. She’s a
keeper and we are very pleased.
As usual, Tom threw himself a big
barbecue to celebrate his birthday in July.
Most of the family was there.
|
In the spring, the city dedicated
a performing area of a new plaza to Paul, with a
ceremony that included running a videotape of his
performance of his monologue show, “Sedona,
Arizona.” People paid money to have patio
bricks engraved, many of which were in either
Paul’s or David’s honor. It’s quite
humbling to realize that our kids now have permanent
memorials here in Davis (3 years ago the Art Center
dedicated a little gazebo called “David’s
place.”)
It’s
been a busy couple of years for me. One of the
“windows” I found opened after Paul’s
death led to singer/songwriter Steve Schalchlin.
Steve is living with AIDS and in 1996, together with his
partner of 15 years, Jim Brochu, wrote a musical called The
Last Session ("TLS"), which won awards in
NY and in Los Angeles. We saw the musical the
month after Paul died, I met Steve around that time, and
was so impressed with him that I became his volunteer publicist. In this capacity, I have
seen TLS in Los
Angeles, Denver,
and Baltimore.
More importantly, I have worked with Steve’s one-man
show, Living in the Bonus Round, where he
sings for high
school and college
groups as well as medical professionals, explaining the
reality of living with AIDS, a very emotional, personal
and non-preachy evening of theatre. It’s been a most
rewarding experience and has introduced me not only to
Steve, but also to a host of people in his circle who are
some of the warmest, most caring human beings I’ve ever
met. They range from teenagers as young as 15 to old folk
like me--men and women, gay and straight, HIV+ and not,
Christian, Jewish, atheist. An amazing assortment of
folk. Most recently I shared
a suite at Stanford’s Faculty Club with Steve for
3 days while he was wined
and dined as the Jonathan L King Lecturer for the
year 2000. It was a pretty amazing
experience. (Being around Steve has led to all sorts
of interesting experiences, including a March
on Washington in May, where I got to shake Tipper
Gore’s hand).
In addition to being the new theatre
critic for the local newspaper, I’m also volunteering
now for Breaking Barriers, a social service outreach organization that
helps people living with HIV and AIDS. I drive clients to
doctors’ appointments and provide emotional
support for two women. It’s been so long since I
had a gay client that I’m beginning to think that
most of Sacramento’s infected population is young,
straight, and female.
I have also participated in several Gay Pride events with PFLAG (Parents, Friends and Family of Lesbians and Gays), the highlight of which was marching in the Gay Pride Day parade in San Francisco, an incredible afternoon.

"Thelma and Louise" on the road
|
A big chunk of time in the early
fall was spent with an Internet friend, Peggy,
who came from Australia to spend six weeks with
us. She and I had corresponded by e-mail and live
chats daily for about a year and a half but had
never met. We wondered how we would get along for
six weeks. The answer was: fabulously. We
traveled up and down the west coast, as far north
as Seattle,
and as far south
as San
Diego. When her vacation ended, we had a
lifelong relationship that I value very highly.
It was the most significant event of my year. |
There is a hole in our
lives with the loss of our sons. But God has been good.
He has given us much which, while not quite
“replacing” our children, has at least opened
our eyes to new things and given us the opportunity to
make our own difference in the world. Holidays will
always be difficult around here. They have always been so
“family oriented” that the loss of Paul and
David is felt keenly. But the memories are sweet and help
to warm us on cold nights.
Hug those you love. Never miss a chance
to say “I love you,” or to mend a broken fence.
Never let fear cause you to pass up a chance to
experience something special in your life. All we can
count on is today. Make the most of it. And if God closes
a door for you, may you always have windows available.
The Sykes Family
Walt - Bev - Jeri - Ned - Marta - Tom -
Laurel - and, in absentia, Paul and David
I'd love to have you visit my on-line journal
(which I update every day)
|