Christopher Van Name

For Alexander "AJ" Betts, Jr., from Des Moines, Iowa. Another teenage victim of suicide back in 2013. Like Tyler Clementi, Channing Smith, Sara Hegazy and countless others before and after, he was lost in the flood of hatred caused by fear and ignorance, after being outed, shamed and bullied for being gay. LGBTQ (our propensity to label people continues to fuel its own dysfunctional form of prejudice) teens are 4x more likely to kill themselves than teens who are not labeled so. Every 45 seconds, a person who has been labeled LGBTQ, between the ages of 13-24 in this great, accepting and empathetic country of ours, Attempts to take their own life. A worldwide pandemic, an opioid epidemic, world discord, assault weapons and mass murders, hunger, oppression, greed and avarice running rampant, and we allow the flower of our youth to take their own lives because they're not accepted as part of the so called "norm"? Shame on us. I wrestled with my approach on this one. I tried to imagine AJ's mother's anguish and despair. In the end, I went with lyrics written as a series of imaginary letters from mother to son. I'm sure no words of mine can do this tragic and on-going criminality any justice. Pray one day we wake up.

Losing your life partner can be traumatic. No one should ever be old and alone. Windows and walls.

In memory of Gabby Petito and anyone who is physically and emotionally beaten down and abused. No one should ever be made to feel that their love is rooted in fear and disrespect. No one. It's toxic. Leave.

Sometimes when we look back we see we're right where we're supposed to be.

The window of life. -for my mother