Green, jagged, unevenly grown grass juts out from a soft-hilled landscape during golden hour. Gilded, dappled sunlight flickers through the fresh leaves of early summer and prickly pine needles often found in northern Minnesota. It’s warm out, but the humidity isn’t overbearing. A soft breeze blows through the homestead, gently moving dancing insects only visible in the setting starlight.
This time of day was my favorite on the farm because the amount of life surrounding me was completely visible. Bugs danced across fields as crickets and frogs began to sing their evening siren songs. Cattle bellowed from the back fields as they moved through their evening grazing grounds. I’m propped against an old Norway Pine tree rooted in a slope next to the house.
I look southward as a childhood dog canters up the hillside towards my position. Then another follows suit, and another soon after. Soon, I’m surrounded by all my past pets I’d once lost. Is this heaven?
Suddenly, my grandfather starts up the hill, then my mother, and finally my grandmother joins us at the base of this tall tree. We join in a large group hug as the honey-like sunshine drapes over us. It’s perfect in every way. Then I wake up.
I’m not one for remembering dreams, but this recurring picture sticks in my mind’s eye with crystal-clear clarity. I’ve dreamt this scene a multitude of times since my grandmother’s passing in 2020. I held her hand as she passed and continued to do so until her body was taken to the mortuary. I was worried I’d forget the softness of her skin. The way her bones and planter’s knuckles rested. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye, but then again, who is?
That moment showed me that I never got to say goodbye to her or to my mother and grandfather. Not really. They left without certain resolutions between us. We had unfinished business. That’s why my slumberland transformed into the honey-brushed landscape of my happy place. That dream is truly an open door to heaven. I really believe that. It was all those I couldn’t bear to lose saying “we’re always here with you,” and apologies were exchanged between all of us in that single perfect moment.
The three never speak in my dream, but during our hug, I can feel my mother’s brown curls brush against my face. I can smell the garden soil and potters’ mix on my grandmother’s paint-stained sweatpants. I can sense my grandfather’s firm grip as he holds all of us tightly. I feel so seen, so safe, like everything’s going to be okay. I haven’t felt an embrace like that since 2016 when they were all still alive.
I’ve been revisiting that visual over the past six weeks.
Where I’ve been
I really had no idea how to start this editorial. I wanted to get one out by March 1, but every time I put pen to paper or finger to keyboard, I felt inauthentic. I honestly had started and restarted it so many times. Then I had that dream again, and I knew I had to share that story.
One week, I’m reporting on the protests in Minneapolis opposing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations there, the next I’m in a hospital bed because my autoimmune disease decides to flare up.
Granulomatosis with Polyangiitis (GPA), formerly known as “Wegener’s Granulomatosis,” isn’t contagious. According to most clinics and medical professionals today, the cause is truly unknown. I’ve heard it referred to as the “once in a bloodline curse,” and I feel that sums the disease up perfectly.
But what is GPA? Well, where do I begin? According to the Mayo Clinic, GPA is a rare disease that causes inflammation of small blood vessels in the body. Basically, the immune system thinks these tiny vessels are diseased and decides to kill them off at random.
What’s made up of these tiny blood vessels? Well, all human tissue, of course. Skin, muscles, nose cartilage, ears, eyes, and vital organs are all at random risk. Sometimes the disease goes into remission, and sometimes it goes into progression. This was a fucking progression.
These relapses come at random. This particular episode hit me hard the first week of February this year, leading up to my niece, Brealyn’s, 13th birthday, which I was hosting this year on my apartment building’s rooftop overlooking downtown Minneapolis. Sharp muscle pains in my arms, shortness of breath, and fatigue hit me that evening as I was decorating, and I knew it was an episode.
I’ve felt that pain multiple times before. I recognized it immediately, but I also noticed this flare up was different. It came on so much faster than the episodes before it, but I decided to muscle through it because my niece deserved a fabulous 13th birthday.
That was a big mistake though, because by bedtime, I could barely move. My muscles hurt so badly that lifting my limbs was nearly impossible. I could hardly dress myself. My sister, her boyfriend, and their three daughters were staying with me, sleeping in the living room, and I spent the night holding in tears, swallowing acetaminophen like they were Skittles. I couldn’t bear the pain anymore by 4:00 a.m. and decided it was time to go to the hospital.
I hesitated on an ER visit up to that point because I didn’t want to feel like a burden. If this were a flare-up, that meant I’d be receiving a cocktail of medications via an IV drip that would mess with my mind. I needed a companion to go with me. A loved one to advocate on my behalf. So I asked my older sister, who said her boyfriend could drop me off. Well, that didn’t ease my fears of being a burden.
She and her kids had a cheer competition the next day, so I didn’t press any further and immediately asked my cousin, Jenny, who lived 10 minutes away. She called me immediately after my initial text and drove me to the East Bank Fairview Emergency Room in Minneapolis. 13 hours, one ambulance ride, and what seems like 20 IVs later, I was checked in to another Fairview Hospital on the East Bank, where I stayed for three agonizing days.
I was depleted, depressed, and downright degraded.
The journey of recovery meant traveling down a winding road of past trauma
Spending that amount of time in a hospital on a slew of medications with nothing but time and no energy is a recipe for disaster for someone who struggles with mental health.
Maybe I’m being too candid with my struggles, but I haven’t shied from sharing my past trauma thus far, so why start now?
Is saying “let’s start at the beginning” too cliché? Because to truly understand, I need to share one of my closest guarded secrets. God, this is going to be hard but I’ve needed to share this revelation since discovering it a few years ago. Why does this feel like I’m coming out all over again?
Side note: I realize that I’m going off on a tangent here, so please bear with me as I unravel my thoughts and feelings. It will all make sense in the end, if you make it that far, I mean.
Anyways, a few years ago, an old acquaintance of my late mother sent me a message on Facebook telling me she just saw my father and held a brief conversation with him about how far I’ve come in life. This was surprising news to me, considering I had never known who my dad was and had no indication of his identity throughout my entire life.
I’ve always been curious, mentally collecting clues and cues from relatives throughout my life, so when this former acquaintance messaged me this information, I pressed further.
Here’s what I knew: my DNA was a close match to that of my two older sisters’ father but wasn’t indicative enough of paternal connection. My genetic code instead pointed more towards their father being my uncle. Wild, I know. Home, home on the Range, I guess.
Other clues included signs of distress in my mother’s face when I asked her who he was. When my dear departed mom was alive, I would frequently question her on the subject. She’d quickly change the conversation while telling me it didn’t matter who he was. “He gave me you, and that’s all that matters,” she’d say. In hindsight, this should’ve been a major indicator of the type of man he was.
Further clues revolved around this sense I received from many other family members throughout my upbringing. I felt like there was this big cover-up when I received obscure responses on the subject of my father. It was like they were protecting me from him.
On the opposite side, some relatives also decided to paint my mother as a floozy, saying she didn’t know who my father was because she slept with so many people. This wasn’t true, but my anger at not knowing who half of my being was ignited a fury inside me, and I’m sorry to say that I did take it out on my mother in my teenage years. That’s guilt I deserve to live with for the rest of my life. I did appreciate using the excuse of not knowing who I might be related to when classmates asked my closeted gay ass why I didn’t date women, though.
The final clue I recalled is a family member telling me about a party my mom attended in the ‘90s. My two older sisters’ father was there, but so was his brother. Something traumatizing happened to her there that led her down a road of addiction. I now prefer to call it self-medication. I’d like to say that none of this is proven. It’s all hearsay from people who were alive when I wasn’t.
Anyways, when this former acquaintance of my mother’s told me who she was talking to, everything clicked. It was my sister’s father’s brother. Panic set in as the dark stars aligned. I’m empathetic and have grown into an emotionally intelligent person who understands social cues pretty well, so reexamining my mother’s reaction and family’s protective responses made everything click. My conception was not consensual because my mom was drunk.
I dropped to the floor between my grandfather’s hand-built kitchen island, clutching to it like all the gravity was shut off. The same way I did when I found out my mother died from an accidental overdose. So many emotions washed over me. I couldn’t breathe. I had to call somebody because I was having a panic attack. My first. Brianna picked up on the first ring, and I haven’t dealt with that realization since. I’ve joked about it, spoken in passing with my therapist, but haven’t stood to look at the pain it caused me until those three isolating days in the hospital.
Recover today, repair tomorrow
My name is Zack, and that’s my story. The story of where I come from. A curse from conception. Maybe I have it all wrong, but the truth finds its way out. It’s almost like God placed the revelation in my mind to help me process it. Or maybe my mother finally decided to tell me?
Whatever the case, I’m not exactly pleased with the information. It just added to the self-deprecation I already suffer from in my mental health journey. My feelings of inadequacy lead me to feel like a burden to this world and all those in mine. Is this why I felt the way I did all my life? I felt like I shouldn’t be here in the first place.
As my body betrayed me that Sunday morning, I asked my big sister to bring me to the hospital. Maybe she didn’t understand the severity of the situation, maybe she was scared to see me in that position at the ER, but my feelings of being a burden to my loved ones spiked the minute she said she’d have her boyfriend drop me off.
I reeled in that thought while sitting for those first agonizing hours in the hospital with my closest cousin, Jenny. That poor woman stayed with me, sitting in a hallway for 10 hours, missing a monster truck rally with her son, to make sure I was being cared for and advocated for in my heightened state in an understaffed and overburdened Minneapolis hospital. I smiled at her as she got hit by swinging specialized automated doors separating wards throughout the day. Then I frowned because she gave up so much for me. I remembered that I was a burden again.
This awareness led me to a feeling of guilt too, because I was reading the news throughout my stay. It was the day of the Super Bowl, and it was weeks after ICE killed U.S. citizens in the city I called home. It was at a time when protesters were being killed for practicing a basic human right in Iran. Epstein’s revelations unraveled decades of trauma that was far worse than my own. People were hurting, and I made it a point to recognize my own privilege.
I was lucky to be in a state where I had access to healthcare. I was a passing straight white man in America. I had the right to protest. I should stop feeling sorry for myself. But why does my mind go back to everything I’ve been through since birth, and everything my mother’s been through since my conception? Everything my sisters and I have been through since being officially adopted by our maternal grandparents? God, these drugs they had me on were getting to me.
After getting a hospital room in an adjacent building across the Mississippi River, I finally received my life-saving medication via IV infusion. Another complication that I told myself made me a burden. Not only did this medication cost over $40,000, but I was highly allergic to it, requiring me to receive a cocktail of more life-saving medications to counteract my reaction. I break out in hives, start wheezing, and sometimes can’t breathe at all. I’ve received EpiPens to help counteract an immediate response, but my (large) care team has found a concoction to help ease these side effects. They also have to give the full dose to me in a very slow fashion that takes more than 8 hours altogether. I was not worth this work.
What difference have I made on this earth that would justify a $40,000+ medication? Why do I deserve this care over someone else? Why do I even have this disease? Was it because I was gay? Was it because I deserved it? These thoughts raced through my head that first sleepless night as I listened to echoes of hardship from people much sicker than me reverberate down the hall.
One day, one of my nurses came in to take some tests and measure some vitals. It was early in the morning, and she seemed winded. I asked her if she was okay. She and I had exchanged pleasantries my first night there, so she knew my political affiliations and felt comfortable being completely honest. She, in fact, was not okay. You see, she’s a legal immigrant from Africa who has been living in the United States for decades, raising three children who are now adults — two of whom immigrated with her, one born here. She was winded because she had to run into the building out of fear of ICE.
She told me how she’s always loved living here, but this is different. Sure, as the lovely Black woman she is, she has faced racism and prejudice in stride, but she persevered.
This woman, this nurse and care provider, who could place an IV in my arm without causing pain, injected me with needed meds without harm, and refused to give me my damn milk because my prednisone caused my blood sugars to elevate past 400 mg/dL, was afraid to come to work where people needed her because our government deemed people who sound and look like her as “illegal.” Her story humbled me without delay, and I started to cry. She and I embraced, and then she went on her way. I’ll remember that moment for the rest of my life.
I can’t stay alive without a special brew of complicated medications, yet this woman works hard on a daily basis to help total strangers. She deserves the world.
My mind goes to dark places when I try to think of myself in a positive way. I’m allergic to the rituximab that saves my life. I’ve had to fight for my rights on this earth all my existence. So has she, and the world pushes us both back down whenever it gets the chance. We’ve had to fight with others for their own rights as well, while simultaneously trying to make the world a safer place, just to find out there’s a complicated ring of bad guys pulling all the strings.
I have to fight with myself to process all the pain and hardships I’ve been dealing with and get frustrated when I hear of hardships others are going through. Especially when they’re unnecessarily started from a place of hate.
I’m tired. I’m tired of the discourse down here. I miss my mom. I just want to go home, to see her. To see everyone I lost. These are all thoughts racing through my head as I finally dozed off to Scooby-Doo. Then, I had that dream again.
1,000 miles of snow and one very depressed teenage bastard
That dream. The Benz Farm. This little hobby farmstead on the outskirts of Hibbing, Minnesota, was my world for decades. It still is in ways, but the soil feels different under my feet. I’ve been dealing with new epiphanies about my forever home as well. My grandparents suffered from generational trauma, and that leaked into their parenting of us three grandkids: Felicia (my eldest sister of 5 years), Traci (my older sister of 4 years), and me, the youngest. I’m not going to go into specifics about their parenting styles, but I will say my grandparents were boomers, and leave it there for now.
It’s hard looking at your childhood home with a critical eye. It’s even more difficult to look at a place where you were so sad and depressed from a place of healing and success.
There are two parallels in my life at this juncture. There’s Hibbing and Minneapolis, then there’s Chisholm Grace Lutheran Church and St. Andrew Lutheran Church of Eden Prairie, where I currently work full-time as a communications manager.
Hibbing was a place where I felt unsupported. I lacked community and had to hide my identity. I never could be my authentic self. I was called derogatory terms on at least a weekly basis. Minneapolis is the opposite in every way. I jokingly call it the biggest small town in America because I’ve actually made connections here that make me feel seen and secure.
Chisholm Grace Lutheran Church is where I was told God hates me. I wasn’t out at the time, but I went to that church every Sunday, hearing how what I knew myself to be was a sin in my creator’s eyes. Every morning, in an effort to keep people engaged in the sermon, people would submit anonymous votes for “Satan Sightings” and “God Sightings.” Tallies were read aloud.
The God Sightings would be cute things like a deer frolicking in a field or a fluffy cloud in a blue sky.
Satan Sightings were hate-filled commentaries that often revolved around same-sex relationships because, at the time, the Supreme Court was set to federalize legal gay marriage across the country. Because of all this perceived hatred from my fellow “Christians” and what I believed to be God, I never let my authentic self out.
I poured myself into everything at that church in an effort to prove to God that I deserved to be loved. I participated in Bible Bowl as a team member and coach, I filmed services, fundraisers, taught Sunday school and Vacation Bible School (VBS), and helped out at Camp Arrowhead, the local Missouri Synod camp, among countless other opportunities.
After coming out in 2018, I was not treated the same way. Secret meetings were held about me on whether or not I should be allowed at the camp. The pastor at Grace Lutheran didn’t want me to teach at VBS. I had people in my corner, but the damage was done. The people I had grown to love looked at me like this dirty sinner. Someone, or something, to pray for.
Every action I took was closely watched. I hadn’t changed any of my behaviors and still maintained myself for others’ comfort, but I was out now. Their assumptions were realized to be true, and that caused them to lose some type of trust in me. That pain will never heal, honestly. I wonder if they even care or realize how badly they hurt me, causing me to cry. And at such a turbulent time in my faith life, especially after losing my mother to an overdose.
I once told my pastor that I was close to committing suicide days after my grandma’s death. His response: “Is it because you’re gay?” A camp leader asked me if I was gay because my mother abandoned me, and maybe I just didn’t trust women. All my best friends in life have only been women (with the exception of Austin Brohman). I never went back to church or camp after that. My faith dwindled, which shattered my foundations because it’s a big part of who I am.
Then I moved to Minneapolis and started working at St. Andrew Lutheran Church in Eden Prairie.
I was so hesitant. Church hurt is a real thing. The last church I poured my heart into caused such trauma, and I was scared I’d feel the same way at this place, but I needed a job badly. I told myself the church position would be temporary. I’ve been there for four years now and, though work gets me stressed sometimes, Wednesdays have become my favorite day of the week because of St. Andrew. As a bonus, St. Andrew also has their own camp, Spirit in the Pines.
Not only is St. Andrew open and affirming, but they honestly don’t give a fart about my sexuality. Our recent motto, “You Matter, You Belong, We Care,” is the perfect mantra for the place. Wounds of mine have scarred over because of the kindness of my coworkers and the congregation. I feel loved there by true Christians. But I currently feel like a burden, especially when my body fails me, and I can’t work at full steam for this wonderful place. God, why do I still feel like a burden writing this?
Minnesota, my North Star
Though much of my pain comes from this state, much of my joy also stems from Minnesota. It’s the only place I’ve lived. I feel connected with nature, the streets, and the people. My family and loved ones are here.
This community fought against oppression. They stood up for their neighbors. They continue to fight injustices on a daily basis. This state and her people also know nature is to be respected and fight for the woods, the lakes, the prairies, the rocks, and everything in between. God, I love this state. They will always be a beacon of hope and kindness to the country. A North Star for lost souls to follow.
So, when the Daily Planet doesn’t capture meaningful moments of my home and beyond, I feel a twinge of total disappointment. I feel like I failed. I feel like a burden.
After being discharged from my stay, I was supposed to have a quick week-by-week schedule of infusion therapy, but insurance failed to process, and appointments were cancelled, rescheduled, and cancelled again. I felt more hopeless as those notices came in. Should I just let my body have its way and die, I wondered?
I wanted to tell my aunt Penny how depleted I felt. How I wanted to just let this disease kill me because I was so very tired of everything. But I didn’t want to burden her with those emotions.
I wanted to tell my friends, but I felt that my dark thoughts would somehow diminish the light they provide this world.
I wanted to have a serious conversation about mortality with my sisters. I took the train to St. Paul, where they both were staying one weekend, because I didn’t want to bother the schedules of friends and family. I had an accident because it was immediately after an infusion, and I couldn’t hold my bladder, so humiliated, I called my sister, Felicia, and made it to her hotel and waited until 8:00 p.m. to try to hold this conversation with my sisters, two women I feel like I’ve lost due to shared trauma and distance.
A heartbreaking realization. However, the two were busy with their own lives and children and didn’t realize how much I needed them at that moment because I didn’t want to be a burden. I’m not allowed to drive after infusions, but I struggle to ask for help because I don’t deserve to. That’s where my mind goes. I had one of my best friends pick me up that night, and I bawled in her car because I missed my sisters and didn’t know how to tell them how I felt, because I didn’t want to burden their lives.
I began realizing I’ve walked this earth 32 years trying not to exist, making myself smaller so my presence didn’t affect those around me. I continued to believe this until recently.
A few weeks ago, three of my best friends and contributors to this website scheduled a hangout between us four. Not an uncommon occurrence. We hang out frequently. In attendance were Becka Kottke, Brianna Taggart, and Abbie Wells. Becka and Bri are friends from college, and Abbie is a recent friend from Iowa that I met here in the Twin Cities. I can safely say the three are some of the best friends I’ve ever had.
Anyways, I suspected some sort of surprise was in the works, but I was assuming a possible summer day trip to Duluth announcement. Instead, they told me they organized a private little fundraiser in their close circles to raise money for my medical bills, paying off past debt.
My gut immediately dropped because I had no idea how to react to this. I went and cried in the bathroom, calling my aunt Penny in the process. In hushed tones, I told her how guilty I felt. Not only because this was thousands of dollars’ worth of help for me, who felt so undeserving, but because the inner voice I’d inherited from my grandfather told me not to express emotions to others because that would burden them. Oh, I thought.
My aunt was also speechless, being raised by the same people I was, she too didn’t know how she would react to that news. I remember her crying over her first Christmas angel gifted to her one past Christmas Eve, and then being made fun of for that reaction by her brothers. She told me to get out of that bathroom and hug my friends. Yes, ma’am.
I hung up, cautiously turned the doorknob, and reentered the living room where my friends were patiently waiting for my return, not waiting for a response but waiting for me to watch “She’s the Man” starring Amanda Bynes.
I entered that cozy space with my friends sitting there conversing, each one knitting/crocheting some sort of cozy artifact. A soft, warm glow poured from various lamps throughout, lighting up three faces I’ve grown to love so very much. Is this heaven? Maybe.
I ask them to stand up while explaining my struggles with showing emotions, especially if I feel they would be harmed in some way, then the three of us hug, and I cry in this circle of caring women that I feel so blessed to call friends. Then I realized something: this was the hug from my dream. The hug I hadn’t truly felt for a decade since my grandma, grandpa, and mother were all together alive in 2016.
I started to thank them and choked out some solid sobs. I was embraced for who I was. I can feel Bri’s brown hair brush against my face. I can smell the cheese Becka just served us. I can sense Abbie’s love as she holds all of us tightly. I feel so seen, so safe, like everything’s going to be okay. In that moment, I didn’t feel like a burden. I found my North Star.
As I write this, I’m coming off the effects of my last infusion. Exhaustion is still a battle I fight daily due to the plethora of pills I’m on, but I’m ready to get the Daily Planet rotating again. Expect us to revisit our weekly publishing schedule. I’d like to thank all those who contributed to my medical debt, specifically Brianna, Becka, Abbie, Jess, Casey Clark, Will Madison, Cheryl Kottke, and Bob and Annette Wells.
