rivervision - since election day of 2000.

Wednesday, 29 September 04 :: kaelin bowers.

kaelin bowers.

i'm not sure what to say. i've not talked to him in a long time. 9 months? when things got hoppin' with 20303 last year, thats when i started doing less bill of rights defense committee work and more other work. but it doesn't mean that i didn't think about him from time to time.

kaelin was dedicated. he was honest about who he was and what he believed in. his heart was, well.. not perfect, none of us are.. but it was a good heart, a good soul. he was passionate. he moved with his passion. he was incredibly kind.

i was lucky to know him. i wished we'd stayed in touch. i had a crush on him for a long time. 'the perfect man' of course! a person transitioning from female to male, oh. my. goddess. all the heart of a woman but the energy of a man. kaelin knew how to process.

i admired his energy. i admired his tirelessness. while he was going 100% for the bill of rights work, he was doing the same for his trans work. he was well thought, logical. he was confident, but not too. he stuck to his guns, unless he discovered his guns were misshapen and then he'd try new ones on.

kaelin was found lifeless in his apartment on 24 september. no one knows when exactly he died, all that we know right now is that he died of natural causes. i hope he didn't suffer, i hope when he died, he didn't know it.. because i don't want him to have known he was dying alone.

has the world lost a great man? no. its not like he was super human.. but the oregon community of people who fight for everyone's rights has lost a great comrade. we've lost a colleague that can't be replaced. he bridged the gap, queer to straight, muslim to non-muslim. not many people do that.

thank you kaelin for doing what you did for us. thank you. may your soul be where it is meant to be, may you be at peace wherever you are.

posted by brooke at September 29, 2004 09:32 PM

comments

:*(

{{hug}} to you

posted by: Lisa at September 30, 2004 08:12 PM

I knew Kaelin. He was a friend, and a wonderful guy. I just found out about his death yesterday. The memorial service will be at the concert pad at Laurelhurst Park on Sunday, Oct. 10, at 5 PM. See the Oct. 1 issue of JUST OUT for his obituary.

I'm also going to create a memorial web page at the URL listed above. Anyone wanting to send me memories of Kaelin to post there can email me.

posted by: Todd Mecklem at October 5, 2004 07:11 PM

about
i'm brooke, born in '73. i am currently a phd student in instructional technology. this is the blog where i capture all the neurotic, and the few non-neurotic, moments that seem to come with being a phd student (if you want to read less neuroses and more professionalism go to: oer's, dl's, reuse and culture: it's about a phd student researching digital resources in a multicultural world). i have been from eugene, oregon for a long time.. 8 years specifically (its my home now, but i grew up in southwestern virginia), but now i'm here in logan, utah at utah state university. after finding my roots in eugene i never could have expected that i would leave that liberal oasis and head to utah. but i did and there are days when its a blessing and days when i'm tempted to go back to oregon and beg the folks at lost valley educational center to let me move in. but i won't leave because there are days when this process is better than any kind of high i could ever imagine. what else? i collect things, i have 2 cats, 2 kayaks, 2 laptops (i'm a geek - one mac, one pc). i can be emailed at brookesblog@rivervision.com.