Children's Hospital

The first piggy bank I remember was shaped like the old Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City. “Primary” is the Mormon program for children under age twelve. The LDS church founded Primary Children’s Hospital in 1922. 

When I was a child growing up in Vancouver, we participated in “Pennies By The Inch,” which has been described as “the nation’s oldest grassroots fundraiser.” Each year all the kids in Primary received our own cardboard hospital piggy bank. We were supposed to save enough money by our birthday to donate a penny for each inch of our height. It didn’t seem weird to send pennies a thousand miles away to another country. We knew Children’s Hospital is a special place for kids with special health challenges, wherever they are. 

I never met anyone who was treated at Primary Children’s Hospital. But it felt good to send my pennies to Salt Lake, just in case. As Marlo Thomas says about St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, “Give thanks for the healthy kids in your life, and give to those who are not.”

As a parent, my faith in Children’s Hospital has grown even more fervent. My first paternal vigil was at Seattle Children’s Hospital in 2005. When Eleanor was a month old, her infant gastric reflux spiked. Whole bottles of formula ended up on her fathers, and she stopped being her happy self. Our pediatrician assured us this was perfectly normal reflux. But it kept getting worse. Eventually we took her to the walk-in clinic. They immediately sent us across town to the emergency room at Seattle Children’s Hospital, where Eleanor was diagnosed with pyloric stenosis.

 

The pylorus muscle connects your stomach to your intestines. Sometimes the valve gets stuck a few weeks after birth. Anything you try to put into the stomach just comes back up. In the old days, infants with pyloric stenosis soon died. Fortunately, surgeons figured out how snip the pylorus and get things flowing again.

 

It took three days before Eleanor was hydrated enough for surgery. My parents came down from Bellingham, and my sainted ex-mother-in-law Judy flew in from Nebraska. Before the surgery, the nice Korean-American surgeon explained to us what was about to happen. Then he and Eleanor disappeared behind the ominous doors, and the rest of us went around to wait on the other side.

An hour later, Eleanor and the surgeon came out through the happy doors, and she began her swift and complete recovery. We went back to another eleven months of ordinary infant reflux and pediatrician visits, never again begrudging the vomit-stained clothes.

My next trip to Seattle Children’s came six years later, and involved mysterious bacterial pneumonia. I drove to the hospital. Eleanor took a helicopter.

Eleanor, Kamryn, and my ex had taken the train home after visiting Judy in the Midwest. After Oliver and I picked them up in Seattle, Eleanor began writhing in pain in the backseat. By the time we got to the Whidbey Island ferry she was burning up. We drove straight to the hospital on the island instead of going home. The doctors pumped Eleanor full of antibiotics, then put her on a helicopter to Seattle Children’s. 

It took a few days in the hospital to bring down Eleanor’s fever. We missed seeing the Broadway tour of “Aladdin.” I gave our tickets to a friend from Seattle Men’s Chorus; he gave Eleanor an oversized Tinker Bell balloon from the hospital gift shop. 

Here’s the key passage from the story of Eleanor’s pyloric stenosis surgery:

“Eventually we took her to the walk-in clinic. They immediately sent us across town to the emergency room at Seattle Children’s Hospital.”

Our upstairs neighbor in Seattle was an ER doctor at Seattle Children’s. When I complained about Eleanor’s melodramatic helicopter ride from Whidbey Island, she said “If you showed up in my Emergency Room with chest pains or a gunshot wound, I’d sent you straight to the grown-up doctors at Harborview.” Likewise, whenever a pediatrician or parent in the Pacific Northwest faces a life-or-death situation, they want their patient at Seattle Children’s.

Last spring my son Oliver started having weird stomach problems. Every four or five weeks he would develop symptoms resembling food poisoning – 24 hours of nausea and vomiting, but without a fever. We talked with our pediatrician and stayed in monitoring mode. 

When Oliver experienced more intense symptoms in November after just a two week break, we skipped school and went to the Urgent Care clinic. The doctor ordered an X-ray and labs. She described some of the potential causes, from stress to cancer to Crohn’s disease. Instead, the nurse called that afternoon to say the X-ray images showed alarming signs of intestinal blockage. CT imaging confirmed Oliver had a bowel obstruction.

The good news is a blocked intestine can be fixed with a one-time surgery. As I learned during Eleanor’s first visit to Seattle Children’s, the bad news is your child will die without surgery. The scary news is emergency abdomen surgery has only a fifty percent survival rate.

If Oliver needed surgery, we wanted it to happen at Seattle Children’s. Our pediatrician and I spent the next few weeks folding bureaucratic red tape into holiday bows. Oliver’s insurance approved a referral to the Seattle Children’s Gastrointestinal Clinic – but the first available appointment was in April. Meanwhile, we watched for a return of Oliver’s symptoms. My friend Dr. Ken did his pediatric residency at Seattle Children’s. When I described the test results, Dr. Ken echoed our local healthcare providers:  “it’s probably not an emergency emergency right now, but if symptoms return or pain he should go to the ER right away!” Not just any Emergency Room – everyone told us we should go directly to the ER at Seattle Children’s if Oliver’s fever spiked. 

Eventually someone looked at Oliver’s X-rays. On Friday, December 6, as I was heading up to Canada for Vancouver Men’s Chorus’s (and Taylor Swift’s) last three concerts, I got a call from Seattle Children’s. The told me Oliver could skip the Gastro Clinic. Instead they scheduled us for a surgery consultation in Seattle on Monday. 

Oliver and I met with Dr. Steven Lee, the Korean-American Chief of Seattle Children’s Surgery Division. Dr. Lee told us Oliver needed surgery as soon as possible. A week later, Seattle Children’s called to tell me Dr. Lee would be performing Oliver’s surgery on December 30. 

After thirty years in gay choirs, a handful of songs inevitably reduce me to tears whenever I try to sing them, such as the coming out anthem “Michael’s Letter to Mama”; the AIDS-era funeral staple “I Shall Miss Loving Him”; and the homesick ballad “Un Canadien Errant.”

This year Vancouver Men’s Chorus closed the first act of our holiday show with a Cher song: “DJ play a Christmas song, I wanna be dancing all night long.” The chorus repeats the words “that’s the only thing I want this year” as if in a trance. When we began rehearsals in September, Cher felt like a total bubble gum number, just like our Dolly Parton encore “Baby I’m Burnin.’” Then I saw Oliver’s x-ray report, and realized my son needed abdominal surgery to save his life. 

Since November, I’ve been unable to sing or hear “DJ Play a Christmas Song” without weeping. I don’t know what Cher is wishing for on the dance floor. But all I wanted for Christmas last year was a surgery appointment at Seattle Children’s. 

Oliver and Papa’s story continues in “Abdomen Whisperer”

Enabling Bullies

During his first two weeks back in office, Donald Trump and his collaborators identified their top priority targets:  trans individuals, immigrants, programs supporting diversity, and foreign aid. 

My brother Warren spent his career at the United States Agency for International Development. Warren and his wife Nadine raised their children overseas. Their plan was to return to the United States this summer after their youngest son graduated from the International High School in Frankfurt. Here is what Warren posted to Facebook this week:

Over 22 years ago I joined the General Counsel's Office at USAID - US Agency for International Development. After eight wonderful years litigating contract claims and protests, I had the opportunity of a lifetime to join the Foreign Service as a Regional Legal Officer. With my family gamely in tow we've had adventures serving our country in Ethiopia, Jordan, Ghana, and now Germany. I've worked with amazing people truly dedicated to helping make the world a better place for everyone. And those efforts have demonstrably made the United States stronger, more secure, and more prosperous.  

USAID has ceased to exist. Not after Congressional debate or due to studies and evidence showing it didn't work and offering a better alternative but because of the whims of the unelected billionaire who is running our country now. The immediate harm is to people in severe poverty across the world. Short term damage is to uprooted families like mine. Long term America will be a weaker, more isolated, less respected, and spiritually poorer nation as a result.

My nephew Fynn came out as trans while Warren’s family was living in Ghana. To facilitate his transition, Fynn moved to Bellingham to live with my parents while finishing high school. Now he lives with my kids and me. Warren and Nadine have been incredibly supportive of their trans child.

Our family checks all of Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s black boxes:   USAID. Trans identity. As a lawyer I’ve advocated for members of marginalized communities, and for years I chaired the state’s nonprofit Initiative for Diversity in the legal profession. My brothers and I grew up as immigrants in Vancouver, although most of us immigrated back to the States. For now.

Several friends recently posted Pastor Martin Niemöller’s poem to Facebook: 

First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist

Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist

Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist

Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew

Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me

Pastor Niemöller uses the word “they” to refer to the German people, not to Adolf Hitler. The Führer corrupted his compatriots with propaganda that stoked their fear and hatred of the Other. School yard bullies never pick the popular kids as their initial victims. Instead, they target the kids who don’t fit in, because bullies know how to work a crowd.

 

When I became an LGBT rights lawyer three decades ago, the Republican Party was using anti-gay initiatives and “Defense of Marriage” acts to rile up their base and win close elections. Nowadays, open homophobia is no longer welcome in polite society. But the nation’s new leaders can count on visceral bathroom panic over trans folk, and prejudice based on the fiction of dirty Mexican rapist immigrants. Between 2021 and 2023, the percentage of Americans who believe transgender athletes should only be able to play on teams that match their birth gender rose from 62% to a whopping 69%. Foreign aid, immigrants, and diversity efforts are similarly unpopular and misunderstood punching bags. 

 

The Trump/Musk team’s priorities during their twisted honeymoon should come as no surprise. Sadly, their enthusiastic support from MAGA-world is no surprise either.

 

Stand up to bullies.

 

Heaven Together

We chose my daughter Eleanor’s name even before I watched her birth nineteen years ago.

 

Three and a half years later, I got a call from the State social workers asking if we would take a girl from the foster system who was sixteen days older than Eleanor. We weren’t fond of her birth name, which had already been used by another family member as a boy’s name. Instead we chose “Rosalind,” which I thought was another strong woman’s name.

 

My son was a year old when he arrived from the foster system. We’d already used our top two boy names (“Graeme” and “Henry”) on failed adoption attempts. This time around “Oliver” was everyone’s second choice. My first pick was “Cameron”; my ex favored “Emerson.” So we put all three names into a hat and let Eleanor draw.

Rosalind came out as queer in middle school. A couple of years ago they identified as nonbinary, so we learned to change pronouns. They said “Rosalind” felt wrong and too girly, but they hadn’t chosen a new name yet. Instead they finished high school with the nickname “Lynn.”

 

Earlier this year, Lynn came into my room and asked “Papa, how do you feel about the name ‘Emerson’?” (Apparently Lynn didn’t remember Eleanor picking “Oliver” out of the Sorting Hat.)

 

I smothered a laugh. I told Lynn my ex was fond of “Emerson” because he liked Thoreau, Emerson, and the American transcendentalists. But I’m more of an English-y English Major. Plus I find Emerson too patriarchal. 

 

Lynn thought for a moment. “How about ‘Cameron’?”

 

This time I laughed out loud.

I’ve been waiting my whole life for a child named Kamryn. (That’s how they spell their name.)

 

I was ten or eleven years old when I saw my first musical. It was a touring show at Vancouver’s Queen Elizabeth Theatre called Saturday’s Warrior. After the Broadway successes of Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar, a group of musicians from Brigham Young University attempted to translate Mormon culture into musical theater. Saturday’s Warrior is about a family resisting worldly temptation and trying to get back to heaven together.

 

The curtain opens on what Mormons call the “Pre-existence,” the period in our souls’ eternal progression before God created the physical universe. After kicking Lucifer and all the fun angels out of Heaven, our spirits wait around to see who will end up with the hot bodies when we arrive on Earth. Or as the Wikipedia plot summary for Saturday’s Warrior begins: 

 

While waiting in the pre-mortal Life to be born, a family of eight children promise each other that they will always be there for each other (“Pullin' Together”). The youngest, Emily, is afraid that when her turn to be born comes around, their parents will be tired of having kids, and she won't be born into their family. The oldest, Jimmy, promises Emily he will personally see to it she will be born into their family. Julie—the second-oldest daughter—and Tod—another spirit in the pre-mortal life—promise each other that, while on earth, they will somehow find each other and get married (“Circle of Our Love”).

 

Saturday’s Warrior is Mormon folk art, loosely based in church doctrine but deeply intertwined with Mormon culture. And an intense spiritual experience. Ever since I saw my first musical, I’ve always had the same vision of the family I was supposed to build when I came to Earth:  I’m going to have twins. I’m going to have one of each. The other person has a blur for a face. Vancouver is home.

 

Five decades later, I sing in Vancouver Men’s Chorus. Bear and I can see Canada on our walks. My parents live across town. I’m a disabled gay single father. And I have the best daughter, son, and child in the world.

After people find out I grew up Mormon, they often ask if I know David Archuleta, the earnest and talented American Idol alumnus and BetterHelp spokesperson. This March, David shared a personal video after releasing his newest single (and showing up online in numerous shirtless photos):

 

“When I came out I also left my church, and when that was made public I didn’t hear from my mom for a few days,” Archuleta says to his friends in a car in the video he shared. “I thought, oh no, she's probably so upset with me but then she sent me a message saying that she also was stepping away from the church.”

 

“She’s like, ‘I don't wanna be somewhere where you don't feel welcome and if you'’re going to hell, then we’re going to hell together,’” he continued. “So the song is based off of that and it’s called ‘Hell Together.’”

 

Although I don’t know David Archuleta, I’ve known a lot of gay Mormon Baby Boomers, and fellow gay Mormon Generation Xers, and gay Mormon Millennials like David. Many endured similar experiences, and some didn’t survive. Change will come eventually. Maybe Gen Z is different. But I don’t need the church to change anything, because our Mormon family has always found a way to support each other. 

My brother Doug died last year from spine cancer. In my eulogy at the Mormon church in Bellingham, “Fathers and Brothers,” I summarized our heritage:

 

When my sister-in-law posted the announcement on Facebook letting folks know Doug had died, I was moved by the outpouring of comments. Three or four repeated words stood out:  “Nerd.” “Smart.” And “funny.” I realized that’s what the comments would say for all four Leishman brothers.

 

The other words Doug’s friends repeatedly used to describe him on Facebook were “family” and “father.” Fatherhood is at the center of all my brother’s lives. That is the great gift our parents gave to each of their sons, and now to each of their grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

 

Church policies and meeting schedules come and go, but the fundamentals are eternal, like the familiar Mormon slogan “Families are forever.” I recognize “forever” is way too long for some families. But not for us.

My First

The very first concert I ever attended was at the Marriott Center in Provo, Utah, in September 1981. I saw Barry Manilow.

I’d arrived as a clueless freshman at Brigham Young University three weeks before. During my time at BYU, I was confused about my own sexual orientation. I was also oblivious to the fact that most of my college friends were gay, too. And the fact that Barry Manilow is gay.

Years later, a friend who had been part of BYU’s secret gay underground told me a story about the Barry Manilow concert. Apparently afterwards an unmarked car full of BYU security officers followed Manilow and his posse forty-five mile north to the Sun Tavern, Salt Lake City’s gay bar.

Last week I drove with my daughter Eleanor for seven hours so we could see singer-songwriter Noah Kahan at The Gorge Amphitheater. I waited for five hours in the desert, mostly in arbitrary lines fueling monopolistic profit. It was too hot, too muggy, and then too cold. We got home at 3:30 am the next morning. It was amazing.

I’ve been to other classic outdoor concert venues, like Red Rocks and Ravinia. I saw Sting play Park City, with Stewart Copeland sitting in on drums. Seattle used to host concerts on a waterfront pier where I saw artists like Indigo Girls and Lyle Lovett sing as sailboats passed by.  

I’d heard of the Gorge, of course, and its reputation as a concert venue. I’d had opportunities to attend shows before. My inevitable response: “All that driving just to sit in the desert?”

I’ve always been more into theater than music performances anyway, except for eras when I’ve gone to concerts with the handful of partners whose musical taste I absorbed. With my mother I’ve seen Great American Songbook masters like Barbara Cook and Kristin Chenoweth. My boyfriend in Chicago was a lesbian, at least musically, so he dragged me to Ani DiFranco, Tori Amos, Alanis Morrisette, and Natalie Merchant. My ex in Seattle was more twee – we saw Belle & Sebastian twice. 

Now Eleanor is my go-to concert date. Our first show after covid was Harry Styles at the Tacoma Dome.

Eleanor went to her first concert with a friend. It was also Eleanor’s first outdoor concert, at the Muckleshoot Tribe’s Wind River Amphitheater near Seattle. She saw the Jonas Brothers. As we drove to the Gorge, I asked Eleanor which Jonas brother is “the cute one.” She picked Joe. (Wrong – the correct answer is Nick.) 

According to Eleanor, the highlight of the Jonas Brothers concert was their opening act, a rising country star named Kelsea Ballerini. On the same day we went to the Gorge, Noah Kahan released a new duet with Kelsea:  “Cowboys Cry Too.”

Noah Kahan’s concert at the Gorge sold out long ago. Thirty thousand people stood on the darkening hillside for his entire two hour set. We watched a talented and suddenly successful young musician connect with the crowd for a one-night-only performance on the day his breakthrough single “Stick Season” hit a billion Spotify streams.

Kahan writes openly about living with anxiety and depression. His charity benefits mental illness programs. As an extra encore at the Gorge, Kahan performed “Young Blood.” He introduced it as the first song he ever wrote. Looking out at the vast crowd, he told us “I remember feeling really lost. I wrote this song so that when I got older and if I had a music career, I could remember where I came from and what it was like to feel alone.”

It Gets Better and Better. If I were a little smarter, I would have recognized fatherhood was my destiny a little sooner. But then I wouldn’t be going to amazing concerts with Eleanor.

Where Everyone Knows Bear's Name

As my health improves and my legal cases wind down, I’ve begun applying for post-lawyer and law-adjacent jobs. Recently a friend suggested I reach out to a local bar leader to chat about his experiences. Although we have mutual friends, I wrote in my introductory email that we hadn’t met.

He graciously invited me to lunch next week. But he disagreed with me:

“By the way, we have already met in Fairhaven. Your dog Bear and my dog have met at least.”

Everyone knows Bear. And Bear knows everyone – especially everyone who’s ever offered him a treat.

Bear’s ideal walk is a six mile “Grand Slam,” which involves three treats in Fairhaven, two along the Boardwalk, and four downtown. The newest addition to our route is the bank. Recently their security guard saw us in the parking lot and asked where we were going. I told him I was using the ATM after going across the street to the post office to get my mail and Bear’s treat. The guard told us our longtime Chase branch also has treats. Now Bear is a regular customer.

 

When the tellers first met him last month, Bear was still wearing a tee shirt to protect his bite wound. I got to tell everyone the story of how an unleashed bulldog named “Bubbles” almost killed Bear at Christmas. On our next visit to the bank, the goofy bro teller was the one who brought out the dog treat. He asked if my wife had been in a couple of days ago with Bear. He remembered a lot of the details about Bear and Bubbles. But he didn’t remember me. 

Most days our first stop is at Village Books in Fairhaven. As Bear lunged toward the front door yesterday, I heard a gentleman on the sidewalk with his golden retriever marvel “They let dogs into the bookstore?” 

 

Not only are dogs welcome in Village Books, but there are treats waiting behind each counter. Bear knows our rule – only one treat per establishment per walk. But he’s allowed to say hi and get backrubs from his friends at any counter. So Bear will try to get me distracted enough for him to bum an extra biscuit off some weak-willed bookseller.  

 

I heard the internal Village Book staff newsletter announced Bear had a haircut this week. Everyone is startled by the contrast. Yesterday a clerk at one of the counters leaned down to ask my dog if he wanted a treat. Then she saw me and realized it was a shorn Bear. 

 

At least she recognized me. But she only knows Bear’s name.

The best treats are at Chrysalis Inn, the biggest treats are at Rumors, and the most treats are at Village Books. But Bear would say the best company is at Acme Ice Cream. 

A sign on the door identifies Acme as “dog friendly.” The photo montage of canine regulars on the wall prominently features Bear. In addition to sharing waffle cone fragments and gourmet treats from Mud Bay, the ice cream scooping baristas have taught Bear to shake. On busy days, Bear charms new customers while patiently waiting in line. On quiet days, the ice cream scoopers and I socialize while Bear enjoys getting scratched. 

 

When Bear and I started our long daily walks during covid, the manager Maddie asked me to introduce myself. Since then every Acme employee has always greeted both Bear and me by name.

When Eleanor and Lynn had frequent braces appointments on the other side of downtown, Bear and I would often go on waterfront walks through Squalicum Harbor. There used to be a coffee shop in the marina with homemade dog treats. Whenever we’re in the neighborhood years later, Bear will drag me across acres of parking lots to see if this particular coffee shop has reopened.

 

The former coffee shop’s owner recently opened a pastry place downtown. Yesterday I went in to check out the wares, tying up Bear outside. The cashier looked out the window and exclaimed “I love Bear’s haircut!” She told me she knows Bear because she’s friends with one of the ice cream scoopers at Acme. 

The bank, post office, and gay bar are all closed on Saturday mornings, so Bear’s only treat option downtown is Avelino Coffeehouse. I go to Avelino for the exceptional baked goods and to show off Bear’s manners.

 

Yesterday a man with two canes ahead of us in line was invited to give Bear his treat at the counter. The man walked out beaming, and said “That made my day!”

I never tasted coffee until I was twenty-five. Now I’m a terrible coffee snob. In fact, since the Terminal Building burnt down in December, there’s only one place in Bellingham where I’ll order coffee.   

 

A couple of years ago Facebook kept sending me links to articles with headlines like “Best Coffee Shops in America!” that highlighted Bellingham’s Camber café. Eventually Bear and I passed Camber on one of our walks downtown. Here’s the sign next to the door:

We love dogs, we love your dog, however:  for health and safety reasons we must ask that you do not bring your dog past the front counter. The only exception is if they are a registered service animal with a vest.

 

Please wait outside with them and we will bring your drink out to you.

Everyone is very welcoming to Bear as we wait to be served at the counter. Then Bear and I go outside on the patio where I give him water and a treat from my backpack. 

 

I’m sure their dog treats would be delicious, but Camber doesn’t serve pets. Instead, Camber has amazing coffee. The ambiance is elegant yet comfortable. And they remember my drink. Last month the barista came outside and said “the order said an Americano with walking room and three shots, but I assumed it was a mistake and you wanted four.” 

 

Although I only visit Camber a couple of times a month, I’m always greeted by name. The last time I stopped by alone, the woman at the counter called me “Roger” and asked how “your dog” was doing. I’m sure all the baristas at Camber know Bear’s name. But they know I don’t need to hear it with my coffee.