David Taffet CVNever one to complain

I’m delighted 2017 is done. What a terrible year.
It was horrible personally because my husband, Brian, died suddenly on March 6, after it took 20 minutes for 9-1-1 to answer my frantic call for help. Unacceptably low staffing levels at the city, problems with the equipment, problems with the software and problems with the way our antiquated equipment responded to the software all contributed to the deaths of at least three people that week.
Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Adam Medrano’s office let me know on Dec. 6 that the city had completed the first phase of an upgrade to a new 9-1-1 system that includes “digital communication lines, statistical reporting and workforce management/scheduling tools to improve service efficiencies in the 911 Call Center.” The second phase of the upgrade comes online next August.
Of course, all of that is useless without great 9-1-1 operators. By August, the city had gotten serious about maintaining staffing levels in the 9-1-1 office, and the last figures I saw showed we were up to full staffing level, if you include trainees.
On a side note, I’ve said it before and I’ll repeat it as many times as I have to: Once I did get through, the 9-1-1 operator I spoke to was fantastic. Yes, I caught that gasp of hers when she asked how long I’d been on hold and doing chest compressions. But she was calming; she got the paramedics to my house in three minutes, and she helped me until they arrived.
I’m not sure when the last time was Dallas increased the number of officers in the 9-1-1 office, but the city is growing and so should the size of that staff. Austin, a smaller city, employs more 9-1-1 operators than Dallas.
Starting to heal
As a way of healing after Brian’s death, I did something that’s very Dallas. I wasn’t the only person who had recently lost a spouse. So several of us did what we do best in Dallas. We started a group.
Our LGBT grief support group meets every other week. We started with six people and a new person has shown up almost every meeting since. Some who attend for the first time have lost a spouse just a few weeks earlier; some lost spouses more than a year ago.
All of our stories are different. Three of us lost our spouses suddenly. Others cared for their spouses for weeks, months and, in one case, years before their deaths. Some couples had been together just a few years while one was approaching 50 years together.
What our group does better than anything is allow each of us to grieve in our own way. It lets us blow off steam. We can cry without someone criticizing, “Oh, you’re depressed.” We can laugh without someone criticizing, “Oh, so you’re over him already.”
We can help each other figure out how to move forward or decide that for this week, we don’t feel like moving anywhere. We can make sure each of us has plans for holidays or anniversaries and birthdays. We can just chat without having to explain anything.
I was delighted when a new person came to the group and said he was getting so many dinner invitations, but he really didn’t feel like going out to dinner. I thought I was the only one who couldn’t know in advance that some nights I would just feel like sitting home crying, without having to carry on a conversation at a restaurant.
While 2017 was a terrible year, I made it through with help from some wonderful friends and family. The Turtle Creek Chorale sang at Brian’s funeral, and I love those guys for that. I was already a fan, and Brian and I enjoyed attending together.
Since his death, Brian’s mother has been attending TCC concerts with me. She lives in Athens, and she’s already planning to be at the Tyler concert in June.
I spent some time with Brian’s father, as well. He lives in Austin, and I stayed with him and his wife when I went to the capital for some special session bathroom bill bashing.
When he died, Brian and I had only been married nine months. The top layer of our wedding cake was still wrapped in the freezer.
My cousins, Suzanne and Jody, came to Dallas to spend my wedding anniversary weekend with me. We went to museums and the Stockyards, ate out, said Kaddish at Friday night service at synagogue, looked at pictures and shopped.
And before they left, we ate the top layer of my wedding cake.
I made it through Brian’s birthday and mine, as well as our anniversary. I went on a vacation we had already booked, spending a week with family. I went to a journalism conference where I spoke on “When a reporter becomes the story.” I made it through the holidays just fine, thanks to friends.
Now I have only one more first to face — the first anniversary of his death.
Beyond the personal
This year was pretty bad for lots of other reasons as well.
We have a president who didn’t understand the job when he was elected and hasn’t seemed to learn anything during his first year in office. We have a vice president who is so extreme, if the tweeter-in-chief is impeached, the replacement could be even more dangerous.
We have a Congress so desperate to get something — anything — done, that they threw together a tax plan that will cost $1 trillion, and who knows if anyone actually benefits.
Our healthcare remains in place — for now. The Supreme Court still tilts in our favor on LGBT issues, but that could change with one death or retirement.
In 2018, we elect all members of both the state and federal House of Representatives. Ted Cruz, along with a third of the U.S. Senate, is up for re-election, and half the state Senate will be elected. We have a long list of great LGBT candidates up for election in a variety of offices and some wonderful allies running as well, and one way we can make 2018 a better year is to make sure we get those allies and LGBT “family” members in office.
We have to. I don’t think I can take another year like 2017, either personally or politically. 2018 has got to be a better year. We have to make it so.
David Taffet is senior staff writer for Dallas Voice.