UPDATES

TO EVERYONE WHO ENJOYS THIS BLOG PLEASE EXCEPT MY APOLOGY FOR NOT UPDATING SOONER.

THE LOVE OF MY LIFE, MY DARLING WIFE RECENTLY PASSED AWAY AFTER BATTLING LYMPHOMA THESE PAST 5 YEARS.  MOST OF THE PHOTOS AND SOME OF THE CAPTIONS IN THIS BLOG ARE MELISSA'S WORK AND SHE HAD A BUNCH MORE ON HER COMPUTER THAT I WILL GET POSTED HERE OVER A PERIOD OF TIME.

A FEW OF YOU KNOW A BIT ABOUT HER, BUT HERE IS A SHORT STORY ABOUT HER LIFE.
BORN INTO A FEMALE LEAD HOUSEHOLD, MELISSA KNEW SHE WAS NOT ANOTHER BOY AT A VERY EARLY AGE.  HER FRIENDS WERE GIRLS AND SHE LOVED DOING THE SAME THNGS HER SISTER DID.
At around 10 years old, on her own initiative, she explored everything she could get her hands on in her public library and eventurally went to her mom trying to explain that she should be a girl.  Her mom understood that her son was not very boyish but honestly thought that this was just some kind of phase and would pass, but Melissa was one extremely persistant person even at that age.  Just before she entered her teens her mom agreed to gender couceling for her and by her early teens her doctors had firmly determined that she was in fact transgendered.
Her mom hesitated on her complete transformation at such a young age.  Understandably, she feared approving a change to her child so drastic and that could not be undone, but sometimes halfway measures can be even worse.

Melissa was on a form of blockers and very light hormones but the real goal for her teen years was to supress male puberty.  She was already lucky in that her family was small framed and she did have some feminine features without any help.  Unfortunately, she was not the kind of "boy" that approached the norm in the usual highschool and one day she was asaulted, raped and spent quite sometime in the hospital with several severly broken bones.  She completed her high school, home schooling and being able to live as a girl most of the time.
I believe, that the fact that Melissa grew up in a supportive female home and being brutalized by males, makes her attitude towards males (as shown in this blog) very understandable.

Melissa attended a very well known west coast university, which actually had several similar transitioning women like herself.  The school knew that she would be spending a semester or two initially there as a young man, take some time off and return as a young woman.  They even had a woman professor from the pysch department available to her for guidence.

I met her as a lab partner.  Still a guy but obviously feminine and a few times I noticed things like bits of makeup, plucked eyebrows and the lacking of some body hair.  I also knew she had some kind of crush on me but having always been a lesbian, I just thought of her as a cute, harmless guy, who perhaps would be nice to know.
Anyway, Melissa's mom had money and knowing how her soon to be daughter would not do well in a dorm, she bought a condo nearby, thinking her genetic daughter (a year younger than Missy) might go to the same school the following year and they would share it.  Me, I was there on a basketball scholorship and if you have ever lived in a dorm with all jocks, even female ones, you know that things like quiet study places and privacy are extremely rare.

So I began by taking advantage of her crush on me.  She was willing to cook for me and clean my laundry and as we began spending a lot of time together she opened up and told me everything about herself.  I had already grown very fond of her and now I was extremely curious and needed to know everything.  Soon, I was in love and landed up going with her to just about all her doctor appointments and was involved every step of the way. 

After taking some time off from school, she returned as a coed and the few of us who knew her secret did a great job at keeping it.  She had no problem with guys, as everyone basically knew she was my girlfriend and a member of most woman's and lesbian organizations at school

Before her final procedure we married, though she looked pretty funny in it, she did wear a tux for the "official ceremoney" but later, before going on our honeymoon, we redid things with me in the tux and her in the gown.

We were married about 16 years and have a daughter in high school (who knows about her other mom's history).  In 2007 Melissa was feeling very weak and discovered several lumps in her arm pit and neck.  She had stage 4 cancer and treated with Chemo and then a stem cell bone marrow transplant.  Her immune system never really came back and then the cancer returned and because of a blood condition even another transplant was out of the question.  She never felt sorry for herself, she remained dedicated to her family right to the end.  She may have been born male and was a small person but she was strong and brave.