Today is not the only day I cry.
It’s just the day I always think of some of the other days I’ve cried.
I am a private person, and it’s hard for me to talk about these things in a public forum. The only reason I do it is because the people we’ve lost deserve to be talked about. They deserve to be remembered. And they deserve the tears we cry for their loss as much as they deserve all the happy memories we share about them.
Here are some of the days I cried.
The day I left Steve R.’s hospital room because one of his nurses insisted that I take an hour or two away, for myself. I went to a music store. I looked through tapes for something, anything, to buy that wouldn’t have a single song on it that would make me think of AIDS. I picked out a Def Leppard tape as being very likely to fit my needs. Then I glanced into the glassed-in room where the store kept their classical music. I thought of all the times I’d gone shopping there with Steve. The way I’d be out on the floor looking through tapes, and I’d look into the classical music area and see him where he was happiest–shopping for the composers he loved. And I realized that would never, ever happen again. I paid for my tape and listened to it as I raced back to the hospital. When I got inside his room, he was asleep, and I made myself look at him, really look at him, and face the truth. Then I did what I almost never allowed myself to do in his presence. I cried. I cried hard in the corner, as far away from him as I could get, so I wouldn’t wake him. His nurse came in and caught me and pulled me out of the room and held me while I cried.
The next day, Steve died. And even though not a single song on the Def Leppard tape should have made me think of AIDS, I thought of AIDS anyway whenever I heard it.
Another day nearly three years later, I woke up and didn’t want to go to work more than anything in the world. I had to force myself to leave the house. My stomach felt like lead. The air around me was smothering me. I drove to the end of my block, turned around, and went home. I stood inside my house, trying to figure out what I wanted. I finally went to my photo albums and took out all my pictures of Jeff. Taking them with me was the only way I could go to work. Jeff was not allowing me to see him by then. He was angry. At AIDS. At the world. At me. I had promised him that I would be with him when he died, as he knew I was with Steve, but he wasn’t letting me keep that promise, and it was making me crazy. There is no end to the cruelty of AIDS, but when it robs a person of the ability to know when and how deeply and by whom he is loved, it is cruelest of all.
I went to work that day, but I could barely function. And when I got home, Tim R. called me to tell me that Jeff was dead.
Two people still connected me to Jeff: our mutual friend, Tim R., and Jeff’s ex, John. John with the twinkling eyes. John who’d never been sick. Who’d never been in the hospital until December of 1996. John who made me swear, as Jeff once had, that if the time ever came that he was dying, I’d be there with him. We were sure that time was far, far into the future. John went into the hospital for tests, and John was going to be given the new drugs, the ones that were making some of his friends’ viral loads negligible. The ones that promised years of a manageable disease, maybe enough years so that a cure would be found. John was only in the hospital a couple of days when, for reasons I still don’t know, his condition took a sudden turn. As James and I stood next to his bed, John took his last breaths. I’ll probably never talk publicly about all the things that happened in the hospital that night, but when I cried, the nurses were like angels and James’s father was so kind to me that I will never, ever stop feeling grateful for him.
Tim R. sustained me through the losses of Jeff and John. And when Tim’s doctors told him there was nothing else they could do for him, the new drugs just weren’t going to work in his case, he made a special point of inviting me to his parents’ house, where he was living by that time. We sat and talked, and it took me a while to understand that he was saying goodbye. That he didn’t want me to be shocked by what was coming. That he didn’t want me to feel like anything was left unfinished or unsaid between us. That was the last time I ever saw him. I left roses for him on the family’s doorstep one night. Though he was barely getting around by then, Tim was able to go outside for a few minutes and he was the one who found them. A few days later, Tim died in his own bed at home, with his family around him laughing and reminiscing. It made me feel so good to know he had such a peaceful, loving exit.
Though I hadn’t cried at Steve’s or Jeff’s or John’s memorial services, I couldn’t stop crying at Tim’s funeral. I cried for all of them, and because I was just so tired after years of dealing with AIDS every day. I cried for the families and friends who’d suffered more and greater losses than I could imagine.
Steve, Jeff, John, and Tim are not my only friends who died, but they were my four closest friends who died. I still have friends living with HIV, and I’m grateful beyond words for the drugs that are helping them manage their illness. There will always be days I cry for the losses. But there are more days that I’m thankful for the love of all my friends–the dead, the living, the healthy, the ill. Every time I laugh, it’s an echo of all the laughter I shared with Steve, Jeff, John, and Tim. In the balance of things, we spent most of our time together laughing and almost none of it crying.
Beautiful men, beautiful souls, beautiful friends. I miss you.