Breathless

This poem is one I wrote for myself the day before I ended what I saw as the month-long relationship with Keith. I had to come to terms with the fact that it was the right thing to do. Didn't realize at the time I wrote it that sometimes the wind returns and needs your embrace.

---

Breathless

To catch a gentle wind,
Breath of the Earth;
To feel the soft wet kiss
Of sweet rain on lips,
For even a brief part
Of the shortest eternity
Is as divinely impossible
As touching the fiery heart
Of the most distant star.

But I have done this.

And perhaps again,
In a different world,
I will do so once more.

And yet will I release the breeze
When my heart dares not continue
To bind the dying wind.

For happy am I in heart and soul
To have caught the wind,
And happier yet
That I could return its freedom.

---

Dating in the Modern World

Why finding a relationship seems more difficult these days

As every day passes, we as members of the gay community find ourselves at the center of a political and social conflict which seems to be tearing the nation and our lives apart. A fight we never asked for, but one we feel obligated to participate in — or avoid. It's our lives, after all. Who are they to tell us how to live? Who are they to tell us who we can love? Who are they to tell us that beige goes with everything?

It seems a distraction at times. The fight takes a great deal out of us, and so we feel rushed to find anybody to stand at our side in the battle for truth, justice and the GAYmerican way. As long as they fit our excessively strict criteria, of course.

If the queer community, in all its various and diverse facets, comprises an estimated ten percent of the world's population, finding a match is certainly more difficult for us than it is for the heterosexual horde. They have nine times more chances at love than we do. Britney has seven more to go. Liz has one or two, depending on how you do the math. Condi Rice has a lot of catching up to do; her dance card is quite empty. Unlike the Carpenters, she hasn't even 'just begun.'

But there are other factors affecting our ability to find "the One." Turning thirty or even forty is certainly an obstacle (in our community especially), but more dreaded — believe it or not — is HIV. It is far harder for somebody who has tested positive to know where they fit into our relatively small niche in the universe. It can isolate you to the point that you believe you will never date again.

I know. I felt that way myself.

But in the course of more than twenty years living with this, I've learned a few things. I realized that stigma begins within ourselves, and only we can end it. It's easy to allow others to humiliate and ostracize us and make us feel ashamed of ourselves when we accept it from them. Far too easy. The pain and fear of rejection just adds to our lowered self-esteem.

Now, ask yourself: was I talking about being HIV+, or being gay?

Sometimes, you must put yourself in the place of the other person to see things from a new perspective. A person living with HIV/AIDS is no less human than you, and you are no less human than a straight person. Which means, believe it or not, a straight person is no less human than you, though you are allowed to question their concept of taste, especially in clothing and what they call 'dancing.' You may even question the humanity of some. Falwell, Robertson, Rove and Phelps come to mind…

Now, to answer your previous query (or was that mine?). I came out and became positive within weeks of each other twenty-one years ago at the age of twenty-one. It had taken me so long to come out to myself because I was letting others stigmatize me. When I tested positive, I had already learned the lesson, and refuse to this day to let the words of others knock me down. That playground proverb, "I'm rubber, you're glue," has a moral that is effective even for adults.

What does all this have to do with dating? My point is that we often set standards so high that even we would not pass muster, peering through the eye of a needle wondering why nobody can get through to us. We limit our field of view to only the pretty people, thinking the plain are beneath our notice. I have found more value in the mundane than in the plastic unreality in which most of us seem to live.

Must be fit, hung, masculine, muscular, neg, blond, butch, slender, young… the list goes on. And that’s just the woman… Okay, maybe not.

The harshest are six simple characters: DDF UB2. Not sure if there’s more offense in the apparent ignorance of the “DDF”, the seeming lack of intent to play safe, or in the fact that people can’t spell out the words. You aren’t paying per character; if you’re going to discriminate, at least be intelligent enough to write it in plain English.

How would you feel if no one could see past the battle scars of your life, failed to notice who you really are? Or only saw the plastic we wrap ourselves in and passed you by as nothing special, just another piece of meat in a zippered bag?

Remember the words of Shakespeare: "To thine own self be true." If we are to find our perfect match, we must first know ourselves. Know our imperfections, and thus overlook them in our potential mates. See what others see in us, and refuse to return the disservice of judging the book by the beige cover. Abandon your plastic façades, and embrace the real you. Just don't do it in public; it creeps people out. Could even get you arrested in some states.

Who knows? Maybe your knight in shining armoire, or your damsel dyke on a bike is closer than you think. Look again with your eyes wide open, and let the new world dawn. It's only over when you give up, and when you stop trying so damn hard to find perfection.

We are, none of us, perfect. Well, none of you are at least.

Hmm. Maybe it’s time I start taking my own advice…

Letter to Keith, October 11, 1986

The following is a letter that I wrote to Keith ending our month-long relationship. For years I wondered why Keith had come to my door in his hour of desperate need, despite the angry and hate-filled poem I'd written to him on November 1, 1986. In 2004 I found a printout of this letter in my things, and cried upon reading the fifth paragraph.

Without realizing it, I kept my promise to him. I was there for him in February 1987 when everybody else turned him away.

One irony is the date. One year after this was written, the first National Coming Out Day would happen.

Dave

11 October 1986

Dear Keith,

I write this because I don't know how to say it. As with many things I have done the past month, this is new to me. So much has happened in these four short weeks, and I can't keep up with it all anymore. I'm starting to fall, but there is no one to catch me.

It is not your fault, it is mine. I want to be close to you, but I fear that I have not the capacity. Every time I try it seems we drift further away. Perhaps I have seemed too possessive, but I could not help it. You were all I had, and I didn't want to lose you. I still don't, but I must let you go your own way before we hurt each other too deeply. I did not want to leave you without explaining how I felt. I think I love you--I can't be sure because I never felt love before--and would never willingly hurt you.

You have given me much that I could never repay. You helped to free me from myself, from the chains I had created--not to keep me in, but to keep the world out. I thank you for that, and will never forget it.

It may be that I am wrong, but I feel there never was "us", just "you" and "me". Perhaps we were not meant to be. If not, I hope you find the right person to give you what you need. It may be that we will find each other again, after our hearts have been broken in search of love. I shall keep that thought with me in my heart, and look for you when I despair.

I want you to know that if you ever need someone to talk to, or a shoulder to lean on, I will listen, and comfort you. You know where to find me, or call anytime. I am always here for you. Always.

I better stop here, before I short out the computer. Again, I'm sorry if this brings you pain, but I must do it to ease my own conscience. I will no longer try to keep you here if you do not wish to stay with me.

Con molto amore,

Dave

Breathless

This is a poem I wrote on October 10, 1986. It was mainly for myself, about a hard decision I had made - to end my month-long relationship with Keith. His life outside of sleeping and work was at the only gay bar in town. I wanted to live my life as a gay man outside of the closet; he seemed content to stay inside.

Breathless

To catch a gentle wind,
Breath of the Earth;
To feel the soft wet kiss
Of sweet rain on lips,
For even a brief part
Of the shortest eternity
Is as divinely impossible
As touching the fiery heart
Of the most distant star.

But I have done this.

And perhaps again,
In a different world,
I will do so once more.

And yet will I release the breeze
When my heart dares not continue
To bind the dying wind.

For happy am I in heart and soul
To have caught the wind,
And happier yet
That I could return its freedom.

Serodiscordancy

Serodiscordant (sero-discordant) is a term used to describe a couple in which one partner is HIV positive and the other is HIV negative.[1] Serodiscordant relationships are also referred to as "magnetic". - wikipedia.org

To be honest, in all my years of being HIV-positive, I’d never heard of mixed-status relationships being referred to as “magnetic.” I suppose it makes sense - a magnet has both a negative and a positive charge. Just seems ironic that with magnets, those opposites attract. With HIV, more often than not, they repel.

What’s ironic is that every one of my now five relationships has been serodiscordant. That is if you consider my first one with Keith, in which I became infected with HIV, was discordant until I seroconverted. And again, other than that initial relationship, each has known of my HIV status. Well, Keith believed himself to be HIV-negative, too. As did I.

Since Keith passed away over twenty years ago, I’m using his first name here. Other names have been replaced by first/last initials in parenthesis.

I learned that my fears of being HIV positive were true two days after meeting (K.B.) in early April 1987. When I told him, thinking that I’d be shunned and cast out like Keith had been, (K.B.) promised he’d stick it out and take care of me.

So began thirteen years of co-dependency. I didn’t want to be alone when I got sick. Having seen how quickly Keith went from healthy to gravely ill, I was constantly afraid the same would happen to me. In 1987 there was still very little known about AIDS, and even less about HIV. There was only one medication to treat HIV infection - AZT - and it was too expensive if you didn’t have a health care plan that would cover the cost. Very few back then would.

Even though he knew I was HIV positive, (K.B.) refused to use protection when we had anal intercourse. He was always the active (or top) position. Because of a tear in his colon when he worked in asbestos removal years before, he could never take the passive (bottom) role. I tried repeatedly to get him to use condoms, but he refused.

Because every day was another step toward the five years - at most eight - that I was given to live, I didn’t want to push him away by denying him sex. I did, but couldn’t. As he made more decisions for “us” without listening to my opinion, I found myself drowning in our so-called partnership. Every time I said “I love you” to him, I meant it less each time.

When I reached my thirtieth birthday in August 1995, I had to take a pause. Twenty-one plus eight was less than thirty. I should have been deathly ill by now. I should have been dead, even. But I was neither. I still feared it would happen soon, but doubt began to creep in. As did my unhappiness with (K.B.)’s control of my life.

When he and I met in 1987, I was Vice President of Gay Student Services, an officially recognized student group at Texas A&M. I was President for the Summer of that year. In fact, I had calls to the group’s “Gay Line” redirected to our home phone so I could give out information to students who needed advice about coming out or other gay issues. When I had learned that Keith had AIDS and I needed to get tested, I researched the options and wrote an editorial article about the importance of testing and managed to get it published in The Battalion, the Texas A&M student newspaper.

Both those areas of activism which I’d been a part of were silenced by (K.B.). He didn’t want his coworkers or supervisors to know he was gay, so I was pulled back into the closet with him. I was not allowed to refer to him as anything other than my roommate. And I certainly couldn’t speak out on HIV/AIDS issues. His fears of violence from ignorant people in the College Station area overruled any objections I had as to how important it was to speak out and be visible. And because I was afraid of dying alone, I gave in to his demands.

I began to develop stomach issues - ulcers, acid reflux, that sort of thing. I though it was the stress from work that caused it. I was working constantly, with little to no time to use the vacation hours I was accruing. During semesters I had to deal with the day to day of computer problems within the department. Between semesters I had to get our classroom labs refreshed for the next semester as well as configure new computers for incoming faculty and wipe and refresh old computers for staff or graduate assistants. Plenty of reason to blame work.

Now, you’re probably wondering what this has to do with serodiscordant relationships. Just hush up and pay attention. I’m about to make it clear.

On February 14, 2000 our relationship came to a crashing halt. (K.B.) had slept with a coworker of his and decided that the thirteen years we’d had together was over. So much for staying with me to care for me if I got sick. Notice the “if”. I’d already begun to question whether I even would become ill.

Three weeks later I began to notice that my almost addiction to Rolaids and Tums had vanished along with my constant need for them to control my reflux and stomach issues. I then realized that all my problems had come from worrying that his refusal to wear a condom would cause him to become infected. And in the long run, my lack of interest in having sex with him caused him to turn away from me.

I learned my lesson. I was never going to date an HIV-negative man again. Or so I thought.

Six years later, and two years after moving to Austin, I met (J.M.). Okay, so it was a hookup at first. When I told him I was positive before we even met, he found it refreshing that someone could be that honest. He used to live in San Francisco where, as he put it, he felt he was the only HIV-negative man in the entire city. I’m pretty certain he’s wrong about that.

(J.M.) and I had safe sex, which was a welcome change from (K.B.). However, there were other issues outside the bedroom that made me concerned. He had a drinking problem and refused to acknowledge it for what it was. I walked away from that one, once again promising myself no more HIV negative men. And no drinkers, either.

Then in October 2007 I received an odd message on a dating site. They guy said he liked my profile and wanted to meet. I figured I’d check out his to see if it was worth wasting my time. It said he was in India. Great. Another one of these people in another country thinking they can start a relationship or a scammer hoping the get money out of me. I replied that we can’t very easily meet because of the distance.

He responded, “I’m where you are.” I asked if he meant he was in Austin and he said “Yes.” Still doubtful, I pointed out our age difference. I was 42 and he was 27. He knew that, didn’t care, and still wanted to meet. I then pulled out the HIV card. He’d seen that, it didn’t matter either, and suggested we meet downtown at Mother Egan’s. That pretty much clinched that he was in Austin. He didn’t have a photo so I asked if he could email me one. He did, so I agreed to meet.

It was a very cold, very rainy and very windy evening. (A.K.) turned out to be a nice young man, good looking, smart, funny and interesting. We talked a while, then agreed it was best to get out of the cold and wet. He was only in the U.S. for three months for training and his company had put him up in an extended stay hotel a couple of blocks away.

At first we simply messed around, nothing risky. Then one night I stayed over in his hotel room and woke with him wanting to have sex. He didn’t use a condom, though he knew I was HIV positive. While his being a top, and my viral load being undetectable, might mean there could be no transmission, I asked him to always use condoms. I made sure and got some and he did as I requested. I just didn’t want him to take risks, even slight ones, since I knew the HIV care in India was not great.

Before (A.K.) left for home, he recommended an Indian-made film to me. While Netflix had it as an option, it sat in my queue on “long wait” until after (A.K.) had already left. The film is titled “My Brother… Nikhil” and is an AIDS film. He’d seen it himself and wanted to be with me when I watched it. It was beautiful movie and I cried, not just at the story, but that (A.K.) wasn’t at my side.

Jump to February 2010. I arrived early to Oilcan Harry’s - a gay bar - for a march/rally supporting two members of a local gay softball team who’d been victims of a hate crime while walking back to their car at night. I got a glass of water at the bar, since I new we’d probably be chanting as we marched. When the bartender handed me the glass, the guy next to me asked, “Is that water?”

While it was a rhetorical question, I decided to have some fun. “No, it’s vodka. They serve it in tall glasses now - and it's FREE!” He chuckled and told the bartender that he’d have one, too. “Yes, he wants a tall glass of free vodka like mine,” I jokingly told the bartender. She laughed and brought him his water.

And so I met (M.D.). He had a very soft voice, but we talked as we both waited for them to call us out for the march. When we walked the short route, he took my hand in his. We began to grow closer to each other.

(M.D.) isn’t sure of his status. He’s done some risky things in his past, but hasn’t been tested in a while. Nothing since his last test, and it had been at least six weeks since he’d done anything unsafe before then, so I have to believe that his HIV status is negative.

In May, he went with me to the PWA Campout. PWA means “Persons with AIDS,” though it’s probably long past time to rename it HIV Campout, as modern treatments can keep a person from progressing to an AIDS diagnosis. He enjoyed himself thoroughly, despite our tent being flooded out twice.

Now, I’ve been on meds since 2003, though stopped the first treatment I was put on for personal reasons and didn’t begin a new regiment until April or May of 2004 after moving to Austin. My viral load is undetectable, meaning that it’s controlled, but not gone.

A number of research studies are now showing that if a person with HIV is currently on treatment, has had an undetectable viral load for over six months, and has no other STI, then the odds of transmitting HIV to their partner becomes almost zero. A lot of it is based on CD4 counts, too. Mine are above 500 (despite being at just 38 in 2004).

(M.D.) & I haven’t had sex yet. It’s something for us to discuss and decide for ourselves. As it should be for any two (or more) persons engaging in sexual activities. Oddly, I seem more afraid of the risk than he is. I believe those studies are accurate, but after those thirteen years with (K.B.) it’s not easy to let another choose a risk for themselves, even if (M.D.)’s would be far less of one than (K.B.)’s was.

I suppose the point of this was that you don’t have to limit yourself to another person of the same status if you both agree to being safe or to what risks you are both willing to accept. If there’s love, it’s possible that the negative partner would take more risks for that reason, while the positive partner would balk. Work it out, talk about how you both feel, and find a way to handle things.

They say opposites attract, and opposite charges of a magnet are perhaps one of the strongest attractions in existence. All in good pun of course, get your poles in alignment and enjoy life!

Twenty Years

Twenty years. Hard to believe it’s been that long. And yet, no matter the years that have gone, or the years yet to come, Keith will always be a part of my life. Part of me.

On February 10, 1990 Keith Harris, my first lover, died in Austin from AIDS related symptoms. I had last seen him nearly three years prior, around the 20th of February 1987.

He’d shown up at my door looking extremely ill. His arms were like sticks, his face sunken and pale. He was sobbing heavily, body heaving and shaking as tears ran down his face. I tried to deny to myself what I was seeing. A word that I refused to accept kept pushing itself into my thoughts, and I kept pushing back.

Then Keith forced himself to speak through whatever agony was wracking his body, tormenting his soul. “Nobody will come near me,” he choked out. “Nobody will even give me a hug. Everyone keeps telling me I have AIDS but I don’t.” His voice strained with the torture of his own words. “I can’t.” A wave of agonizing gasps made him pause. “I don’t have AIDS.” The tears and spasms overtook him, and he couldn’t say anything else.

But he’d said enough. He’s spoken the word I tried to ignore. Now the truth was apparent, even if I wished it wasn’t.

Without thought, my arms opened up. Keith fell into them, wrapping his arms around me as though I was a life preserver tossed to a drowning man. I now felt every quiver, every quake that ran through his body. Felt the wetness of his tears run down my neck, soaking the shoulder of my shirt. My arms embraced him and pulled him tight against me.

As I held Keith in my arms, I thought briefly about what it meant for me. We hadn’t used protection; I never thought to ask him to, despite having witnessed the eruption of AIDS in the world. He looked healthy back in September. I was certain that I would face what Keith was going through myself soon enough.

I then wondered if the other men that Keith had slept with knew. If they were aware that Keith’s condition was a harbinger of what faced them. But I didn’t waste much time on them. They weren’t here at my door, in my arms. Keith was. He needed me to comfort him, to say that he didn’t have AIDS, that everything would be alright.

To be honest, I could have easily justified pushing him away, slamming the door in his face. Telling him he had AIDS. Blaming him for cheating on me and infecting me with a terminal and fatal disease. The thought never crossed my mind.

A little backstory. Keith and I were seeing each other for a month, from mid-September through mid-October. We met at The Crossing, the only gay bar in the Bryan/College Station area. He told me his name was Richard Keith Harris III. I thought we were dating; he didn’t, at least not exclusively. I was unaware of that when I wrote a letter to him on October 11th ending our relationship. His life outside of work was at the bar; I believed that gays shouldn’t have to hide in the shadows, that we could have an honest and open life.

So, before I wrote that letter, I wrote myself a poem. Reminding myself why I had to walk away from my first relationship, my first lover, my first time. My first love.

Breathless

To catch a gentle wind,
Breath of the Earth;
To feel the soft wet kiss
Of sweet rain on lips,
For even a brief part
Of the shortest eternity
Is as divinely impossible
As touching the fiery heart
Of the most distant star.

But I have done this.

And perhaps again,
In a different world,
I will do so once more.

And yet will I release the breeze
When my heart dares not continue
To bind the dying wind.

For happy am I in heart and soul
To have caught the wind,
And happier yet
That I could return its freedom.

I did return to the bar three weeks after the letter. It was Halloween, and I couldn’t miss celebrating my first one as an out gay man. To be honest, I wanted to see Keith again, even if just as friends. As I sat at the bar, looking toward where Keith was talking with some other guys, Silver Flame came over and followed my gaze. Silver was a drag queen I’d become friends with during that month with Keith.

Silver put her hand on my shoulder and told me, point blank, as her eyes followed my gaze. “Keith never wanted a lover. He’s young and just wants to have fun. You were just a new face that he enjoyed spending time with, but you weren’t the only one. He spent time with a lot of guys.”

I suddenly felt betrayed. Hurt. I could sense the anger rising inside me. I politely thanked Silver for letting me know, then left the bar. It was before midnight on All Hallows Eve. I held back my tears as I drove back to my apartment. When I got home, I went to my room, closed the door then fell on my bed, crying.

After a short time, I got out of bed and started writing my feelings out in a poem to Keith. Every stroke of the pen bled my emotions out on the page. So intense were they that to this day, one can feel the anger, hate and pain.

It was long, but here is the first stanza of what I named Black Cat:

Panther prowls hungrily
Through the deepest shadows
Of the sun-forsaken jungle.
Hiding silently among the trees
Waiting, Waiting.
Ready to pounce
When least expected.

If you can’t figure out, the panther is me. Keith is the prey. The last stanza gives it a finality. Or rather, a fatality.

Until my heart has fed deeply
Upon your pain,
And my eyes have seen
Your heart
Broken at my feet

Speak not to me,
For the Panther prowls...

Satisfied with what I’d written, I typed it up, then drove to Keith’s house. I put the printed page in his mailbox and drove away, thinking that he was out of my life forever. Forever is such a fickle word. As you read above, the threads of our lives would be woven together once again.

Eventually Keith calmed enough that I could draw is both inside and closed the door. I continued to hold him, but loosened my embrace as his weakened. I kissed his neck, told him it would be okay. That word never came up, was never spoken by him or me. I pulled back so I could see his face. The brilliant emerald green eyes I loved were darkened, muddy. My hand brushed away some of his tears and I kissed him on the lips, cautiously at first, then with more passion as he responded.

I suggested he stay the night. He was exhausted and could use a friend. He agreed. We headed to my bedroom, both of us removing our clothes before climbing in my bed. That night we made love. The sort of desperate passion that we both needed to express. No condoms, because I knew they weren’t necessary any more. I had seen my fate in his eyes and accepted it for what it was.

In the morning Keith told me that he had to go to work. I told him to call me or just drop by afterward if he wanted to talk. He said okay, then walked out the door and my life. I would never see or hear from him again.

When Keith didn’t contact me, I decided to call him at work the next day. His manager told me that Keith had not been in, hadn’t given a reason. I went by his place, but his car wasn’t there. That night I dropped by the bar and asked Silver if she’d seen him. She said the last time she’d noticed him there he looked pretty sick. I then asked his roommate, the emcee for the drag show, if he knew where Keith was. He informed me that all of Keith’s things were gone. No note, nothing to indicate where he went.

I cried more when I got home. I knew where he would have gone - back home to his family in Georgetown. He must have accepted the truth of his illness and hoped they would help him through it. I wrote the following, that night. February 22, 1987. One day before Keith’s 24th birthday.

Forget the Rainbows

Oh, how oft have I reached out
To touch the distant stars?
And what number the times that I
Have watched the dreams drift by,
Or chased the pretty rainbows
That lead one to bountiful gold?

Well, forget the rainbows,
Look not upon their false beauty,
And grasp not for hopes
That slide between fingers
Like the fading fog they are.

Turn away from the heavens,
And the lies they cast down
To taunt our mortal lives.

Oh, how can I forget the rainbows,
When they are all I have,
Though I have them not?

You guessed it. I cried some more. A lot more. I hoped he’d come back, that he’d let me care for him. Again, I wasn’t important. He was. I had seen and read enough about AIDS to know what he - and I - would be up against. If I could ease his suffering by being at his side, it’s what I’d do for him.

In the meantime, I got tested and verified that I had been infected. Two days before I got the results, I met Kenneth. Very long story short, he and I were together for almost thirteen years. When the web was born in 1993, and as search engines became prominent, I started looking for anything about Keith. No luck. Of course, the amount of information was nothing like it is today. But every once in a while I’d see if there was anything at all. Anything. Even if it was an obituary. As the futility became apparent, I looked less frequently.

In 2000, the relationship with Kenneth ended abruptly. Ironically, it was February, though not quite thirteen years after that last night with Keith. A few months earlier I had been diagnosed with AIDS, still not on meds, still not sick.

In March, I finally found Keith, or at least learned that he was no longer alive. The social security death index does not list people who died less than ten years prior. Kenneth’s departure from my life was timely. I was more saddened to learn that Keith had passed away just three years after that night than I was with the breakup.

Three years later I finally found an obituary, part of a list of obits from the Gatesville Messenger posted to a genealogy site. From it I learned that he’d been born in Waco and his life ended in Austin. I also learned that he wasn’t “the Third” - his father’s name was Al. I’d met his mother Wanda and his younger brother Michael one weekend when he and I made a trip up to Austin in 1986. His ashes were interred in a cemetery near Turnersville, Texas.

My sister Nicole had taken over doing our family genealogy. I called her to see if she could possibly find Keith’s parents. She asked me to email her the names. Three and a half hours later she emailed back: mailing address and phone number for Alwin Harris in Georgetown, TX.

I sat on that information for two months, pondering whether I should call. Keith had been gone for fourteen years a that point. Would his father or mother still be alive? Would they want to be reminded of their gay son who died of AIDS?

January 2004 I had left my long-term job at Texas A&M. I decided to call. A woman answered - I didn’t know if it was his mother, Wanda, or somebody else. I identified myself, then said that I knew Keith many years ago. She pointed out that he had passed away in 1990; I told her I was aware of that. I just wanted his family to know he was a good man at heart. I asked how he died, since the obituary didn’t state that. She told me flat out “He died of AIDS. I was sitting by his side, holding his hand when he passed. How could I do anything else - he was my son.”

So it was Wanda that I’d spoken with. I told her that I’d visit his grave when I could, and thanked her. I tried to strongly imply that I wanted to get a photograph of Keith, since I had none, but to no avail.

I was busy packing not only for a trip to Italy but to move to Austin immediately after I returned to the states. I didn’t have time to go find the cemetery that year, but made a promise to myself to do so in 2005.

Well, February 23, 2005 came. It would have been Keith’s 42nd birthday. Ironic that I’d last seen him just before his 24th - a transposition of the numbers.

Weather reports all stated 75% chance of sever thunderstorms all day between Austin and Turnersville. Great. The thought of trudging through a cemetery in the rain, mud everywhere, had visions of corpses dancing in my head. Not of the corpses dancing, mind you, just popping up through the mud like in Poltergeist. But I promised I’d do it for Keith.

I drove, eyes wary of dark clouds. It was a beautiful, sunny day. Blue skies, light wispy clouds, temperature in the low 70’s the entire drive. Very surreal. So much for the meteorologist’s predictions.

I find the cemetery and start searching for Keith’s tombstone. It’s a rather small cemetery and within half an hour I’d seen all the graves - but not Keith’s. I stop and - feeling silly being all alone on such a beautiful day with nothing but the dead to keep me company - vocalize my thought. “Alright, Keith. Where are you? Show yourself - wait, you don’t have to do that, just give me a sign so I can find you.”

Just then I heard a bird squawking at me to my left. I turned to see a mocking bird flapping its wings in the dirt, glaring at me like I had offended it somehow. “Go away, dumb bird. There’s nothing over there. Let me look again.”

Half an hour later I was back to that same spot. Exasperated, I once again spoke my thoughts out loud. “Keith, please don’t make me go into Turnersville to ask the hicks where you are. It’s none of their business.”

There had been no wind, not even a slight one, the entire time I was out there, but after I spoke, a gentle breeze blew aside a fake Poinsettia in a plant holder for a stone marker. I saw the letters “ITH” exposed. I walked over, stunned at the coincidence, and removed the plastic bouquet. There it was - Keith’s grave. I laughed - I’d been standing right next to it when the mockingbird mocked me. I had to chuckle more - if Keith were to come back as anything, that bird would have fit him perfectly.

I finally had the chance to say things that I hadn’t been able to before. I apologized for that hateful poem. I forgave him for infecting me and for sleeping around. And I told him I loved him, missed him, and was sad that he was gone.

I drove home with the sun still shining, not a drop of rain in sight. In fact, the weather almanac shows there was, at most, a slight drizzle in both Austin and Turnersville that day.

The mockingbird and the breeze and the sunshine were all just coincidences. We all know you can’t trust the weatherman, right? Maybe I hadn’t noticed the wind before because I was so focused on finding Keith’s grave. And the bird might have been arguing with a worm. But for me, I prefer to think that it was all because Keith was happy that I had finally come to see him, and did whatever he could to help me find where his ashes lay. That’s the curse of being a romantic.

Everything I do for the AIDS community I do for him. Because of him. The person I am today was born the moment I opened my arms in his hour of need. When I transformed from a selfish child to a selfless man.

I still miss you, Keith. And yet, no matter the years that have gone, or the years yet to come, you will always be a part of my life. Part of me.