Remembering Brad: On the Loss of a Son to AIDS (7 page)

AUGUST 11, 1978: I am confused and very concerned about my relationship to the church. It’s increasingly hard for me to continue to attend. It’s so boring. I tell myself that I should try to find the good in the talks and discussions, but I’m tired of the endless repetition of the same themes, the same ideas. It makes me sick inside.

I’m tired of worrying about how sinful the “natural man” in me is. I’m tired of feeling ashamed of my body and feeling dirty when the word sex is mentioned. I’m tired of associating with peers who feel the same way. I’m tired of worrying about heaven when I’m not through with living yet. It sometimes seems like they want us all dead with so much incessant talk of sin and death and heaven. I’m tired of fearing a wrathful God who is always angry or pitying or weeping over me….

Sex is giving me so many problems. Sometimes I feel so horny I could scream! (I’ll get sued for the stuff I write in here.) Man, I don’t understand sex at all. But it’s stupid to say that, because I do understand it quite well. What I don’t understand is how much is morally wrong. I’m just not sure any more.

I want so much to hold somebody. I want some one to love. But isn’t this funny. I want physical contact so much, yet when Mom placed her hand on mine in a simple gesture the other day, I almost jerked mine away from force of habit. I had to smile. I’ve conditioned myself to reject such physical contact, no matter from whom and no matter how simple.

Girls become more and more appealing as the days go by, and that’s frustrating. But I still keep an eye on the guys.

AUGUST 15, 1978: My parents are so good and caring. I must admit I don’t envy them their job of parenting me and the others. I wish so badly that they would read what I have written in here, that they would know what I long so badly to tell them about. I’m not positive that they haven’t. I don’t think it would anger me to have them invade my privacy under the circumstances.

Mom asked me tonight what was bothering me, said I’d reverted to my gloomy self the past four days, that I haven’t been like this since I came home from Michigan. Dad came along and expressed a similar concern. Mom made the comment that I might find them more understanding than I would have expected. We do talk so much together about so many things, and fairly candidly, but there are some things I just don’t know if they could accept, or if they did accept, if they could really understand. But her comment about that, or perhaps the way she said it, makes me wonder if they have read this and know about all the confusion I feel.

I don’t hide my journals. They sit out openly on my desk. I don’t invite anyone to read them and for the most part expect everyone to leave them alone—honor system. Whether that has been done is the question.

AUGUST 29, 1978: I often find myself feeling that one of these mornings I’ll wake up and know the secret of life, the key to my happiness. I have to laugh at myself. It’s funny how strong the feeling—or perhaps the “need” for that to happen—is. I wait in a state of great anticipation. Ha! Perhaps I’ll publish my findings.

SEPTEMBER 5, 1978: Dad and we older boys and [Uncle] Ron Schow went backpacking over the weekend in the Tetons. We hiked up to Alaska Basin and then down to Jenny’s Lake. It was beautiful. But I am so sore I can hardly walk. I move like an old man. We had some interesting discussions while there in the mountains. We talked about science and religion, art and morals, what is sin, what is repentance. We discussed which is more important—a scientific understanding of God’s works or simply a spiritual and emotional understanding. Needless to say, they were good topics and we had some interesting differing views.

SEPTEMBER 28, 1978: I go back occasionally and read over some of my earlier entries. I am surprised at how many of them relate to sex, to my feelings of frustration and many questions about it. But again tonight it is the pressing topic. For me, homosexuality has become less and less that horrible, frightening thing which it seems to so many straight people—like my father. For me it is no longer a question of evil versus good, Satan versus the plan of salvation, etc. but rather a question of a fulfilling life style. What is going to help me most to become the person and the child of God I believe I have the potential to become. For my father, the whole issue is cut and dried; there are no doubts. But people like him do not see the struggle and the variables … . I persist in the idea that some day I will marry a woman I love and will raise a family with her. It will be most important to me for her and my sons/daughters to understand all that I am, including that which helped to mold me. For them to know this will require that they know all aspects of my being, not just what they might prefer to know. I will never marry a woman who is incapable of understanding this part of my life and how it shaped me. But I swear that if I do marry, all thoughts of homosexuality will be put away, not hidden, not forgotten, but put away.

I have not yet met a guy who would be able to help me study and learn about this part of me. I don’t know that I ever will. If and when I do in the next few years find such a friend, I am unsure just what my response will be. I am not looking for a simple fling but rather for someone who truly cares for me and I for him—or her. I want and need someone to love, to hold, to share my world with. I feel that need so acutely now.

I’ve told no one about these feelings. It is only here in these pages I’ve placed this confidence. A few of my friends might have a hunch based on our talks: if so, they have neither turned against me nor offered support. But whether they know is uncertain.

For me, homosexuality has the potential to be immoral and sinful, but at the same time it has, like heterosexuality, the potential to be meaningful, righteous, healthy, and fruitful if one chooses to make it so. It all depends on how it is used.

OCTOBER 11, 1978: Last night there was a show on PBS about homosexuals. I wanted to watch but was concerned about what the rest of the family would say and think. I watched it regardless. Mom walked by and overheard some of the program dialogue. She stayed awhile and watched but said nothing. When the others were finished watching the world series downstairs, I took their place and watched the rest of the show. Whether anyone was watching it upstairs I couldn’t say.

I knew Mom would want to say something to me about the show today, but I knew there wouldn’t be many ways to do so. She managed by just asking me what I thought of it. Dad happened by, and we were off on a discussion of that taboo subject. I couldn’t believe we were saying openly the things we were saying. Dad and Mom both agreed to what they’ve said before about it: that it’s a sterile, nonproductive sort of relationship, one in which one has to give up too many satisfying rewards available to heterosexuals—family, social life, etc.

As the discussion progressed I really pushed for my side, that homosexuality is a good thing in most cases. I had what I considered strong arguments. At one point I asked Dad what he would do or say or feel if one of his sons were gay. He said he would feel sad for us, would weep for us because of all the things we would miss. Mom asked me (I knew it would be her) in so many words if I was or could be. I thought I would die. Time to think fast. Don’t say yes, don’t say no, say…? I don’t know what I am. I told them (in so many words) that I would not run from it if the right chance came along; I made them aware that the possibility was there.

I can’t believe we did it. I can’t believe that I told them what I did. I can’t believe that it happened. They didn’t scream, yell, rant, cry, nothing. We just went on talking about it.

This is a very sketchy outline of a two-hour conversation. It was all calm and interesting to each of us, I think. I don’t believe it happened. I feel only very quiet now.

It’s quite ironic that later this evening we (Mom, Dad, and I) went to see Francois Truffaut’s “The Man Who Loved Women.” It is the story of a man obsessed with women of all kinds. He is in love with them all. It was a
good
movie.

OCTOBER 12, 1978: I feel so weary. I’m tired of always worrying about morals, God, salvation, myself, girls, guys, gays, family, school, etc. Not so much worrying but so much contemplation. I need a vacation from myself.

OCTOBER 13, 1978: Every once in a while I come down to my room, close the door, and then stand in the middle and just look around–slowly. I soak in all the things that are here. They are vital parts of me: the posters on the walls, the books which are everywhere, the antiques, the fern and other plants, the cartoons and pictures and sayings that clutter my bulletin board, the mobile of bi-planes, the spider hanging from the ceiling, the witch Mom made for me last Christmas. They all blend into what I am. They tell all about me. Someone who had never seen or heard of me before could come down here and know so much of what there is to learn about me. I find myself wanting to preserve it all, to keep it for my children to see and understand. I guess I come to look at it because it helps reassure me that I am somebody, that I am different from everyone else, that I am me. It fills me with a good feeling, with peace to come here, to be with just these things, myself, and the quiet.

NOVEMBER 5, 1978: I feel so rebellious lately. I just want out of here. Now! Nothing’s stopping me but myself, but I’ve got to make the break soon or I will go crazy! Mom says that ever since I was small I’ve never been satisfied with the present. I always tend to live in the past or, more so, the future. I always want to be somewhere else, and then I get there and want to be somewhere else again. Maybe she’s right.

NOVEMBER 12, 1978: I do find girls attractive and sexually exciting. However, it seems to be in a different way, for different reasons. (That stands to reason, doesn’t it. Ha!) But for other than obvious reasons, I mean. I watch women, girls, even very young ones as an artist would, or a photographer; I am fascinated, held by their grace and diverse beauty. I study them; I dream about them sometimes (but more often about guys). I have paintings, watercolors, photographs, drawings of them hanging in my room. But always my relationship and feelings toward them are distant, characteristic of an observer.

I find when on dates with them, I am afraid and feel somewhat intimidated. Not because they are necessarily overbearing but because I feel expected to fulfill a macho role that I have no inclination to fulfill, at least not with them. I don’t think I’ve ever gone out with a girl I felt strongly attracted to, even though many have been good looking. Something was always missing. Women creep into my fantasies more and more lately. The other night I lay in bed “daydreaming” away, and suddenly the thought occurred to me, “My gosh, what am I becoming, some kind of heterosexual?”

Something I’ve begun to realize more and more is that it would be very difficult to suddenly drop a gay relationship to become a married heterosexual. I have expressed my desire before for raising a family, sharing my life with a woman I love as my wife. But up to this point I thought that it would be possible (if fate has it in store) to live with another guy in much the same way until I’m older, say late twenties, early thirties and then get married. But it wouldn’t be so easy. Say I found a guy, like the one I saw last night at the movie, and we did get something going, and just say we did stay together for five or even ten years. You don’t just say, “Well, goodbye, Charlie, I’m going to start dating women now.” You’ve grown accustomed to a lifestyle, to living with and loving a guy, and then automatically you decide to change over to women? No sir, that won’t work. And like any divorce, it would be very traumatic. That is essentially what it would be: a divorce after five or ten years of marriage. One can’t do that, let alone go into a relationship with the idea of certain termination in the future. That won’t work, son.

I have read some fiction in which there is a relationship between two men and a woman. The men are lovers, and the woman is well aware of the fact. She is married to one of them for the social aspects but is in love with both of them and has children by both of them. They all live in a large house on the coast of the Mediterranean. Sounds bizarre, I know. There is also a scene that I did find touching for some reason. The two men are in bed one morning having just awakened, and the children (there are three) come bounding into the room and romp with them. The children see nothing wrong with the two men in bed together or the fact that they have two daddies. Their mother comes in and the “family” talks together in the same way I remember doing with my parents when I was small.

But even as I write that, in the back of my mind I think, no Brad, it wouldn’t work that way. Perhaps in books but not for real, however much you’d like it to. And then also there are concerns such as what effect such an arrangement would have on the children in their later lives and their own sexuality. It might mold them in a way that would be unfair to them. It might not do that, but the chance would always be there and couldn’t be taken.

NOVEMBER 28, 1978: Homosexuality. It’s such a loaded word. No–the word itself means nothing. It only takes on meaning after our minds add associations, taboos, attractions, religion, etc. It all seems so stupid to me sometimes. I think: “What’s the big deal. Why get uptight about the whole matter. Shouldn’t people just be able to love in a way they feel comfortable with?” More and more I think that it doesn’t (shouldn’t) make any difference to God or to what goes on after this life. It just all seems relative in the long run. What I mean by that is hard to explain.

For the past few weeks I’ve been thinking about all the negative aspects (there are many) and positive aspects (there are many here too). They seem to relate to two entirely different worlds. The conclusion I come to is that even though I may feel what I feel and be hopeful for the good in a gay relationship, the homosexual couple or single is fighting a losing battle all the way down the road.

One has several choices. You could stay independent, single, go for the one-night stands, brief relationships, and sure, maybe some excitement, maybe a lot of it. But then all you have ahead of you is to become a randy old fag who’s lost his looks and nobody wants. All that is really left then are many years of loneliness. The alternative is to find a permanent lover, establish a long time relationship, settle down and share your lives together, and probably be very happy. But the problem is that very few gay relationships are able to hold together for lack of helpful glue, such as children, a socially recognized marriage, etc. But then say you do stay together in spite of this. What you have to look forward to as you grow older is still the prospect of loneliness, for you have no children, and if one of you should die there is no way to establish your rights to your mutual property because your relationship is not recognized under the law. So unless there are understanding relatives on the dead one’s side, kiss it all goodbye or be prepared to drag your lifestyle into the courts.