Remembering Brad: On the Loss of a Son to AIDS (19 page)

“What kind of support system did you have?” people have since asked her. The fact is, almost no one knew what she was enduring. Of the few family members and friends in whom she had confided, most were not nearby or were seriously troubled by the socio-religious-health aspects of the situation as they perceived them. There were no organized groups in the community at that time to assist people confronting homosexuality or AIDS. Even I was not there sufficiently to share her load.

Incredibly, I was still trying to carry on business as usual, taking care of most of my faculty responsibilities, not telling anyone in the department about things at home, keeping up minimally with church duties. And I continued to do this until almost the end of Brad’s life. Some of us are creatures of our training to such an extent that we do not even ask if there is any virtue in continuing to pull in harness. Not that I was detached from what was happening at home. But why didn’t I see at the time that I could give myself permission to miss some working hours and to let others assume my church tasks?

Perhaps that was my way of coping. Clinging to the reassuring familiarity of the daily round was my informal support system, a feeble attempt to hold absurdity at bay. But near the end this subconscious strategy was not enough. I remember during the last week of Brad’s life being so full of grief that I broke my closeted silence. “My son is in the hospital; he is dying,” I told one of my longtime colleagues. I fought back tears. He was so surprised, and so full of compassion for me. It had not occurred to us that our friends would understand and stand by us.

After Mike’s marriage in August, he left with his bride to live in Boise, and we saw them infrequently. Ted departed for Uruguay in early September. About the middle of October, Roger resigned his position as office manager of a small manufacturing firm in Santa Barbara and came home to be with the three of us. His intent was partly to buoy up Mom and Dad, partly to take his leave of Brad, his brother closest in age and boyhood experience. For him this was a family thing, and he wanted to be involved.

When we moved to 20th Street in late May, Brad occupied a bedroom on the second floor. He felt no enthusiasm for the new house, partly because he preferred places with some history or antiquity, even more perhaps because in the final months of his life he wanted to be surrounded by a familiar environment. We did not yet have a landscaped yard, and there were still unfinished interior details about the house. I believe he felt, after we moved, as if he were camping.

This uprootedness was not lessened when in late July his aching legs could no longer negotiate stairs without difficulty. His second floor bedroom was problematic, but the main floor possibilities were limited. There was only a sun room connected by French doors to the dining room. The former was not large, but it was light, and it had the further virtue of being sufficiently close to the living area so that Brad could occupy it without being cut off from the life of the household. So we set about organizing it as a bedroom, fitting its numerous windows with louvered blinds, installing an air conditioner. The brick-faced tromb wall, with its thermal mass, provided effective sound insulation from household noise.

In an effort to make his days pleasurable, we set up a TV in his room, brought in some books by Mann, Marquez, and Faulkner, and subscribed to
The New Yorker
,
The Nation
,
Vanity Fair
, and
Atlantic
. But he found little satisfaction in reading during those last few months. He could not focus or sustain his attention: I do not know if that was because his illness wearied him and drained his concentration, or if as the sand of his life ran out the ideas and issues of those books and periodicals simply lacked relevance. As for television, which as an adult he had not watched much anyway, I thought he might find some programs to pass his time. It engaged him almost not at all. “I can’t stand watching one more nature program,” he said in summary.

A year earlier I had urged him to write about what was happening to him. I knew that he had raw talent, that he was a keen ironist as well as a good observer. I thought writing might be something for him to look forward to each day and that, if it engaged him intensely, it might offer some detachment. But the compulsion was not in him. It came as a somewhat disillusioning revelation that this young man with such strong literary and aesthetic interests found so little consolation in them at the last.

But there was one activity that, surprisingly, did occupy him in the final months. He purchased a short wave radio, and during the long nights when he could not sleep he listened to a variety of overseas broadcasts. In the morning he was pleased to tell me of the far-flung places and issues he had encountered. I have not fully grasped why this interested him so.

Eventually we all came to the point of acknowledging that time was short, that what remained was at most a matter of several weeks. We were kept sane by the intensified demands of nursing: food, water, medication, clothing and bedding changes, bathing, massage, conversation about practical matters, consultations with physicians and other healthcare people. As long as there are demands, one responds.

But this was inevitably the culmination of the year-long summing up process. A letter Brad wrote in November to Joyce Parsons, a friend from his school years, captures the mood. Living in Arizona, Joyce heard from friends that Brad was ill, and she wrote to him a note of concern, delicately avoiding direct mention of AIDS.

“Dear Joyce,” he responded,

Your card was, as you said, a surprise but a very nice one, near enough to my birthday to be like an unexpected present.

It’s funny that you should have written just now. I have talked with my mother many times recently about you and about how much the childhood years spent on South 9th with you (especially), also the friendship from high school and college, have meant to me. I have been completing a scrapbook and had cut out that wonderful picture of you at the Poky tricycle races from the old yearbook. It was a favorite of mine and deserves a place in my book. And too, I would like you and James to know that I think of your reception often. Your wedding and garden party afterward were delightful, exactly what I would have wanted had I married.

Unfortunately, this is now closed to me. I was diagnosed with AIDS in July of last year, the result of my profligate life in Los Angeles. Most likely I have been carrying the virus several years since my departure, but it came as no real surprise. In November ’85 I was admitted to the hospital with pneumocystis pneumonia (common in AIDS patients). Ten days in intensive care, subsequent recovery, a short remission of the disease, and then rapid decline. I have been living at home with my parents since my diagnosis. Things at this point are quite difficult. Although I have been lucky to have suffered less than some patients and have experienced tremendous, almost incredible, support from my family and friends, quality in my life at this point is basically nonexistent. My body endures, it seems, only to suffer, and I am at a loss to understand the usefulness of this. I hope and pray to die soon, and although I feel some ambivalence about this, I do not feel afraid but look forward to death’s tranquil peace.

I hope my telling you about this does not seem inappropriate. I tell you because I have spent much time during the past year in reflection on my life, and I find that I am delighted to have known you. You played an important part in my story, and somehow I feel that connection is not going to be broken.

As I said, it was wonderful to hear from you. I hope you and James are happy and content. So it sounds. I think of you often with affection.

Love, Brad

Several weeks later when Brad’s ordeal ended, we were left to deal with the aftermath and to try to regain our equilibrium. I remember so vividly, now after five years, my feelings relative to his passing: death seemed so awesome, so outrageous, so terribly final, yet under the circumstances so welcome. Like Brad, we were ready to regard it as a blessed release for him, and no doubt for us as well. Though you would like to think your feelings are entirely selfless and focused on your loved one, in the last days when death is inevitable you anticipate the lifting of the burden. But you do not think of that when your son is lying there in the final throes of dying. I remember yet how, on returning home from the hospital that night after one o’clock, it was like coming numbly into a vast emptiness.

Following death, practical arrangements must be made, details attended to. It is not a time when one feels like seeing to them. There is (usually) a public ritual that must be gotten through, a communal process that sums up a life and allows those who remain to express their grief formally. We had pressing decisions to make relative to this process, but they did not lead to the post-mortem rituals characteristically practiced in our religious community.

When we spoke of these arrangements with Brad late in his life, he was adamant that he wanted neither a public announcement of his death nor a funeral service. That seemed sad to me, almost a denial of his existence. Perhaps he saw it also in that light and preferred it for that reason. He was still not willing to announce in his home town, even indirectly, that he was homosexual, that his life had finally come to this. At least that was the inference I drew. And when I remonstrated that we were proud of him, that we wanted his life acknowledged, and urged him to give his consent, he would not relent. “Maybe you could just have a happy wake here at home with a few friends,” he allowed finally. I am absolutely certain he did not want to have a Mormon funeral, at which in the end the last word would be pronounced by someone who would find his identity unacceptable.

Our dilemma was compounded by the fact that we had been so close-mouthed about his illness. How could we now respect Brad’s express requests and still communicate these developments to others in a suitable way? Though it was not an ideal solution, we decided to send a letter to relatives and friends. In all, we sent out roughly two hundred and fifty letters, as follows:

Dear Friends,

We are writing this to let you know that Brad, our eldest son, passed away on Friday, December 5. Prior to his death he asked that there be no public announcement of the fact and that there be no funeral; we intend to honor these requests. But since you are among those who care for him and for us, we want you to know something of the circumstances of a life which ended prematurely.

There were several physical conditions that contributed to Brad’s demise, all of which are traceable to an undermined immune system. He had AIDS, a fact of which he and we became aware in the summer of 1985. He had returned that June from his studies at Utah State University to assist us in the construction of a new home. As it turned out, he was not able to join in our family carpentry, but during the next year and a half, while he was living with us, he shared with us a far more significant experience, one that expanded our awareness and changed our lives.

Following an appendectomy in that first month, his condition worsened through the summer and fall. In October pneumocystis pneumonia crept on him, confirming definitively the AIDS diagnosis. Early in November he spent two weeks in the intensive care unit, where he very nearly died. But outstanding medical care and the support and prayers of friends and loved ones, together with his own renewed will to live, helped him to survive. There was then a period of remission during which he gained weight and strength and made plans for the future. He took a course at ISU during spring semester, though often he was, in fact, feeling too miserable for it; still determined, he took another course during the early summer and finished it sheerly on will power. Meanwhile, the remission had ended in April, and his suffering recommenced and steadily intensified. AIDS is indeed a formidable antagonist; he fought it to the best of his ability, courageously. In the process he learned
—
and we learned vicariously
—
what it means to have a vigorous healthy body dismantled, ounce by ounce, nerve by nerve.

You could not call him lucky, but he was at least more fortunate than some AIDS victims. He did not develop Kaposi Sarcoma, the skin cancer that often occurs with AIDS; though he lost the sight in one eye toward the end and experienced occasional limited paralysis and, of course, dramatic loss of weight and strength, his mind remained alert and clear virtually to the end.

The extra year granted him after his near death in November 1985 was a beneficial gift to him as well as to us. He did not fully understand the necessity of the added suffering he experienced, nor do we, but he profited from the time to sort out and evaluate much in his personal philosophy. We will not forget the conversations we had as the days and nights passed. That year encompassed a time of profound emotional and spiritual significance for all of us.

Brad’s last week was spent in the hospital after it became impossible for us to provide for his medical needs and his comfort at home. The end was not easy, but there were some periods of tranquility for him during the last several days. We were with him when he died. He had wished to be cremated, and so we helped to prepare him and to dress him in the clothing he had chosen. At that point we stood as a family around his hospital bed and thanked God for the gift of Brad’s life among us.

We are very proud of our son and of the courage and integrity with which he faced the difficult circumstances of his life. In this we refer not only to his terminal illness but also to the fact of his homosexuality, of which we have known for some eight years. Our experience during that time has taught us that society generally and organized religions in particular have much to answer for in their treatment of homosexual men and women. We earnestly pray that our own church as well as others will come to regard these people with greater tolerance, accepting in the spirit of Christian love those whom God has so created.

We said at the outset that Brad died prematurely; that is true only in a narrow sense. In the larger perspective, we perceive a completeness within the span of his twenty-eight years. He managed to live intensely, to burn brightly while he was among us. We feel his experience will be immensely beneficial for those who have known him and for others who will come to know indirectly what he stood for. But mostly we believe his experience will be valuable to him as he now goes on to continue his eternal progression. At the time of his death, as we contemplated the features of a face sharpened by starvation, his mother said, “He looks like an eagle, and now he is soaring beautifully.”