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There. It was out. I could breathe now. It felt like a bundle of thorns had just been pulled out of my lungs.
My dad leaned forward, eyes back to looking straight ahead, an even deeper sorrow radiating off him as he lifted his fisted hand to his mouth and closed his eyes, as if he were about to start praying. “His name was Eric Handler. He was my best friend since we were three, a kind-hearted soul and the kind of guy who would pick up the phone at any time of the night if you ever needed him.”
I’d never heard of Eric before, and that should have been my first clue as to how this story would unravel.
“He died,” my dad continued. “On his nineteenth birthday. It didn’t feel fair, still doesn’t. It didn’t make any sense. He never told me he was sick. He never told me he was suffering until it was too late, and it all happened so quick.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“He had AIDS. It was in ’82, when it really started to blow up. He was my best friend and never even came out to me, that’s how scared he was. I found out he was gay when I had to look through his things after he died, since his family had already abandoned him. Of course, I had already figured things out before I found the letters between him and his partner. I figured it out as I watched him take his last breath, his body a ravaged husk of what he had been. The disease took him before he could ever live his truth out loud. And it wasn’t just him—it was an entire generation of gay men, and no one in power seemed to be doing any fucking thing about it. The president and his team are laughing about ‘the gay plague,’ doing nothing to help. It seemed like everyone was turning a blind eye to thousands upon thousands of people losing their lives. Eric’s death terrified me, made me angry, made me resentful—it broke me.
“All of those emotions were aimed in the wrong direction, Char. I became homophobic, and I carried that with me for so long. Too long. I blamed him being gay for why he died, an absolutely toxic thought that poisoned me and everything I did.
“And I projected that all on you. My only son. The heart of my life, the reason I work so hard and the reason why I wake up every day. You constantly make me proud, and I never, never, want to do anything that would hurt you—” My dad choked on tears, but he couldn’t stop them from coming. I had only ever seen my dad cry twice before, and both times had been after he smashed his toe against a dresser (one of those times he had actually broken it). I did the first thing that came to me: I reached over and hugged him.
That only made the tears flow harder. And then it all started to hit me, right in the chest, and I couldn’t hold it back either. I felt my dad’s visceral pain at losing his best friend and the terror he felt in not wanting to lose me in the same way. The pain all those men must have felt, and all those who had to bury countless friends, fighting a fight that felt completely in the dark.
And then I thought about all those times my dad forbade sleepovers with guy friends and the times he’d tell me “not to talk like that” or “don’t hold your hand like that” or “don’t sit with your legs crossed like that.” Then there was the time I had secretly expressed interest to another boy in eighth grade, giving him a Valentine’s card, which had somehow found its way straight back to my dad.
That had been an incredibly rough few weeks, and looking back now, it all felt so fucking unnecessary. That’s what hurt the most. We could have had an entirely different bank of memories and experiences—and trust me, I took extra value in the memories I did have.
It took a moment, but we were able to pull ourselves back together. I spoke first, a well of compassion flowing over inside me. “Dad, I love you, all right? Don’t hold on to past mistakes—just hold on to Eric’s memory and honor him. Which is what you’ve been doing. You’ve come full circle, and I don’t doubt you support me. At all.”
My dad’s smile was back, but the sadness in his eyes was still heavy. “You make me so proud, Char. Eric would have spoiled you like crazy as your godfather. He loved giving gifts. Everyone at school was always so happy when they’d find a muffin or a cookie from him on their birthdays. He shouldn’t have gone the way he did.”
