The envelope was slim and unadorned. I recognized the postmark, but I hadn't heard from anyone in that little Minnesota town for quite some time.
I opened it, and a small slip of folded newspaper fell out. It was an obituary.
My one time boyfriend, Scott, was dead at 29. I held the paper in my hands and turned it over and over, trying to makes sense of the two phrases that jumped out at me: "complications related to Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome" and "David __, his long-time companion."
You see, I once had teenage dreams of being Scott's long-time companion. It was 1978, we were in high school, we were 15, and we were in love. What I didn't know, and what Scott himself had not yet acknowledged, was that Scott was gay. And even though his obituary listed "AIDS" as his cause of death, I knew in my heart this was a suicide, the result of a life-long wish to leave a world that was so hostile to him.
Numerous studies suggest that among lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) youth, approximately 32 per cent contemplate or attempt suicide (compared to seven per cent of all youth). But researchers and LGB advocates say it's not their sexuality that leads these kids down a suicidal path - it's the stigma and discrimination they face in a heterosexual world.
"You learn that everything about you is wrong and hated," says Rosemary Hardwick, chair and educator for the Toronto Suicide Information Alliance. "You internalize homophobia. You're constantly monitoring everything about you, trying to pass as 'normal.
Better dead than queer: Youth suicide and discrimination in a heterosexual world
Scott tried hard to make his young life "normal," and for awhile, I had a front row seat. Watching his struggles, loving Scott, and learning from Scott, has helped me try to be one small instrument of change so that other kids can find a different road than the painful one he traveled.
I'm one of those people who believe in love-at-first-sight, because it happened to me--it was even a love before first sight. I was part of an exchange program that was popular for awhile in the late 70's and early 80's that took kids from different parts of the USA, and from different environments, and sent them to live for a semester in another town very different from their own hometown--- sort of an early red state/blue state exchange. My paperwork and essays and stuff about my personality, and my pictures, had already been forwarded to the tiny Minnesota town of about 2,500 people where I'd spend the next 6 months.
Everyone told me that from the first time they opened my packet, they knew Scott and I would be a match. "Wait till you meet Scott!" I was told even at the airport, not an hour after arriving, suitcases and ticket stubs still in hand.
The town held an ice-cream social to welcome me, with a big banner printed with my name and all. Yes, it was that kind of small town--picture Mayberry, but with lutefisk and Lutherans instead of biscuits and Baptists. I was being introduced to all kinds of folks when I saw this gorgeous guy--honey blonde hair in that perfect 70's feathering, big brown eyes, and an animated smile as he talked. Someone grabbed my arm and said--you've got to meet Scott--he's been waiting to meet you since we got your personality profile--and led me right to the object of my admiration. We just stood and grinned at each other--I swear, it felt like recognition and reunion more than anything else.
We were inseparable from the beginning and a couple by the end of the first two weeks. We continued to be an item throughout my whole stay. Six months later, there was heartbreak and tears when I had to get back on the plane for New York, and lots of promises to write.
There were very few clues that he was gay. We were romantic, held hands and kissed, but that was about it--but then again, we were only 15, I was a pretty innocent kid, and we were seldom alone. I wasn't expecting more. Now and then he'd joke about a previous girlfriend (who glared jealously at me from the corner of Spanish class) who had offered to "put out" and how he had turned her down--but he made it seem that she was too unattractive--when in reality none of us had yet figured out that he was not going to be attracted--- to any female.
Life had been hard emotionally for Scott early on. He was the youngest kid, an "oops" baby born late into a bad marriage, and his older brothers were grown & moved out of the house by the time Scott was ten.. His father owned a garage and fixed cars in that isolated, rural, working-class town. His mom had died when he was in 8th grade from a brain hemorrhage that happened while Scott was right there in the room. Scott was musical, spiritual, and gifted, playing several instruments, winning piano competitions early on, and playing the organ every Sunday in church. He was popular, and voted class president every year. But none of that pleased his father, who was brisk and uncommunicative with his artistic, sensitive son.
Looking back, it's easy to see why Scott denied that he was gay for so long. There was nothing in his family, in his town, or even in his world that gave him a message that said things would be okay. He was a deeply religious boy whose religion told him he was damned. His first suicide attempt in his freshman year was brushed off by everyone as stunt for attention or an isolated reaction to his mom's death. No one tried to reach out to him. He was an archetype of "born in the wrong place, at the wrong time."
After I left Minnesota, we wrote letters constantly. A new exchange student had arrived in Scott's town--a young man named Ramiro, whom Scott began to write about in increasingly glowing terms.
Perhaps Ramiro, being from South America, was able to show Scott a life outside of the narrow small town mindset--to help him accept a new world view, help him to accept himself..
The letters got more obvious: "Ramiro and I are close--reeeelly close now." I knew what he was saying, even though he never officially said the word "gay," even to me, even in a letter. Scott felt more like a good friend by that point, and I moved on with my high school love life, and in senior year I started dating the man who would become Mr. Brown.
I continued to get letters out of the blue from Scott right through college and beyond, and he was increasingly writing dark, isolated stuff. He seemed drawn to dangerous behaviors, risk taking. There was talk of drugs and alcohol and driving fast. I didn't know how to reach out to him, halfway across the country. After he graduated from college with a double major in music and religion, he moved to a large city and was dabbling in the club life style.
By then it was the late 80's and I'm sure readers on this site know how dangerous it was to be a gay man in a big city living a one-night stand lifestyle.
I don't know exactly when Scott contracted AIDS, but I know it came at a time when the country was still both petrified and paralyzed about the disease. And ironically for Scott, it came at a time when he was getting his own life together; he had met someone special, a doctor named David, and settled outside of Washington DC. They were building a life together.
I will never be convinced that Scott wasn't still on something of a suicide mission in the days before he met David. He couldn't find a warm enough welcome in this world--not from his family, his faith, or from within himself.
Hatred springs from fear, and fear comes from what we don't know. Scott's gift to me was to know someone who had a different sexual orientation, and to know them and love them. I loved this person--so maybe at 15 his being gay meant we were not going to be a long-term romantic couple, but it didn't mean I couldn't love him and be his friend.
We've got to stop homophobia, because it kills our kids. And it kills pieces of ourselves when we hate others because they are different.
I have so much admiration for those who have been public with their sexual orientation--I think you have paved the way to a better life for many people you'll never meet. Would Scott's life have been different if he'd had more roles models, more of a big-world picture, more acceptance? I can't help but hope that we are on the cusp of change for kids like Scott, and that the work we do not just for tolerance, but for full love and acceptance, is the right work.
Through the years, this relationship has been invaluable to me in shaping my attitudes and responses and political views. As a teacher over the past 20 years I've had some kids in classrooms who were gay and out, and many more I'm sure who were gay and frightened. To some measured degree, I can control the classroom environment, respond humanely, and shape a little piece of the world that's a safe and welcoming haven.
It's Scott's gift to me, his legacy. In one of his last letters, after he had met David but before he knew he was sick, Scott sent me a quote he'd found somewhere, "If you open your heart, the love you receive will open your mind."
Scott, dammit, you're my ghost. Haunt me anytime. I hope, where ever you are now, that you see that your life was meaningful.