Celebrating Pride, I am reminded of courage Slight, gentle man — who was terrified of spiders — was the embodiment of bravery
This is a time when we collectively celebrate Gay Pride. It’s a time when I privately celebrate something called Gay Courage.
To tell you about it, I have to tell you about Simon and his partner Jonathan — both, like always, made up names and, to some extent, composite stories.
The stories come from a part of my brain called “Lessons from Patients.” It’s a big file, right up there beside kids’ birthdays, recipes, favourite movies, books, writers and TV shows, guidelines for prostate and cardiovascular disease (I’m pretty much my only patient now), my wife’s favourite perfume. It’s pretty full, like a crowded attic. The older you get, the more crowded the attic gets. Let’s back up a bit. I grew up in a time when “gay” meant “happy” and “partner” was somebody in a law firm. When we saw gay people at all, it was through the lens of old stereotypes, now thankfully gone, at least for the most part.
Simon and Jonathan came to me for couple counselling, in the process giving me their first lesson: couple counselling for same sex couples is almost 100 per cent the same as for opposite-sex couples.
The issue was Jonathan’s truck driver lifestyle, which sometimes made Simon, who worked at home as a webmaster, feel second rate.
They solved it pretty quickly when I suggested they switch chairs and “play” each other for 10 minutes. They got into it fast — Jonathan taking on the role of the stay-athome spouse, working hard on a dinner only to see it go cold by nine at night.
For his part, Simon, all five-foot-one of him, playing the macho six-foot-four truck driver, hauling a semi across the country, drinking with his buddies. Their shared humour saved them: in the midst of pretty intense sessions, one of them would crack up, joined by his partner, and despite his best efforts, the erstwhile GP-therapist.
Simon, as I said was slight, his wrists the size of some guys’ thumbs; they seemed more expressive than other men’s. He was gentle, a precise dresser. He was easily frightened. He hated spiders for example, running from a room if he saw one. He was the bravest man I ever met. Long after the couple counselling, I finally convinced them to have HIV testing.
Both were positive (“That’s a relief,” Jonathan said, “We can fight this thing together.”) Simon’s had progressed however: his T4 count (the tiny troops who fight off infections) had been decimated by the virus, morphing into AIDS more rapidly than any of us wanted.
Within weeks, Simon’s disease had involved his lungs; he was blinded by a virus invading both his retinas; and his skin was marked by raised, disfiguring purple lesions called Kaposi’s sarcoma. It was the trifecta of AIDS in the ’90s. Soon enough, despite advances in therapy and the care of a team (our own clinic staff, an excellent public health nurse and home care) he was dying, at home.
I remember my last visit there. I want you to remember it, too. There was a crowd in their little living room — Jonathan, the home-care nurse, one of our resident doctors-in-training, another home-care worker. Simon lying on a couch, his shirt off, perspiring, his ribs prominent, much frailer even than the week before. Just outside the room stood Death, invisible but waiting. After we talked for a bit, Simon called me over for a private talk, wanting to whisper in my ear. What? I thought. A deathbed confession? A secret? A revelation?
“Doc?” he asked, “What’s he wearing to- day?” By “he” Simon meant Jonathan.
“Um, a kind of red shirt with birds on it I think, and blue suspenders, Simon. The pants are, I don’t know, kind of plaid.”
I f ailed to mention his socks: dayglow lime. They probably lit up at night.
“I got a favour, Doc. When I’m dead, you know, when they lay me out? Make sure he doesn’t dress me, would you? The guy has f---ing zero fashion sense. I’ll look like a f--ing clown, with a f---ing red nose on and those big f---ing shoes; they won’t even be able to close the f---ing coffin lid!” (Simon used f--- like writers use punctuation.)
Through his sightless eyes, he had found his partners’. I could see his chest contract with a little laugh, then, joined by his lover ’s, a massive, belly laugh erupted, convulsing his too-thin abdomen.
They had planned this. Soon all of us were laughing, half the observers in the room not knowing what had happened. Simon and Jonathan had given me my second lesson.
Simon was laughing at Death, the man in the doorway. For a minute or two, a minute filled with the laughter of lovers and strangers, I am sure that man backed away, temporarily defeated by Simon, the bravest man I ever knew.
I got a favour, Doc. When I’m dead, you know, when they lay me out? Make sure he doesn’t dress me, would you?