1970s to 2002, White Plains, New York

By Richard S. Ferri

I never really expected to love my father. I mean I loved him in that automatic way a child loves a parent. However, it would be decades before I would finally say, “I love you Dad,” and really mean it. It wasn’t that he was a bad man by any means. He worked hard. He never drank, he put a solid roof over our heads. But I was a problem child, and he simply did not know how to cope with me. I was always sick and in and out of hospitals well into my teens.

As soon as I turned 18 I left home for college, moving from the sleepy little burb I grew up in to Manhattan. He felt betrayed. Why would I need a fancy education and move to a dangerous place like New York since none of my other siblings attempted such foolishness?

The truth was I was gay and suffocating. I wanted out.

No one in my family ever talked about me being gay, but everyone knew. I was the artsy guy who did not play sports and never had a girlfriend. I never tried to fake it, but I kept my silence.

Leaving home in the late 1970s was a wonderful experience for many gay men. The world did not yet know of AIDS and it was amazing to see gay men everywhere. Sex was plentiful and without any fears – or so we thought. Condoms were still kept under lock and key in drug stores, and no gay man I knew ever had one in his apartment.

But this story is not just about sex and being gay. It is about my self imposed exile. It was a different time then. Most gay people did not come out to their families. We simply stayed in the closet or moved away. I choose to move away. My unused and youthful mind thought I would be doing my family a favor. Keeping them out of my private life would be a good thing. It wasn’t.

The first and great lesson of my stupidity was when I fell in love. Real love. Not the giddy and gushing kind. Twenty-four years later we are still coupled and happy, but my parents never knew of their son’s joy. I denied my parents to share in my life, and I regret it.

Fate can yield a harsh reality and confirm horrible fears. AIDS hit and I found out I was infected. I told my brothers and my sister, but never my parents. They were aging poorly and I could not see the point of additional stress. As the years went by I stayed away from my parents when I was sick so questions could not be raised. When I did visit I feared my AIDS medications would be discovered. I would sneak off into the bathroom like a refugee looking to escape and eat my pills. I said a silent prayer each and every time that I did not leave any evidence behind.

Then it all changed. Now my parents were dying. I could no longer stay at a distance. I had to be the son I never really allowed myself to be. My mother failed fast from decades of cigarette smoking. My sister literally put her life and career on indefinite hold to take care of her. My brothers and their wives were taking turns at the various and numerous jobs that needed to be done. I simply could not stay in Manhattan and not due my part.

My mother went into cardiac arrest before any of us could think of it as a real possibility. An EMT intubated her and she was now dying in an intensive care unit of a small hospital in Westchester. She needed to die and we needed to let her go.

As my mother battled machines and bureaucracy I went home and stayed with my father. I told him I would stay as long a necessary. A funny thing happened. We became friends. We took care of each other. We cried a lot about my mother. We stayed up late and drank a lot of wine. One night he quietly asked, “What is your boyfriend’s name?”

“His name is John,” I said, thankful for the mild anesthesia of the wine.

“Does he make you happy?”

“Yes, he does.”

“Then that is all that matters.”

We sat in silence before I placed him in his bed. I leaned forward and whispered, “I love you, dad.” I hope he heard it.

My mother condition worsened and we decided to take her off life support. She would have wanted this and it was truly a last act of love. As the doctor removed her breathing tube my father looked at his wife and uttered, “Good-bye, babe.” My heart broke. Without a moment’s hesitation I fell in love with him all over again.

After the funeral it was time for me to go back home. No matter what age you lose a parent it feels like you have been orphaned. I really didn’t want to leave, but I had a home, a career, and John to get back to. However, I also felt like I was running away. Ditching my new buddy. Ditching my dad.

The weeks went by and we talked and I visited. We had grown to love and like each other as people. We really enjoyed our time together. The unspoken friction was gone.

My dad never mentioned John again. I figured that was the way he wanted it. Then suddenly he died. After 50 years of marriage he simply stopped living, without warning.

After my dad’s funeral my sister thought it would be a good idea to have all our aunts and uncles up to her house for dinner. With our parents gone visits to our small home town would be infrequent, and we did not want them to feel abandoned. More than 30 of us went to my sister’s house in Connecticut, including John. All my relatives fell in love with John, and he is now a part of the family.

I felt blessed and stupid. Here I was an “out” gay man to the entire rest of the world, but I kept my family at bay. I don’t know why I did this but, I did. I suppose I was scared, but I finally realized that fear was based on my own prejudice – not my parents’. I believed that two honest, hard-working people, my parents, would reject their gay son. I was wrong.

In a few short months my brothers and sister lost our parents. It was blindingly painful. In some ways I lost a lot more. I should have brought John home to meet my dad after my mother died. But I didn’t. I kept him from my gay world of distance and isolation and I lost.

I loved my dad and I hope he knew it.

Richard S Ferri’s latest novel, Confessions of a Male Nurse, won several awards and made people scared to get sick. He was rather pleased with himself. He also rants on occasion on NPR, giving fuel to those who want to overturn the First Amendment. You may taunt him at www.richardferri.com.

Posted by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore on Monday, April 2nd, 2007 | Email This Post

This entry was posted on Monday, April 2nd, 2007 at 12:05 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.