Bruce E.

[Willy50]

Bruce E.

I just received news that an old friend had died from symptoms of AIDS.  Bruce was about 55 and was surrounded and supported by his friends in the city he had lived in for the past 15 years.  Regrettably, he did not share his diagnosis with many of his very old friends back home.  I can only wonder why.

Bruce was a real character.  He was intelligent, articulate, and a person of great conviction.  He was arrested during and anti war protest in the 60's.  He also founded a local chapter of the GLF- Gay Liberation Front at the local college and caused some consternation when the group rode in the homecoming parade for the local college football team.  This was just not heard of in the late sixties.

Bruce and I met when a friend referred him to me as I was gutting and restoring an old house.  Although we were were a sort of "odd couple" (he was gay and I am straight) we got along well and enjoyed each others company, well.....sometimes tolerated each other...... but always with tolerance, respect, and necessary humor.  We traded his work in exchange for rent and rebuilt the house.  We must haved lived together for about 16 months.  That was nearly a quarter century ago, just as AIDS was being discovered.

I'd not talked with him since I saw him last......at another funeral about 5 years earlier.  Another point of light gone.......and without a goodbye.  I thought that I would honor him by speaking a few words of him.  He was an interesting and bright individual who left his own distinctive mark on the buildings, institutions, and people that he encountered during his too brief life.

Best wishes Bruce,

Willy

[helpme]

My condolences Willy, your friend from your description of him, seemed to have embraced life and enjoyed every minute of it.  I too wonder why he didn't allow the people of 40 years prior to his new friends to share in his last years. Some I'm sure would have given him the love and support he needed and deserved during his health crisis.

[Willy50]

I don't know the answer.  I believe that he had a community that supported him in his last years.  I'm told that he did a lot in a gay church.  I just know that very few of his old friends new he was dying and that when he spoke with one of his gay friends even a week before his death he refused to tell them of his disease and his deteriorating condition.

The result is that some of us are left with ambivalent feelings; we're sorry and sad.......and pissed also.  It's a strange way to feel.  Why don't people open up and tell loved ones and friends I ask myself?

I also ask myself why I have not told my friends that I have HCV.  Some of us can also go rather quickly.  I guess that is one reason that I look to people or HIV boards for the means of knowing how to do this disease.  Many of us with HCV are still trying to find a better understanding of how to cope and what to do.

It's all a process.

Willy