A Bitter Sweet Decision.

It was a few months after my Grandfather's passing that I bumped into a man that I had met 5 months prior through a friend. We said hello and spoke for a while. He happened to ask me where I was headed out to next and I told him, without thinking anything about it. I left my friends and went onto my next destination to meet up with some more of my friends. After a short time there he appeared again. We enjoyed our conversation and started a good friendship. He was established with his own home and a great job. This was quite different for me because all of my other relationships I was the one who was goal oriented and established and the men seem to just be "settled for where they were in life." This one was different. He was someone that I could see where I would not have to be the main provider, he could take care of me! I felt like Cinderella, my Prince Charming had arrived. As this relationship was rapidly growing my family was stuck with another tragedy. My brother had become very ill and had finally gotten up the courage to tell us his diagnosis. He had AIDS and that his time was near the end. I had known for many years that he was gay. He finally came around several years before and told my parents. They did something amazing...they accepted him still as there son. They did not react as most parents at that time and dispose their relationship with him because of his choice. In a time when SO Very many people were dying of AIDS, they accepted that they would be there for him in this final process. He told us that he had been diagnosed years before but had not wanted to alarm us because he was afraid we would be too scared of the word "AIDS". I look back now and see how he himself was So Very careful about eating or drinking around us. He kept a watchful eye on us to not eat or drink after him. (keep in mind this was a time period when the Aids Epidemic was at its highest in America and no one really knew how it could be contracted.) My brother was the poster child for Tall Dark and Handsome. There was always women chasing after him for his attention and affection. He was a natural flirt with women and the women who surrounded him at his workplace did not even know he was gay. It was only within a month of my Grandfather's death that my brother ended up in the hospital with the beginning of the end of his life. It was if he respected my Grandfather in all his traditional views and his Christian life that it was if when my Grandfather died, my brother took a deep breath and said "it is OK now, I can die." As if he held onto not letting my Grandfather ever know in fear of his disappointment. The months that followed were so hard on my parents. They immediately swooped up my brother and brought him back home to live out his remaining months. My father most of all became his primary caregiver. My mother had not even really have the time to grieve of her father's passing, and she and my father were having to prepare to bury their son. My brother was in and out of the hospital so many times in such a short period. One time at the hospital my brother was disoriented and in and out of consciousness and he spoke of wanting to go back to the room with the beautiful flowers and colors. There had been no room that he had been in that was full of flowers and beautiful colors. Was he getting a glimpse of Heaven? I remember the floor that he was on was full of Aids patients. Everyone was so paranoid and afraid of catching Aids that everyone was always required to wear gloves and masks. (We have come so far in the education of Aids since this time I am writing of.) My brother was stripped of any pride and reduced to be cared for as a child. I would take care of my child, go to work, run by my parents home to see my brother for a short time after work and then leave to go pick up my daughter. It was hard being a single mom at this period of my life. I was asked to go on a trip for a few days with my newly found friend. I went to my brother and asked him first. I wanted assurance from him that it was OK to leave him for a few days. He urged me to go stating I needed it. I think back from time to time and see how maybe that was selfish of me. The decision was a bitter sweet decision in my life. It all was in such turmoil. My parents were stressed, I felt guilty. Yet, they did not want me around so much because of me having a child, their grandchild. They did not want her exposed so much nor me. So with first my brother's consent and then my parents I took that trip. And it was truly bitter sweet and charted a new course for my life. That decision started such a controversy in the relationship between my father and me that it damaged our relationship forever. It was if my parents were not facing things. As I said, my mother had not really gone through the grieving process over her father and was in denial with my brother and focusing her attention on my daughter. My father was angry and needed something to release the anger...and I became the target. My father had always been controlling (and still is) and he had no control over my brother's illness nor my life. I understand now. But then, it was so hurtful. I really thought my father was loosing his mind...but it was worse....he was loosing my brother, his son. My brother made a decision that radically changed his life. I too made a decision that radically changed mine. But with my decision, it was not finalized by death. With mine I still relive it every time my Father brings it up.