OPEN ROADS

The first friend from my beginning is gone

by Thom Sommers

I stood, alone, in the hotel lobby sipping a Coke while I waited for them to arrive. As we stepped off the elevator the elegant hallway seemed to be miles in length. Walking one behind the other, we remained silent. Each of our minds was a world away from what lay before us just three floors above. We entered into the quiet, dimly-lit stairway and climbed the remaining six flights to the 14th floor. If I could have called for a costume change, we would have all three been clad in long black hooded robes.

We were about to tell one of my best friends and mentors that his roommate had died just hours earlier. This is an aspect of AIDS I have yet to experience. Five friends sitting, hugging, sobbing, comforting and supporting each other. As the three of us prepared to leave,

LIFE

As the long line of headlights somberly followed behind Steve's body down Central Avenue into the cemetery, the bell at the gatehouse rang, and my mind wandered from memory to memory of Steve, and of all those I had known before him. I was remembering another "Healing Weekend" in which Steve had been my roommate. We laid in our beds that Saturday afternoon talking, for the first time actually. We understood much of each other's stories, for they were in many respects similar.

AIDS · LOVE

•

OPEN ROADS

I heard one whisper to another, "What have we gotten ourselves into?" My heart sank, my breath left. The inevitable first friend, the first one in that core group of people from my beginning was now gone.

His name is Steven P. Siet. He was 30. He passed away on Saturday evening, January 20, in Columbus.

As I walked into the Toledo funeral home on Tuesday morning, I was paralyzed with fear! How was I going to react? So many unexplained tears! As the Jewish service began, I cried for his mother. I had seen the pain on her face only once before, on my own mother's face three years ago, when my brother passed. He was also just 30. As his girlfriend read a poem, "Dear Henry," I cried for me and I cried for Steve. I remember when he wrote that poem. He shared it with our small group during a "Healing Weekend" in Columbus during the fall of 1993.

"Dear Henry" is about a 10-year-old boy who was at the time dying from AIDS-related complications. "He was more of a man than any man I know," Steve wrote admiring this boy's courage. He ended his tribute to Henry hoping that he would one day be with him. As his roommate spoke I cried for him, Steve's best friend Steve L., and his ex-wife Abbe. She never left Steve, but in fact, moved only blocks from him and held him for his last breath.

How strong these three people needed to be for each other. Their entire lives, for that moment, dedicated only to Steve and to each other. For they will somehow pick themselves up, brush themselves off and perhaps find themselves sitting together, again, when the next friend dies.

His mother attended that same weekend as well-reluctantly. Steve and I talked that afternoon about our mothers and the unexplainable sadness and fear they must feel as parents, and even of the guilt we felt that day, as their infected dying children. I honestly witnessed the most heartwarming transformation during those two days. How comforting for him. How truly healing for her. I believe she drove home that Sunday feeling not only sad, but in same

strange way, peaceful.

I shared with my own mother my experience in hopes that she too would attend a "weekend" with me, reluctantly. I was disappointed and saddened by her response. Although I shared few words with Steve during the three years I knew him, I admired him. He fought, he struggled, he grew, and he suffered, but never alone. He was fortunate enough to have the unconditional love and unconditional support of, in my mind, five heroes: his roommate, his committed and dedicated ex-wife, best friend, mother, and girlfriend, and of course his confidants Miss Georgia and Maggie, the dogs.

The obituary read: "Steve wanted it too be known that the virus can touch any person in any walk of life, not single out one particular group."

I returned to the beautifully wooded, serene cemetery where Steve's body was put to rest only days ago to thank him for his impact on my life and to express how grateful I am that he allowed himself to share with me, if only briefly, during those healing weekends. His death and funeral fills me with an overwhelming fear that the deadly virus had become just that to my friends and myself: deadly. I hope Steve has Henry, and together they are at peace, eternally. ✔

Please send any thoughts, comments, concerns, and experiences to Thom Sommers, c/ o the Gay People's Chronicle, P.O. Box 5426, Cleveland, Ohio 44101.

FEBRUARY 9, 1996

GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE 11

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