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GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE FEBRUARY 21, 1997

hy did Robbie Kirkland have to die?

During the early morning hours/d

January 2fourteen-year-old Robbi Kikand walked through his sister Claudia's bedroom. and climbed the stairs to the attic. He had entered his father's room earlier the same day where he found the key to the lock on his father's gun. Before walking. with the weapon and some ammunition, he put the keys exactly where he had fo

Inik

Alone with his secret and the loaded gun, Robbie decided once and for all to put an end to the life that caused him so much sadness and confusion. Pulling the trigger, he reasoned, would stop the turmoil he felt inside. He wouldn't have to keep his secret any

more.

Robbie Kirkland had grown weary of being different. He was gay; and in Robbie Kirkland's mind, death seemed like the easier option.

"Robbie was a very loving, gentle boy," said his mother Leslie Sadasivan, a registered nurse who lives in the affluent Cleveland suburb of Strongsville with her husband, Dr. Peter Sadasivan, their four-yearold daughter Alexandria, and until his death, Robbie.

She remembered her only son as a very bright boy who was a good writer and an avid reader. "He wrote beautiful poetry... he was a very sweet, loving son."

Support groups for gay, lesbian, bisexual and questioning youth

Columbus

Kaleidoscope Youth Coalition (614) 447-7199

Toll-Free 1-800-291-9190 Stonewall Youth Group (614) 299-7764

Cleveland

PRYSM Youth Group (216) 522-1999

Toll-Free 1-888-429-8761

Akron

Les-Bi-Gay Youth Social Support (330) 258-3652

Amherst

•Rainbows End Youth Group Toll Free 1-800-417-7163

Dayton

• Youth Quest

1637,275-8336

Taught diversity at home

While she was pregnant with Robbie, Leslie's marriage to her first husband, FBI agent John Kirkland, was in serious trouble. She had a difficult pregnancy and nearly miscarried. But with her. strong faith to sustain her, she persevered, and on February 22, 1982 gave birth to a healthy baby boy by Caesarean section.

Robbie Kirkland, pictured on Christmas day 1996 with his sisters Alexandria, Claudia and Danielle, nine days before he killed himself. Above, St. Ignatius High School.

"Because my marriage was suffering at the time, I felt like [Robbie] was God's gift to me. I saw this child as part of the reason I kept going. I had to... there was this helpless little baby."

She was divorced from Kirkland shortly after Robbie was born. When Robbie was two, she married her second husband, Peter Sadasivan. Robbie seemed to accept his stepdad and developed a close relationship with him over the years.

Robbie and his older sisters Danielle and Claudia were raised in a very religious, yet open and accepting home. (Danielle is presently away at college, and Claudia now lives at her father's Lakewood home, where Robbie was visiting the night he died.)

Because of her deep religious convictions and because her new husband was Indian, Leslie taught her children to respect people of of all races and nationalities. This appreciation for diversity included gay and lesbian people.

She recalled a time when she hired a lesbian couple to put up wallpaper in their home. "I remember telling the kids, 'Now, you might see them give each other a hug or a kiss, and that's okay'."

Conflicting messages outside

While Robbie had so many positive messages given to him at home, at the same time he was receiving conflicting messages from outside. He learned at a very young age that, unlike his mother, not everyone thought that being different was a good thing.

Faith played a large role in determining how Leslie Sadasivan raised her children. A devout Catholic, she took her kids with her to St. John Neumann Church, a large suburban parish that was dedicated the same year Robbie was born. She involved them all in youth-related church activities, and considered the tuition that was paid to provide her kids with a Catholic education as an investment in their future.

"I saw it as a way to protect them and give them the best education,” she said. “I also wanted them to be raised Catholic, because I do believe in the church. I don't believe in

everything the church says, but I find my comfort and spirituality in the church. I wanted [my children] to have that foundation."

When Robbie was in the third grade at St. Joseph's school in Strongsville, he asked to be transferred to another school. He told his mother that the other kids were teasing him. He started the fourth grade at Incarnate Word Academy, the school that his sister Danielle was already attending. As he neared his last year at Incarnate Word, Robbie seemed to flourish academically as well as socially. He made friends and served on the student council.

But the poetry he wrote reflected a deep despair and sense of isolation that went well beyond the problems of most twelve year olds.

While Leslie does not know if the verbal harassment her son endured ever escalated to physical violence, a poem written by Robbie in 1994 appears to be a very chilling account of an assault:

I try to stand and walk

I fall to the hard, cold ground. The others look and laugh at my plight Blood pours from my nose, I am not a pretty sight

I try to stand again but fall To the others I call But they don't care...

As Robbie entered the eighth grade at Incarnate Word, he seemed, at least on the surface, to be surviving all the difficulties that accompany adolescence. Below the sur-

Internet

face, however, Robbie had begun searching for answers to the nagging questions about his sexuality.

Exploring the Internet

On January 29, 1996, Robbie wrote a letter to his friend Jenine, a girl he met at Camp Christopher, a resident camp in Bath, Ohio run by the Diocese of Cleveland. Robbie told Jenine why other kids teased him, and indicated that he was well aware of the price one has to pay for being different.

"I'll tell you why people made fun of me,” he wrote. "You see, I talk different... I have a slight lisp (S's come out th's) and I'm kinda well, sucky at sports. So people (only like a few people) have called me gay. They don't mean it, if they did I'd be beat up by now. You see, everyone in our school is homophobic (including me)."

In the same letter, Robbie tells her about his new pastime, the America Online computer service. "I love AOL. My favorite thing to do is chat."

The Sadasivans had purchased a computer for Christmas 1995, giving Robbie access to the Internet, a lifeline for many gay and lesbian teens. Like most adolescent boys, regardless of their sexual orientation, Robbie found his way through cyberspace directly to the porn sites.

One day while he was on the computer with his four-year-old daughter, Peter Sadasivan was shocked when images of nude men appeared on the screen. Robbie admitted to downloading the photos, but told his

Youth Action Online http://www.youth.org/ Gay-Lesbian-Bi Newsgroup http://www.youth.org/ssygib/ !OutProud! http://www.cyberspaces.com/outproud/