THE LAST WORD
THE LAST WORD Wendy Schwartz The Secret That Could Not Be Kept On Father's Day, I went to a memorial service for someone's son. His father did not attend, nor did his mother. He had been my...
...Everyone knew it, and its tragedy informed the entire program...
...We are angry about his death, as we are about so many others,' the young parish priest said...
...At the memorial service, friends struggled to be discreet...
...When he got out, he took a brief island vacation and returned to work tanned and fuller...
...The priest, speaking eloquently and with compassion, was a reminder of all those young chaplains who have done battlefield duty in previous wars...
...In the end, it took the worst demon of all, the one whose name has become known to everyone, everywhere, to demonstrate how unimportant the others really are...
...It was held several days after the traditional and impersonal funeral at his parents' church...
...Hers was the only message naming even one of the issues clouding the air that evening...
...Whatever for...
...A third co-worker, who had formerly disclosed her lesbianism only selectively, vowed to recommit herself to the struggle for gay and lesbian rights...
...He said he had Legionnaire's disease, explaining that it was possible for only one person in a contaminated environment to become infected-one person terribly run down from overwork...
...But when I told him I was quitting about a year ago, he turned cold and difficult...
...Another said more candidly, "Finally, there was one secret that could not be kept...
...Few whispered the "A" word...
...One of the first duties his white, working class, ethnic parish had required of him was to officiate at the funeral of a young neighborhood boy who died of AIDS...
...Our family would have embraced him as they did us," he said, asserting that church-going was the key to acceptance at home, not sexual orientation...
...Some co-workers became nervous about their own long hours, but most accepted his story with a shrug...
...The cause of his death was never mentioned...
...The evening of the memorial was fogged with moisture that would not release into rain...
...When he pointed to his own lifetime companion, he broke into tears...
...it didn't need to be...
...When he entered the hospital again, it was clear he would never return to work...
...The elegant manager's wardrobe he had bought to celebrate a recent promotion had begun hanging loosely on muscles once sculpted at the gym...
...The young parish priest, respecting the diversity of the attendants, offered a brief ecumenical service...
...As I looked at the gaunt faces, it was obvious that some of the people present would not live through the summer...
...Before he became ill, I had assured him that I considered gay just as fine as straight...
...Given my radical politics and arrest record, I said, I was not one to judge...
...I noticed he had developed a harsh and tiring cough...
...He responded by telling me, and others in the office, about various relationships he'd had with women, and the separate sleeping arrangements he and his roommate fashioned in their small apartment...
...The priest, the youngest in his archdiocese, now has a hauntingly active AIDS ministry...
...We were asked to reach out to each other as we left the chapel...
...He said simply, "We are angry about his death, as we are about so many others...
...Shortly after I left the company, he entered the hospital...
...were thoughts and feelings we were reluctant to express...
...The future of the priest's special ministry in the harsh New York Catholic climate was just as precarious, I feared...
...His roommate arranged the Father's Day service...
...Hanging even more heavily over those gathered Wendy Schwartz is a peace activist and free-lance writer in New York City...
...We had a lot in common and became friends...
...he asked...
...Co-workers continued to visit him as he grew weaker over the months, talking about everything but his illness...
...One of his uncles described the early signs of his nephew's brilliance and how much he regretted growing apart over the years...
...He had been my supervisor at the New York publishing company where I was an editor...
...Our friend's whole life was a struggle with fears others were afraid to address...
...A brief poem, the reading of the Twenty-third Psalm, a few final remarks from the priest, and the memorial was over...
...One spoke of a mutual love of the opera...
...She blamed homophobia for his deception...
...He relinquished his physical privacy in the hospital, but clung to his emotional guardedness to the end...
...Once he told us that his parents and their friends, fundamentalist Christians, were praying for him...
Vol. 51 • October 1987 • No. 10
