Ken died in
1993. I participated the best I could in his end-of-life care, commuting on
alternate weekends to Issaquah, spending every possible moment with him and
offering respite to his partner, Peter Fraser. We spent the evening of January
3, 1993, with Ken at Seattle’s Bailey Boushay AIDS Hospice, watching him
struggle to breathe, moistening his lips and mouth with glycerin lollipops, while
his 80-pound skeletal body scarcely made a ripple in the light blanket covering
him. We knew the end was near, but finally gave up our vigil and drove back to
the condo to try to rest up for what we feared the next day would bring. We
rode the elevator up to the third floor, unlocked the door and saw the light on
the answering machine blinking like the flashing light on an emergency vehicle,
semaphoring the inevitable message. No need to listen to the recording, we
immediately knew. It was over. He was gone. Conflicted light feelings of
release and the crushing weight of loss remain with me even now.
Ken was born
when I was ten years old. Although he was my third brother, our bond was more
than that of siblings. He was my own real live baby doll, and I adored him from
the moment he was born. I dressed him, fed him, diapered him, and paraded him
around the neighborhood in his baby buggy. He was precious to me and became
more so as he developed into a bright, verbal, and creative little boy. I
remember one morning; he got out of bed and came running into my room bursting
with excitement. Bouncing on the balls of his feet, my three-year-old brother
said, “Melody! I had a film last night!” and for the first time, he told me
what he had dreamed. He never stopped telling me his dreams. When he was in his
40’s and living in Washington while I was in California, he would phone and
tell me about his dreams. Or he might call to share the excitement of the first
snow of the season. I was the first family member he told the devastating news of
his HIV diagnosis. He was calm. I was hysterical. It seemed impossible and yet,
inevitable, given the raging epidemic and his active gay life.
I remember
his fear of abandonment when I got married. I was then 20 years old, and he was
10. During the ceremony with around 150 guests in St. Lawrence O’Toole’s
Catholic Church, he cried out, “Melody! Don’t leave me!” And that was my cry on
the day I learned of his diagnosis – a virtual death sentence.
His death
ripped a huge hole in the fabric of our family. Sister Valery’s loss was
profound. Three years younger than he, they became bonded playmates. They
shared a magical childhood populated with a host of imaginary folks, some friendly
and some wicked like Grassy Pill, a being who lived in hell which was near San
Francisco; she was always making mischief. And there was the marshmallow lady,
derived from the Nutcracker Suite, who took naughty children and stuffed them
under her skirt where they were doomed to smell her stinky underwear. Ken and
Valery shared secrets and fantasies in a world of their own.
In the
months following Ken’s death. As executor of his bankrupt estate, I trudged
through the requisite busyness: tax filings, insurance dealings, and distribution
of his worldly goods. He was cremated and his ashes distributed among me, my
sister Valery, and Peter. We held a memorial gathering for him in his hometown
of Oakland and distributed mementos to his legion of friends. I kept a coffee
mug which, 27 years later, is still in my rotation of cups used frequently.
Still,
nothing seemed to adequately memorialize Ken. I wanted the world to know how
special he was. I soon learned about the NAMES Project, also called the AIDS
Memorial Quilt, and knew I had to make a commemorative panel. But then, life and
other deaths got in the way, and my resolve dissipated. In the next decade, end
of life care for my mother, my grandfather, my aunt, and ultimately my daughter
absorbed my time. Upon the death of my daughter, I became the guardian of my
four- and five-year-old grandsons. Responsibility for the boys was truly a gift.
They were wonderful children, but I was an aging woman, a single grandmother
tending to the needs of the boys and the exigencies of daily life. My creative energy was drained, and the notion
of a memorial panel was shelved.
By the time
the boys were around 10 and 11, demands on my time for their care slackened.
Hours during the day opened up while they were at school, and when at home they
were occupied with friends, music lessons, and schoolwork. I began to feel my
creative sap rising again and the desire to make a memorial panel for Ken come
to the surface. I had a pattern, a drawing made a decade earlier by my niece,
Hollis Blair. A plan of attack for the project began to fall in place: I bought
the sewing machine needed to make the panel I envisioned. And who knew? Next, a
trip to Home Depot and the purchase of a painter’s drop cloth, a sturdy canvas
fabric that could withstand the handling it would receive as part of the AIDS
Memorial quilt. I would use it as a foundation and backdrop for the design I
intended to fabricate. With a supply of fabrics and a collection of photographs
of Ken at hand, I was ready to dive in.
I dyed pieces of the canvas, one strip sky blue, one of grass green, and stitched them together making a three foot by six-foot rectangle, approximately the size of a grave. The design depicted a plant in eight stages of life, ranging from a sprout to a robust thriving flower and finally a wilted and dying scrap of vegetation. Pictures of Ken in corresponding stages of his life would bloom in the center of each flower. I spent days poring over old photos, stirring up wonderful memories – vacations, family Christmases, triumphant events in his life - so many joyous moments captured. There were hundreds to choose from and looking at each entailed time travel and a visit with Ken.
Ken's world expanded when he started school. The picture in the first bud on the quilt panel is his kindergarten class photo. He loved school and his teachers loved him. He formed many enduring friendships but never loosened his bonds to the family. He strengthened ties to the farther reaches of our kin through “All Things Relative”, a family newspaper, which he composed and distributed faithfully.
The picture
in the second flower on the quilt is of him during his high school years in the
60’s – the height of the Beatles era. His hair was accordingly long, and his
polyester shirts were of vibrant colors. He continued to gather witty, kooky,
and bright friends, although he never had a serious girlfriend. He told me he
just kept hoping he would meet the “right” girl. He remained closely engaged
with the family and especially with his nieces and nephews. He committed to
taking each to Disneyland as a tenth birthday gift. He and niece Hollis became
partners in running the annual Bay to Breakers race in San Francisco for
several years. Each niece or nephew would declare he was their favorite uncle.
After high
school, he attended UC Berkeley, our father’s alma mater. While in his senior
year at Cal, the Vietnam War draft lottery was implemented. His number was 5,
meaning he was certain to be drafted. Because he feared being sent to war, he
quit school, joined the Marines, and landed a desk position in Alameda,
California. He had escaped the danger of being sent to the war zone and
survived the daily personal terror of his homosexuality being discovered. The
third flower shows him in his Marine uniform and at the peak of his physical
fitness.
When he was
discharged from the Marines, he returned to Cal Berkeley and completed a degree
in Biology. He later decided a career in accounting would provide him a better
income and so, he went back to school at SF State for an accounting degree and
an MBA. The picture in the fourth blossom shows him at his prime, physically
fit, comfortable with his sexuality, and with a firm footing on a career.
In the early
‘80’s, Ken was very active in the gay life of the San Francisco Bay area and everything
that entailed, including carousing at bars in the Castro district and frequenting
the bath houses. Every night was a party, and he was out, loud and proud. When
the deadly reality of the AIDS epidemic became known, monogamous relationships
seemed safer. The fifth plant shows that Ken has plucked a flower representing
his choice of a partner.
Although gay
marriage was not yet legal, he and Peter Fraser entered a committed union. Peter
was employed by a Canadian airline and lived in Vancouver, B.C. while Ken was
still living in Oakland. Maintaining the relationship required lots of travel
and immigration was not an option for either of them. However, commute hours
and distance were significantly reduced when Ken took a job based in
Washington. He was able to buy a condominium in Issaquah, and they had much
more time together.
But, by then,
his HIV infection erupted, his health began to fade, and he had full blown
AIDS. The sixth flower represents this decline. He was able to continue working
for a couple of years before being racked by a cavalcade of AIDS-related
illnesses. He suffered pneumocystis pneumonia, shingles, tuberculosis and blindness
in one eye from herpes; his depleted immune system was powerless. Peter
lovingly and steadfastly cared for him through one episode after another. The
ravaging of his body is illustrated by the next to last plant.
The final
flower represents his last days in the AIDS hospice. He spent about six weeks in with wonderful compassionate care in that sorrow-filled
place. I took some small comfort in knowing how
many loved him and shared the agony of his death. I found the suffering of so many young men,
many dying alone and abandoned by their families almost beyond endurance.
Frequent trips to the chapel, helped a little, but I truly felt as though a
part of me had been sucked out, a sensation I can still feel in some measure
today.
I am pleased
that Ken’s panel is one of 48,000 that travels to be displayed around the
country and that it was chosen to represent the month of July in the 2009
version of the annual AIDS calendar. This single panel is dwarfed in the
largest piece of community art in the world. The entire quilt would cover 20
acres and weighs 54 tons. Still, it represents only a tiny portion of the 32.7
million who have died globally since the beginning of the epidemic. I believe
the NAMES project has served to amplify AIDS awareness. I personally derived
some comfort by making Ken’s panel. Sending it off in the mail felt like
exhaling after holding my breath a very long time.
I 
