Glen and my mother had left Bell City for New Orleans, relying on each other and a change of venue to remake their lives. Both black sheep—he gay, she a little too loud for a woman—both wanting to get away from an alcoholic father. Brighter lights beckoned.

As kids, my sister and I thought nothing of Uncle Glen coming over to visit with his partner, Michael. They were just Glen and Michael, bringing beignets to eat on Sunday mornings. They also knew how to give great birthday gifts: for me at ten, a bookcase and a starter kit of encyclopedias; then at eleven, a subscription to National Geographic—they knew I was a nerd and delighted in my nerdiness with me. We’d visit them at their home in the French Quarter, an amazing shotgun where they had dinner parties, a bedroom ceiling draped with sheets and white Christmas lights like a fairyland, a back garden for drinking wine, a stereo tinkling out Tomita’s synthesized classics. Aesthetic culture was important to them, I connected with my uncle through classical music and reading, mostly fantasy, C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien. When I was eight, Uncle Glen took me to see Fantasia, and that experience alone probably did more to shape my future interest in the fantastical, the power of the imagination, fine music, and animation—interests that abide with me, sustain me, and, in so many ways, direct my ongoing investments, personally and professionally.

One Halloween they brought a stunning black costume for me, headpiece and all, literally a set of drapes that wrapped around my body, inlaid with little bits of mirror. I wanted to be Darth Vader but looked instead like an evil drag queen, glorious in my gowns. My parents wouldn’t let me wear it—too over the top. But to this day, I thrill to my uncle and his partner’s boldness, their audacity, their sheer queer fabulousness.

I loved them, both of them. For Glen’s funeral, I would compose and play an elegy on the organ.