And here, one strain of

this narrative ends.

Later that same school year, in just a few months, my uncle was dead—shortly after Mardi Gras. I remember my mother going to pick him up in the French Quarter on Mardi Gras night, because he had been abandoned by friends who wanted to go partying. He was just too weak. As she brought him home and led him to bed, he stopped by my room where I was just starting to listen to Aaron Copland’s “Appalachian Spring.” He asked if he could listen for a moment. It was our last meaningful exchange.

Or perhaps not. The dead often stay with us. And while it took me well over another decade to come out (I would wait until my late twenties), I thought of my uncle all the time. I still do. But mostly what I think about is how my life might have been different had he survived. What would my adolescence have been like with him in it? Would it have been easier to come out, or harder? Would I have felt the need to distance myself from him in order to protect myself? Or might I have come out much earlier?

Screenshot of "Martha Graham's Appalachian Spring Part 1/4" by danceonfilm, YouTube.

APPALACHIAN SPRING (YOUTUBE)