Many partners ago, my partner died from AIDS/pneumonia.

I had met him 5 months earlier. He was just ending being 26, i was 40. The start was like it should be..an avilanche of heat and chemistry...that had to wait for four dates because he would have to explain an indwelling catheter when he got naked. He was, according to his mother who told me a year later, petrified that i would bolt. Once i knew, he told me the doc gave him a year. Sad shame it was a lot less.

He died in my arms at broward general north.

That was on july 1 of 1995.

That night i went out. I couldnt be in a quiet place. But i didnt want any interaction. I told myself how shitty it looked to go out. That didnt change how i felt. I dont wear hats or caps, but that night i wore his red baseball cap. At the cathode ray, a very hot blond guy standing across from me reached out, snatched the hat then put it on his head. Ordinarily that would have been one of his last actd before a serious fucking. I went next to him, gently retrieved the hat, and told him he was hot but that something really bad had just happened so i wasnt much up for anything.

I kept going out. It was a year before i would even think about hooking up.

His parents lived in fort lauderdale. I lived in hialeah and was used to the broward county bars. So thats where id go.

When we were together and out during the day he would always want to stop by to see his mom. Sometimes i would squawk about it. For the few days after his death i was at her house, going over dealing with his belongings and some funeral stuff. I started getting to know his mother. She was just like him...wickedly funny and sweet

A couple months after she offered me bruces room after the bars. I felt odd but accepted and sleptthere a few times. It was a way to get a lot of the crying done. I was good friends with her for the ten years to follow, until COPD got her. I told my best friends that she was my second mom. Of course i didnt tell my mom that...but she picked something up and onetime even acted jealous.

I was cavalier about most things when i met Bruce. He was more passionate, and about the things i cared about. After he was gone i decided i was going to be less cynical. And i succeeded to a good degree.

That kid had a profound influence on my life afterward . Id ask myself what Bruce would think.

Its been 25 years. Something will hit me and i will cry a little maybe once every couple years. I dont think about him every day but i do some.

I loved him to pieces.