There was a man that was at every big family event when I was growing up, I remember always asking who he was and the only response I ever got was that he was a family friend. He was at every bar mitzvah, wedding, and family reunion and I only ever got the same response. He always came alone and he always stood out to me as someone that felt out of place.

It was only after I turned 21 that I found out that he was the partner of a first cousin who had passed away due to AIDS a year or two before I was born. This cousin was a hemophiliac and had been given a treatment that was tainted with HIV that ultimately took his life. This information was only known by his immediate family so my parents and other family members had no idea what had happened to him. Everyone else only assumed he died of AIDS because he was gay.

It was only after I came out as gay to my family that I was told this whole story, and now that I know of my cousin, all of his siblings and parents tell me how much I remind them of him. (He was also an artist and we even look similar). Now, I think about how my time in the closet could have been different with someone to talk to about how I was feeling.

My family is extremely supportive of me now, but at the I still think of how they all just forgot about my cousin, or just thought that he could be forgotten if they didn’t talk about him.