The Last Time (Published March 12, 2022)

 It's the Summer of 1986 and the grand opening of Rick’s Dessert Diner in downtown Sacramento.  Rick and Steve, good friends, had a grand opening bash and we were invited.  We’re in a booth at the back of the diner, and Susan proposes marriage to me.  We get married the next June.

Let me jump back a few years before I move forward.  Susan was a Vista volunteer in San Diego in the early 1980s and Steve was her Vista supervisor.  They worked on tenant organizing.   Steve moved to Sacramento and began a career in the California State Department of Housing and Community Development.  Susan moved to Sacramento about the same time.   Steve co-signed on Susan’s Toyota Corolla so she could buy the car and which we held onto for many, many years.  The car was named Stephanie.  At Christmas season 1985, Susan and my first year living together, we went to the first concert of the Sacramento Men’s Chorus (now the Sacramento Guy Men’s Chorus) at St Paul’s Episcopal Church in Sacramento.  Steve and Rick were founding members.  The music was inspiring, and we went to many concerts thereafter as the choir’s reputation grew. 

Rick and Steve attended our wedding in 1987.  Later that same summer as fate would have it, we bought a house directly across the street from Steve and Rick.  We joined a dinner group with them.  As I recall, there were about ten of us and we got together very often.  I forget if there was a formal discussion before dinner, but I do remember that heavy discussions did go on.  One dinner that will forever be in my memory is Steve talking about AIDS.  Steve provided the history of AIDS, and how it was starting to ravage the Gay community. 

Aviva, our older daughter, stayed the night at Steve and Ricks when Susan miscarried.  Thinking back on it now, so much of life; our engagement, our car (or rather Susan’s car), our house, and even watching our daughter during a crisis all involved Steve and Rick. 

Without going into the gory details, Steve at one of these dinners announced that he had AIDS.  We heard what medications (AZT as I recall) he was taking.  I think you would have heard a pin drop that night. 

I do not remember now the year that Steve died.  Steve lived for many years with AIDS but not long enough for new drugs to come along that might have prolonged his life even longer.  I remember going into the hospital.  Steve was propped up in bed.  It's hard to say goodbye.  The only time before that I had been in the hospital when someone was dying was when Susan’s mom died of cancer.  For me, it is a most disturbing feeling to be in a room with someone ready to take their last breaths.  Do you acknowledge their impending death?  Do you outright say goodbye?   I did say goodbye to Steve but thinking back on it now, did I thank him near enough?  Did I acknowledge him watching Aviva at a most trying time in my life?  Did I acknowledge Stephanie, the car we continued to have until around 2000?   Did I acknowledge the choir, the uplifting sounds it brought that years later pushed me to join a choir here on the Coast?  Yes, I said “goodbye”, gave him a kiss, held his hand one last time, but was it enough?

Rick died sometime later, also of AIDS.  I was never close to Rick.  I was mad at Rick as his fling in my mind, lead to Steve’s passing.  He had already moved in with someone else before Steve’s passing.  The second to last real memory of Steve was a memorial for him in the courtyard at a neighborhood community center near our houses in Sacramento.  The Courtyard was named in his honor though I cannot find any mention of it when I did an internet search for this piece.  His dad told me he never realized Steve had so many friends and that Steve had accomplished so much.    I was so angry after talking with Steve’s dad that day.

The last time I saw Steve or at least the memory of Steve, was his panel on a touring AIDS quilt some many years later.  The quilt helped me say goodbye again, allowing me to at least finish what I should have said in the hospital many years before.  Thank you, dear Steve.