Prayers for Bobby - Leroy Aarons [26]
In August 1984, a year after Bobby’s death, the scourge of AIDS had finally begun to penetrate the nation’s consciousness. There were already more than seven thousand Americans dead or dying, nearly all of them gay men, and there was no telling how many more were infected. Conservative ministers were calling AIDS God’s vengeance on gay people, a modern-day echo of Sodom. Shying from bad news, most Americans chose to focus on the Olympics in Los Angeles; the Republican National Convention, which nominated President Ronald Reagan to run for a second term; and the much-heralded fact that the “1984” of Orwell fame had actually arrived.
It was a year after his suicide, and Mary had found nothing to relieve the pain of Bobby’s absence. She hadn’t expected things to happen this way. She had thought at first that after a reasonable time she would have comfort and peace, that Jesus would take the sting out of her loss. That was what she had been taught—that you come to accept that the departed have “moved in with the Lord” and you trust the end results to a kind and loving father.
It hadn’t happened. Not a day went by without the stab of memory, the aching emptiness. What’s more, she found herself feeling guilty for begrudging God the presence of her son. “I experienced, through my spirit, how hurt our Lord was because I did not want Bobby to be with Him,” she wrote in a letter to a friend. “It really turned me around to how Jesus felt, instead of how Mary felt.”
But this complex of considerations rooting around in her brain could not suppress a growing mood of impatience, even bitterness. She could feel rumbling inside of her an unfamiliar anger, and she began venting it in a series of handwritten communiqués to God.
“Dearest Lord. I haven’t really gotten a grip on life since you let Bobby leave us,” she wrote.
I have no doubt Bobby is alive. I think that’s what bothers me. He’s alive and I’m not part of his life anymore.
I feel my relationship with you leaves a lot to be desired. Your Holy Spirit has taught me in a hundred ways, but I need something more. It seems like being Christian is somewhat one-sided. You see me every day. When do I see you? Why is everything so vague with you? It seems if I blink the wrong way I’ve quenched your Holy Spirit and, ooops, Mary, you’re out of fellowship. Whoopee! Have I been taught wrong? My sinful nature is always busy, so how can I ever be your perfect little dawling?
I’m really glad you gave us a free will and a mind to think with. When it comes to you, I’ve come up with some really unique questions. But a questioning mind is quite a privilege…. It is an exciting quest getting to know you more, one I’m sure will be rewarding!”
Her mind was beginning to engage gears it had never used before. The questions she could not resolve came tumbling out. On October 13, her fiftieth birthday, she wrote:
I’m sure you knew when Bobby left us, I would not take it lying down!…Joy, Nancy and Ed and my husband need me. I guess we didn’t need Bobby. How can we help people feel needed so they will not want to leave this world? Lord, how can we ever get along without our Dear Sweet Bobby?
When Jesus died on the cross in our place, his mother watched his suffering…. But Jesus rose from the grave and she saw him and knew all was well with him. I didn’t get to say even good-bye to Bobby. Nothing. I think that was very rude, impolite to say the least!
Indeed, Mary was very annoyed. Her faith had always provided assurance: God had removed her agony of paranoia over her husband’s fidelity. But he had let Bobby slip away and now she wanted—had to have, in her addled grief—some word that her son was safe. Hadn’t Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead? And after the Crucifixion, Jesus had appeared to many people, assuring them that he had risen. Take Doubting Thomas, for example. One of the twelve disciples, he refused to believe that Jesus had returned, and he told the others he would not believe unless he saw “the mark of his nails in his hands” and put