Prayers for Bobby - Leroy Aarons [72]
Mark Guyer’s race to the church was too late. The service was over by the time he got there. But the next day, Saturday, he drove to Oakmont Memorial Cemetery and located Bobby’s grave up on the hill. The sod was still freshly cut where they had put him in the ground. Mark knelt, thinking, “If only we had talked more. If only we had become closer friends maybe some of my strength, if I had any, would have worn off on him. If only he had had someone to support him, he wouldn’t have had to die.”
In tears, Mark placed a bouquet of flowers on the site. He would return many times after that to talk to Bobby or play him songs from a tape deck. One song in particular felt especially appropriate. It was “Vincent,” by Don McLean. Mark played it again and again, devastated with the world’s harshness for someone so beautiful.
ELEVEN
The Golden Thread
MARY, 1987
Nearly four years after Bobby’s death, Mary was emerging from the shroud of grief and guilt. She would never be fully free of the emptiness left by the loss of her son. A fragment of her soul had gone with him.
But she was beginning to feel as if she could live a meaningful life again. In Larry Whitsell and P-FLAG she had found both a mission and a support group. Her appearance at the Concord City Council had emboldened her and allowed her to think she indeed might be able to make a difference.
People seemed to respond to her story. She didn’t try to analyze why, but to others it was clear: her words had irresistible elements of emotional power—the horrible and unnecessary death of a child, the acceptance of responsibility by the parent, the incredible conversion, and the implicit warning: Don’t let this happen to your child.
The account actually drew added strength from Mary’s flat and unsophisticated delivery. She was shy and tentative. She spoke softly and with little intonation. Her appearance was pleasant, but not imposing. When she smiled or laughed she tended to put a hand self-consciously to her mouth, as if to conceal a slightly bucked overbite. She favored simple but neat blouses and flower-print skirts in muted hues.
The overall effect was of a person who wasn’t trying to stand out. Thus, it was clear when she spoke that she was doing so only because she believed she must. Behind the tentativeness lay the passion of a missionary whose story stood on the strength of the narrative. There was no pretense, nothing hidden. Mary spoke with the authority of a tragedy lived, conveyed with a directness and immediacy that bore the imprint of truth. Often she would break down in the telling, brushing away tears and forcing herself to continue. Her heartbreak was palpable.
Her story’s other strength lay in its uniqueness. Other parents could speak of estrangement from their gay children, of the agony of denial, of the journey back to reconciliation. But only Mary could make the link between repudiation and death. Through her, parents—actually anyone, whether dealing with gays as family members or as friends—could glimpse the horror of allowing a child to slip away beyond recall as the result of blind misunderstanding. Privately, Mary still struggled with the consequences of that loss. All the self-examination of the past few years had been driven by her need to find a place of peace for her son’s spirit—and, by extension, for her own. Now she could imagine Bobby’s spirit at rest. In the spring of 1987 she composed a communication from her son, a fantasy of afterlife in which Bobby enjoyed the pleasures and creativity denied him in life. She called it “The Golden Thread.”
There are so many things to do. So much of life to catch up with. Time to write adventurous stories, time to write poems of hope and love. Time to paint the beauty that surrounds me. Time to make toys and dolls. Best of all I am free to enjoy the beauty of my creations.
There are forests to visit…the birds are still singing as beautifully as ever, only