Bad Mama

A couple of weeks ago a friend, Sanan, died. We'd known each other since the second grade and grew up together. We weren't BEST friends, but we were friends enough to know each other's vices and virtues and to not care; we accepted each other.

We were part of a group of four. Four boys growing into men, coming together as friends probably because we knew that we were all queer. And so it was no surprise when each of the four came out of the closet during high school. As our families rejected us for who we were, we bonded together in spite of them. Sanan was family to me.

I flew down to the funeral in Miami and decided not to tell my motherI was coming for fear that she would say something hurtful. Mommy dearest is not known for being mild-mannered in the face of death. After my Dad's sister died of lung cancer and he finally told my mom, her response was "good riddance." So I wasn't looking forward to telling my mother that my friend, who she knew had been a big druggie at one point, had died in a car accident. "He was high on crack" she'd say. I've already forgiven my mom for many of the things she has said and done and didn't want to have to forgive her all over again for being insensitive about a friend's death.

I stayed with a friend in Miami and went to Sanan's funeral and that was that. Except that in a phone call the next day I find out my mom's brother is in the hospital dying. It was the last chance I'd have to see him, so I call mom. I tell her I'm in Miami. I tell her Sanan died. And she asks, "AIDS?"

It's like she's been oxygen-deprived.