Uncle Bill
Yesterday was my “Uncle” Bill's birthday. Since he was born the same year as my father, he's just turned 67. He's not really my uncle, in the blood sense, but he's honest-to-god family, someone there like a gifting angel who was always just there. As I said, family.
I was to find out at a very late date that he's gay. When I was growing up, he was a bachelor who never had a girlfriend, just friends. It never occurred to me that anything was something to think about, but I do recall remembering that he was an example of the only alternative lifestyle that Northeastern Pennsylvania could or would understand: he was single.
And I suppose that was enough for me, as I came to discover that my sexuality wasn't just a phase, wasn't an auxiliary aspect of my life. It was enough to know that there were other options in life that made a person happy.
That said, I can't say how happy Uncle Bill has been in his life, except that he always seemed to be enjoying himself, was always the life of the party, was always that one person in every crowd that seemed almost magnetic. The guy that everyone wanted to be in orbit of.
Except in my life there were two men like that: Uncle Bill, as I said; and my father.
Quite a sight, seeing my father and Uncle Bill and all their friends that they stayed so close to from their High School days. I think it ended up serving as some connection between childhood and adulthood for me. Otherwise, “being an adult” in NE PA meant things so horribly foreign to a gay boy that adulthood itself was a far-off, far-flung thing that involved black-and-white TV families and twin beds. Crazy.
When I came to find out that Uncle Bill was gay—it was Marie that told me so, in somewhat cautious and doleful terms—I found myself outwardly comforting her that it was not disruptive news to me, and inwardly rejoicing that not only did I know a well-respected and much-loved gay man, but that I could be one day a well-respected and potentially much-loved gay man myself!
Life shifted gears as that news settled into me. I hesistate to use terms like “soul-soothing”, but that's exactly what it was: a cool salve across a scorched and wind-blown surface.
Hopefully, I've done Uncle Bill proud in how I've lived my life so far. I know I've done proud by my parents, my brothers and my friends and myself.
Happy Belated Birthday, Uncle Bill.