To know that someone you love has a virus that may kill them is an incredibly hard thing to live with. Not knowing can be even worse. Tom, 23-year-old student recalls the emotional rollercoaster of secrecy, silence and discovery.
uspecting my father had the potentially life threatening HIV virus and knowing I could not ask him about it, that he would not tell me if I did and that he was keeping so much of himself from me, was a burden I carried from my teens into young adulthood. On Christmas Day 2005 the chance discovery of HIV medication in the pocket of my father’s jeans confirmed what I had feared and forced my divided family to bring to an end a lifetime of silence and secrecy.
It was the day before my parent’s twentieth wedding anniversary that, at the age of fifteen, I was sat down by my mother and told that the marriage was over. I pushed her for the reasons why and, although I knew she did not want to be the one to tell me, she finally explained what she had only recently discovered herself: that my father was gay and had been leading a double life for the entirety of my parent’s relationship. My initial reaction was one of shock, not due to any startling new revelation, but shock that what I had suspected for years to be the underlying cause of tension and conflict in our family was true. Just as I had often contemplated, but never dared assert, my father was trying to live two lives as two different people, keeping his true self from everyone around him. It seemed to explain why I felt so distant from him, why I never felt I really knew him and why he spent so much time away from me, my mother and my younger brother.
The shock soon gave way to a welling of happiness that came from finally feeling I knew something real about my father, as well as sympathy for the burden of secrecy that he had borne his entire life. I naively looked forward to a new future of openness and honesty between us and hoped that he would no longer feel the need to protect us, or himself, from the truth. For the rest of that day I was happy and when he finally came home that evening, for the first time in a long time, I gave my father a hug.
My hope of a new and better beginning for our family was short lived, however. My father’s outing, far from being a catalyst for positive change, only exacerbated the same difficulties and behaviour previously in place. Just as he had coped with his problems his entire life, when we needed him and he needed us most, my father retreated behind a veil of pretence, silence and lies.
This enforced deception was most difficult to deal with in relation to his bouts of illness. He was admitted to hospital on numerous occasions, including one where he collapsed in a restaurant and another where he lost a great deal of weight after apparently contracting pneumonia. Seeing the dramatic weight loss and his gaunt appearance made my brother and I fear for our father’s life, but he downplayed the seriousness of his condition and refused to discuss it further. It was then, looking at his drained face, that I finally became convinced that he was HIV positive.
Eventually he regained his health and strength and remained seemingly healthy for some time. As time passed the distress caused by his ill health eased, as did that of the unresolved issues, which increasingly seemed less necessary to address. As a result his relationship with my brother and I improved slightly and we began to visit him regularly again. It was on one such visit a few days before Christmas that my brother borrowed a pair of my father’s jeans before saying goodbye and agreeing to see him on Boxing Day. We spent Christmas Day with our mother at her sister’s flat, which was almost as crammed with food as it was with people.
When my brother whispered to me that he needed to have a private word the only place we stood any chance of privacy at all was the bathroom, where we quickly locked ourselves in and ran the taps. When my brother opened his hand to reveal the large white pills he had found in the jeans my heart sank. With a pensive look he asked me what I thought they were and, unwilling to lie to him, I explained what I thought they were and why, referring back to dad’s previous ill health. His pensive face changed to that of resigned sorrow, only interrupted by a sharp knock at the toilet door by our mother, who cheerfully demanded to know what we were up to. Perhaps taking a leaf out of our father’s book, we decided to try and deal with it on our own and not ruin Christmas Day by telling everyone what we had discovered. By the midpoint of the meal, however, our severe lack of festive spirit had been noticed by everyone at the table and we were forced to explain what had happened.
The rest of the day was taken up by extensive consoling, dessert, emotional conversations, present opening and, finally, a vain attempt to raise the spirits by singing along to the Sound of Music. It was somewhere between the first and last von Trapp child wishing me ‘adieu’ that I decided to finally confront my father and say everything that had so far gone unsaid.
I went round to see him the next day, told him about the pills and that he should be quiet and listen. For the next hour everything I, my brother and mother had wanted to say to him for the past six years streamed out of my mouth while he sat in silence and listened to it all. When I had finished I waited for his response. When I was fifteen, I had expected that my father would take his opportunity to open up to me, this time I only hoped it. In the end his response was to stand up, go to the window and move the candles that were apparently dangerously close to the curtains. As strange as it sounds I was pleased with the response. For once he was not trying to defend himself or denounce what I had said. I could see I had finally got through to him by the look on his face and that he needed a moment to take in everything I had just said. The relief of finally expressing every thought and feeling I had kept bottled up for so many years was incredible. The only thing I had left to say was what I wished I had said all those years ago, the day I found out he was gay: that I loved him, accepted him and would always be there to listen to whatever he wanted to tell me.
He thanked me for being so open and honest with him and with a smile on both our faces we hugged and said goodbye. Since that day our relationship has become much stronger and we are now closer than we have ever been. While there was no guarantee that confronting such difficult issues was going to have a happy ending, I am glad that I took the chance of making that first positive step.
