A Letter to Two Lost Sons: Remembering Tom and Ted Boate

Dianne Boate lost Tom and Ted, both of her sons, to AIDS. Reflecting on their lives, Dianne wrote this heartfelt note in memory of her children.

DEAR TOM AND TED

I am standing on the edges of a vast expanse, an ocean of pure white paper soon to be covered with waves of words and flat round shapes like rocks skipping across the 30 years of silence since I last heard your voices.

The first year without you, Tom, is largely a big blank. Adding to the loss was a feeling of failure that my efforts of prayers and faith in your healing had collapsed. I thought I could save you. There was one remarkable instance where it seemed I did for 24 hours, that gave me great hope and information about the power of love. You saw with your own eyes my complete joy in holding you in my arms as you came back from the airplane trip to see your father. You seemed to be worse in Oregon so he wanted you to have your doctor and hospital at the ready. I was late meeting your plane, but when I found you in the wheelchair, no mistaking my utter joy. Imagine what he thought when he called that night to ask if you were in the hospital. “No,” I said, he is right here eating chicken pot pie.”  The love and emotion was keeping all symptoms at bay. I understood all too well the temporary brightening of your prospects when the day-to-day living was so difficult and totally discouraging.

As I review in my mind so many scenes in and out of hospitals, something new has become clear: You both tried to protect me from how bad it really was. I know.

My loss was more than two beautiful boys, for what I knew of myself as a person went away and disappeared for a long time.

A main component of healing came with the discovery of the National AIDS Memorial Grove and here is how it happened.

A MAGICAL SATURDAY 10 YEARS AGO

My own introduction to the Grove came as a surprise.

There was magic how it came about, but I think Universal Principles were at work, putting me in close touch with an organization that needed me as I needed it.:

An email invitation to the Dahlia Society Picnic in Golden Gate Park prompted us to get rolling in the morning. For picnic contribution I hauled 6 boxes of saved chocolates to the car. We drove to the Dahlia Garden; there was no evidence of any picnic. We investigated every small roadway, no picnic.  As we widened our circle of search, we came unexpectedly upon a picnic right on the sidewalk near the tennis courts.  I stepped out of the car and called out, “I don’t think this is the Dahlia Garden picnic, but do you know where it is?” A man I had never seen in my life came forward and announced, “You are Dianne. Dianne Boate. I’ve seen you in The Chronicle.” (The Two Cents feature with picture, questions and quotes.) It was Jack Porter, one of the founders of the Grove who must have one of the most amazing personal memory banks in the world. This gathering was the AIDS Grove Work Day that finishes with picnic lunch for everyone. “Come on right over here,” they said.  When I replied, “I’ve got boxes of chocolates to share…”a cheer went up and I became a member of a new family. We all seemed to know it right away. See, I told you, Magic.

I have said to many people that if you were alive today, this would be the place you both would have put your heart and soul and energy. I know you would like especially the redwood forest area just beyond the Circle; it is where I sometimes sit on a rock and look, pretending my dream house is there. With you.

I think you would be proud of your names engraved on The Circle. This is a sacred place of remembrance for those who have gone ahead.  Also there are many names of living people that support the Grove. 

In the daytime, you can see the circle area surrounded by lush foliage- equisetum, rhododendrons, maple trees, dogwood, and more. Once a year at night the Circle is festooned with glowing candles during Light In The Grove Gala event. The Grove gifted me with the engraving of your names, a thank you for ideas I had that benefited the Grove. How honored can you be? And how different from your names on plaques at Grace Cathedral always upsetting me  because it signified such finality.  The first year you were gone, Tom, I was so afraid that if I stopped thinking about you I would lose what you looked like. When your name was added there, Ted, it was just too much. I decided I would not go there anymore, and I have not.

AT THE PRESENT TIME…

Tomorrow I will be again invisibly holding your hands in mine as I escort three people for a first time visit to the National AIDS Memorial Grove. I will be talking about you for sure, showing your names engraved in the Circle. I know that their religious/philosophical beliefs are quite different from mine, so it will be interesting to see what they have to say as they take in outer purposes of the Grove,  and begin to catch the inner sensibilities  floating thickly in the air.  I will watch them take in the peace and tranquility offered there, and see their faces reflect a new awareness of the magnitude of what it all means.

That is what the Grove does best, throwing its loving invisible arms around any visitor, giving assurance that individuality is important, that whatever you are, you can be a good one, and help is on the way toward understanding whatever life’s problems pose, that answers will come, and here you are right in the middle of wonderment, a citizen in good standing in the Nation of Everybody.

SOME THINGS THAT ARE EASY TO THINK ABOUT

…..Even today, as before, my kitchen is the place we meet the most. I lean against the sink facing the stove and like the countless times it really happened, I see you charging around the corner, hungry. I pluck the scene easily out of the full length movie I have of your life, and offer you an omelet. As I start to swirl the eggs around in the special skillet, you are shaking your head, convinced this time it isn’t going to work.. then plop, the perfect omelet slides out of the pan onto a plate. You shake your head once more, and I laugh loudly, winning this nameless game again.

…..Ted you were my chief makeup/outfit consultant. For a big Chinese New Year’s party, you fiddled and fussed. When we showed up many of my Renaissance Faire fellow workers did not recognize me and some kept staring, like Scott Beach! Another time you accompanied me to Neiman Marcus to check out the perfumes. When we left the store reeking to high heaven. we burst out laughing crossing Stockton Street. That Christmas, one of your prized single gifts, was Calvin Klein’s Obsession, the one we both liked the best. I still have it.

…..When I took  you both for the first time to Yosemite, via the entrance through the tunnel. I told you that now you could open your eyes, the squeals of wonder and delight rang over the valley. “On thank you thank you thank you,” you both cried. My first time at Yosemite, a cold wind was blowing through me. At the time, I was conscious of feeling bad the moment I got there, because in a few days I would have to leave. Several years later on your 18^th birthday, Tom, you told me you were gay.  The cold wind blew through me again, I felt like a skeleton, with the elements free to pour through. How prescient was that, years ahead of the funeral Ted and I had for you at Yosemite.

SOME THINGS THAT WERE HARD

…..Meeting Ted at the door of the hospice on Fell Street just after Tom passed away in my arms and having to tell him what just happened.

…..Ted and I conducting our own service for Tom at Tuolomne Meadows, reciting the 23d Psalm, playing Amadeus on a small portable stereo, crying our eyes out, carrying on, then finding two coyotes waiting for us as we descended the snow covered mountain. Dinner at the Ahwahnee, our first time for just two.

…..Tom’s question after the second brain biopsy: “Is it yesterday, or is it tomorrow?” Herb Caen printed that.

…..Driving Ted to see his  AIDS stricken friends for the last time. They were going blind, had difficulty in speech, greatly incapacitated. He looked around and said, “at least I can talk.”

…..Ted kept his illness difficulties to himself.  After extensive chemotherapy with its own brand of hell, something bad in his mouth had come back. “All that for nothings,’ he said.

…..in Palm Beach, the call came from Portland after  the
Boates had rushed in from an hour away. I heard Ted’s last breath on the telephone. I was told when he heard my voice, a single tear rolled down his face. The cold wind blew through again, leaving me without anything to hang onto.

SOMETHING NEW THAT WAS HARD, THEN EASY

This month of August 2016 marks a 30-year milestone since you passed away, Tom, and 24 years now for Ted. As if you were still in my corner, as they say, I have forged ahead in these years practicing new skills and gaining in new accomplishments the way I would to make you proud of me.

Along the way I have let go of sad thoughts that would block living well, choked every weed that would try to strangle me with grief, and have come around to peaceful and fulfilling days on a regular basis.

Then yesterday I went to a funeral service for a son and 6 year old granddaughter of a good friend, who both perished rapidly in an unrelenting ocean. It was a long service with no opportunity for condolences, but at the very end with most of 400 people filing out to the reception, I told myself that this was the time to go to my friend still crying and hugging friends near the altar.  She was not expecting to see me. Her face lit up wonderfully and we held each other tightly, then she pulled away a little and said, “And you went through this twice…” But somehow whatever understanding I have of the goodness of life in spite of cruel events was instantly read and it comforted her. I will remember this scene for a very long time.

FINISHING UP

When Tom and Ted were small, I used to recite a prayer nearly every night.  I had found this prayer during my senior year of high school and memorized it. I was so surprised when Ted, as an adult invalid, suddenly asked me for it.  And here it is, something that gave comfort all these years.

‍The Prayer

I bring Thee now, O God, the parcel of a completed day, for I have wrapped it in my thoughts, tied it with my acts, and stored it in the purposes for which I live. As the evening falls, and while I seek Thy face in prayer, grant unto me the joy of good friends, the curative power of new interests, the peace of the quiet heart. Bestow upon me, Eternal Spirit, light as darkness comes; light not of the sun, but of the soul; light not for the eye but for the mind; light by which to judge the errors and the wisdom of the day’s work; light for the path the soul must find in the tangled ways of coming days. And grant Thou again, the healing touch of sleep, Amen.