Alicia Abbott

And so I wrote about all of this in this essay about how because of Sam, I was now going to stand up against homophobia and I would defend gay men.

But in this essay, I never even write that my father is gay.

And I never even wrote that he might be HIV positive, which at the time he was.

So I was aware of what was going on, but I think that I probably had a lot of denial or fear about it.

I'm sure you understand what I'm saying.

I wasn't fully able to absorb or be aware of what he was going through.

I had yet to live with him with AIDS, so I had moved away.

to college in 1988, and then he had started to manifest full-blown AIDS in 1991, which is approximately the time he wrote the letter.

And so in a lot of the earlier letters he wrote me, I would describe my sadness or fears about him becoming sick, and he would sort of downplay them and say, well, there's no reason to cry before I die.

And we're all going to die one day.

And often the letters would be taken up with funny anecdotes.

He didn't really dwell too much on his health.

And so I think I let myself believe that he really wasn't that sick or he could still have a long time to go.

And when he came out to Paris to ask me to move home, I was really blindsided because

And I was upset.

I mean, I was upset that my life, as I knew it was ending, even though it really wasn't, his life was ending.

My life was just beginning.

But from the perspective of a 20-year-old, I felt that I was going to have to give up everything and go home and take care of him.

And my life would be subsumed by illness and death.

And I was really afraid of that.