This post will be about a unique kind of friend – my brother! I decided to post this after discussing it with several friends. I would especially like to thank Jay from Adventures of a Christian Collegian for his very helpful input and encouragement about this.
Brad (not his real name) was a year younger than me and we were always together in my earliest childhood memories. Um, there is no easy way to say this, but we were also together at the very end of his life, too. I was right there when he died and I literally saw him take his last breath…….
Brad also had same sex attraction, but unlike me, he went after gay sex with reckless abandon. I first noticed this when he was about 12 years old. He would stare at good looking guys a little too long and a little too often, and since I felt the same attraction I definitely noticed Brad doing that. We both kept quiet about this to each other and to the family. I saw him spending time with his male friends in high school and I could tell he valued those guys above his “girlfriend” Tiffany (not her real name). I pretended everything was normal and acted like I didn’t notice. I just didn’t want to deal with the trouble that would happen if the garbage hit the fan. You have to understand the environment at the time. We lived in the “Bible Belt” and went to a large (300+) youth group in a megachurch. Any confession of homosexuality would bring down ridicule on the family and repeated public humiliation for us in school, maybe even worse. So, Brad continued to “date” Tiffany and sneak around trying to get sex with guys. I kept my mouth shut about both Brad and myself.
To be continued…
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
I know this is a difficult story for you to tell. Thank you for being such an encouragement to so many people, myself included. God bless!
Jay
I had no idea you had a brother dealing with the same thing. Thanks for telling your story.
I had no idea either. That must have been something. At that age I was too caught up in myself. I probably would never have noticed that about anyone else.
A. Friend,
It was quite an experience. My brother and I spent a large amount of time together growing up, so we were close. I cared about him, so it was just natural to notice his SSA. I just saw him looking at other guys and I knew.
Post a Comment