Thread by @johnamundell

My uncle, Daniel, died of AIDS in 1984, three years before I was born. A few years ago, I was blessed to meet Nick, a close friend of his who still lives in SF. He had a wall of 8x10 photos of deceased friends in his home and he gave me the ones he had of Dan in a neat folder.

Nick and Dan met working for Delta at SFO. Nick was a flight attendant for many years and Dan worked at the counter for a bit before changing jobs, always an aspiring singer and performer (see the Burt Reynolds headshot). Dan liked to go out and Nick tagged along as the older gay

When Dan eventually got sick, it came quickly. Nick used his benefits working for the airline to fly Dan home to Indiana to die among family. By that point, Dan had moved to New York, from what I recall. Nick went with him to Indiana and stayed awhile, until Dan was in extremis.

At that time, the public was still terrified and the doctors in the hospital would not allow people, especially my older siblings—both small children at the time—to touch him for fear of contracting the virus. Dan died November 29, 1984 of AIDS-related pneumonia.

Later, I learned that Dan was not the only man Nick had helped. He used his benefits to fly many of his sick friends across the country to die at home per their wishes. Sometimes, he would go with them to offer a friendly, familiar, gay face amidst all of the grief and prejudice.

Nick is now in his 80s and has blocked out a lot of the trauma of losing his friends. He does not remember much. He told me it was uncommon for there to only be one funeral per week to attend. But he took that love and, as a an older single dad, adopted a baby—now a young woman.

Pride is about loving so hard you choke on the words, about sacrificing your peace to create it for someone else, about remembering the onslaught and the celebration of life, passing those stories down so they do not die like some want them to. Nick is Pride. Dan was and will be.

Several years ago, after it all, I wrote this poem about coming across Nick’s San Francisco address in my parents’ Christmas greetings address book, hearing their version of the story, and then meeting him and listening to his. Thank you, sweet Nick. #HappyPride

Sharing this story was inspired by @SGUYBRAY’s thread I just RTed as well as when my partner, Cliff, asked me what pride meant to me. Summing it up beyond the often reductive “love is love is love” slogan became hard without telling this story of pain and generational gratitude.

Thank you for all of the comments and sharing your stories! I wanted to follow up and share the picture of when I first met Nick in 2016 as well as a screenshot of Dan’s name in the AIDS Memorial Quilt. We don’t know who made it—likely friends—but I am determined to find out.