The Love You Take Is Equal to the Love You Make

Back all those multiple millennium ago, back when Kevin was dying, his buddy Perry moved in to take care of him.

Perry was a German linguist with the Air Force (or Air Farce as my Air Force and Viet Nam vet husband, The Amazing Bob calls it) to Kevin’s Hebrew/Arabic gig with the Navy. They met while both were stationed in San Angelo, Texas. San Angelo—home to the monster awesome Mongolian BBQ, San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts AND it’s the town where I began my brief carnie career.

I just can’t possibly say enough good things about Perry. He was (and still is, I imagine) smart, funny, mega intelligent, handsome as all hell and utterly devoted to Kevin. Thank the gods for Perry.

When it became clear that Kevin would not be able to live on his own any longer, Perry moved in. They were both stationed in DC at the time. He gave up his apartment, made arrangements with his boss/senior officer and did what needed to be done. Naturally and OF COURSE I felt utterly rotten and miserable that I didn’t do the same thing. After all, Kevin and I were BFFs and had been kinda/sorta/more or less engaged right? And yeah, I STILL feel the guilt despite understanding my own logistics and limitations. I can be wretchedly tiny brained at times.

In 1990 Neurofibromatosis Type II, what I got, wasn’t widely understood. Nor was it successfully treated apart from two places in the country. My neurosurgeons and neurologists were/are all at Mass General Hospital here in Boston . The only other place with a decent rep for handling us NF2 folk was in L.A.

So yeah, I didn’t give up my much needed health insurance providing job, my surgeons or the team of docs I, now, see yearly (down from three and more times a year) to care for Kevin in his last couple of years and I STILL feel guilty about it. Or maybe I’m just jealous of the time Perry had with Kevin. Yeah, that could well be it.

One memory that I keep in a deep indigo velvet lined lock box is from one of our phone calls during those last years. It was before his mind went but well after his body wasn’t much more than a collection of pus leaking, boil ridden bones. Horror show material. The stares he received, on his rare ventures out of the apartment, wounded him terribly.

In any case, I honestly don’t recall our precise topic of conversation but I DO remember that I was flirting with him con brio, making with the steamy boudoir dialogue, talking with him like I always did. There was silence on his end of the phone and I fell into worry (I’m in the Pro Worry leagues -- at my level we don’t even need the beads). I was afraid that my thoughtless, over the top coquetry had caused him pain.

Nope, when he finally spoke there were tears in his voice as he said ‘I love you. You still make me feel like a man.’
The End—The Beatles