During the conference there was this one guy I kept encountering. He was tagged as "patient or caregiver" and had a Veteran flag on his con badge, so the first time I thanked him for his service, which as many ex-military do he kind of blew off, so I didn't take it personally. The second time he looked me up and down in my cocktail party suit and said archly, "Bet you cosplay."
The third time, he came up to the booth I was working and said he was glad to see me, because he'd just spent half an hour crying after a session. Knowing he was a veteran and of age for Agent Orange exposure, I asked if he had a diagnosis, but he said no, he was trying to learn more about what killed his brother.
It turned out his brother had been diagnosed with terminal lung disease in May and was dead by August. He was crying partly because his brother wasn't there to have the painful terminal disease he died from explained to him compassionately, and partly because he himself had lived through the AIDS epidemic in the closet and had worked at clinics testing the first successful HIV therapies, some of which are now part of lung disease therapies. He had witnessed mass death from pandemic first hand forty years ago, and had both tremendous survivors guilt and now, worried the lung disease was genetic, terror for the future of himself and his nephews and their children. He didn't know what the hell to do other than cry quietly in a corner.
When that happens there truly isn't much to do other than listen and offer empathy. It's all most people truly want. Once he'd spoken his story I could also offer resources -- connections to genetic testing, activism options, information about the latest medications in the field. But really he just wanted someone else to know about him and his brother and his family's fear and grief.
Of all the people I met this week, he wasn't the most important or the most powerful or influential. But he was the most meaningful, and I think it takes incredible strength to be a formerly closeted fiftysomething soldier attending a conference to learn how to fight for his brother's memory through trauma and grief.
Anyway, his brother's name was Noah. I learned it, now you know it too. Figure that's at least worth something.
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