17 years ago this morning, I held my 37-year-old brother close and whispered to him that it was time to go to his partner, John â and my fur babiesâŠand to take really good care of all of them. Tim let out one last breath and soared with the angels.
I really wanted to write something about my brother on June 29th, but the day got away from me. As it turns out, this is a much better day to record my thoughts, anyway. This is long, but I want you to get to know my brother, TimâŠto see him as a whole personâŠto understand his struggles (which are those of a lot of people)âŠand to recognize the angst that we often place on decent, ordinary people with our judgments and prejudices â and just how devastating this can be.
June 29th would have been the 54th birthday of my brother, Tim. He was born on that date in 1961. I will be honestâŠas a 4-year-old-would-be-big-sister, I prayed for a brother. The first prayer I actually remember went like thisâŠâLord, please let us have a baby brother.â And God heard my plea! I loved my little brother dearly. Mother says that I hovered over him (see, I got that âhelicopter momâ gene early!) and would come and tell her worriedly if he fretted in the least.
By the time Tim was a sixth or seventh-grader, I was in high school, and he was the most obnoxious kid ever. He loved to pester me and my then-boyfriend-now-husband-of-41+-yearsâŠand he nearly drove us nuts. This was Timâs âjobâ as the younger brother, and he performed it well.
What I suspected thenâŠbut didnât confirm for several more yearsâŠwas that Tim was gay. And growing up in a town of less than 3000 mostly middle-class, church-going people, this was just about the worst thing that could happen to someoneâŠor to his/her family. So we all âplayed dumbâ and discounted this â for a long, long time.
Tim was never interested in sports. He loved to fish â with my grandparents, mostlyâŠand to ride his bicycle (which he did for hours on end)âŠand he was very interested in all things medical. Early on, he declared that he did not want to spend the long years in medical school to become a doctor, so he decided to become a nurse. And when Tim graduated from high school in 1979, male nurses were few and far betweenâŠwhich became another âsignâ to some that he might be gay. This seems almost laughable now, doesnât it?!
The upside was that Tim was always surrounded by gorgeous young girls. The ones in our hometown found him to be the best friend everâŠand âsafeâ as a âdate.â I suspect it was much the same thing when he went to nursing school. But as I look back on things, Tim really never fit in at schoolâŠparticularly in high school. So he acted out and tried to overcompensate and pretend it didnât matterâŠand he was terribly misunderstood â by virtually everyone. He was loud and boisterous â but I now realize that on the inside, he was screaming, âSomeone accept me for who I am!â
Where Tim did fit in was at the hospital. He got a part-time job as an orderly. And because it was a small-town, understaffed hospital, Tim was called upon to perform far more tasks than he should have at his age â and in this capacity. By the time he graduated from high school, Tim had a position watching heart monitors in the âcardiac unitââŠand he actually was responsible for more than one revival and resuscitation of a patient when a doctor was not readily available. The nurses on staff adored him.
In crisis situations where many would panic and wring their hands, Tim was remarkably calm and collected â particularly for a teenager. He simply stepped up and did what was needed. I remember one day in particular when Tim was driving down Main Street in our little town, and he saw a man collapse on the grounds of our county courthouse square. Tim stopped and administered CPR until a doctor at a nearby clinic could arrive on scene. This doctor later credited my brother with saving the manâs life. That was our Tim!
Tim spent one of his high school summers in California with my sister, who is my younger sibling by eleven months. We had driven out with my mom and dad to attend some classes for Daddyâs business, and Tim ended up staying behind when we came home. I am sure that things were easier for him in Los Angeles. He could get lost in the crowdâŠand pretty much nobody noticed â or cared â about his sexual orientation. Tim started smoking at a very young ageâŠand drinkingâŠand by the time he was in high school, he was experimenting with pot and recreational drugs. He returned to Los Angeles the summer after he graduated from high schoolâŠbut in the fall, he came home to begin college classes. Tim struggled with college â and chemistry class nearly did in his nursing career. But all the while, he had a kinship with nursingâŠparticularly anything to do with cardiac care. And Tim was very good at nursingâŠso he persevered.
Finally, Tim got into a nursing program at a hospital in Little Rock, Arkansas, and received his R.N. â and he high-tailed it right back to Los Angeles, where he resided for about 12 years. He worked in various hospitalsâŠand as a private duty nurse. One of his private care patients was the late Edgar RosenburgâŠhusband of the late comedienne Joan Rivers.  He didnât talk much about caring for Mr. Rosenburg, but this fact made him something of a celebrity among the bridge club and beauty shop sets in our hometown! Even the most careful person in the medical field can succumb to hazardous situations that come with the territory. At some point, Tim contracted Hepatitis when he was stuck by a needle as he treated a patient.
Tim had a string of âboyfriendsââŠhe would talk about this one for awhile, and then another. It seemed like a lot of our phone conversations involved me trying to keep up with his rapid-fire âspeedâ-induced speech and who was the latest âlove of his life!â Ultimately, he became involved with a man named John. Unlike Tim, John developed full-blown AIDS, and Tim cared for John until he passed. I truly do think that this man was âthe one.â Somewhere in his adult life, Tim became HIV positiveâŠbut he never developed AIDS. His doctor told me in the last months of his life that Timâs numbers were so far off the spectrum in the other direction that it was hard to believe that he was even HIV positive. The beast that ultimately âdid him inâ was liver failure.
Tim was always generous to a fault. More times than I can count, he allowed people to come into his home and âstay for a whileâ until they âgot on their feetâ or whateverâŠand they cleaned him out â lock, stock and barrel. He started over so many times it was ridiculous. As an R.N. on the cardiac floor of a major Los Angeles hospital, Tim could afford to do thisâŠbecause as he put it more than once, âI make great money, and I just work enough to feed my dog, Carmen, and go to the beach!â
Once when I was in Los Angeles on business, Tim came to visit me. He took me to âsee the sightsâ and to get a feel â and taste â for his neighborhood. We went to Tommyâs Famous Hamburgers and ate âchili cheeses.â We went to Seeâs CandiesÂź and bought âNuts & Chewsâ for me to bring home to our sister (who had moved back to Arkansas a few years earlier). And we drove around a little in Timâs old carâŠa 1960-something Chevy Impala that (I kid you not!) had a hole so large in the floorboard that I had to be careful where I rested my feet. I literally watched the California highway race beneath me through that hole! That should tell you about the rest of the carâs condition, as well!
Tim showed me the street on which he livedâŠbut he did not take me to his apartment. It was a good visit â but a weird one, tooâŠas if we were from parallel universes â and they dared not collide. I was in town for several days, but I only saw him that one time.
A mutual childhood friend of ours â who also happened to be an R.N. â once told me that she firmly believed that someday Tim would return to our home townâŠbut he would probably be completely broken and feel that he had no other choice. She could not have been more on point with her prediction.
In 1996, my parents announced that âyour brother is coming home.â Life had caught up with Tim. He was sickâŠhepatitis, HIV â and drug abuse â had totally decimated his body. At about 5â9â, Tim might have weighed a little better than 100 pounds when he arrivedâŠand his skin had that sickly, âyellowâ look to it. My mother told Tim that he could come home on one condition â that he get clean and stay that way. I will not lieâŠit was a struggle â especially for my dad. Somehow I think my mother gathered that âmotherly resolveâ and determined that she could âwillâ my brother cleanâŠwhile Daddy was less certain.
But thatâs what happened. Within a few months, Tim gained weight and began to look relatively better. He got cleanâŠand he got a job as an R.N. for our countyâs Home Health unit. He would call on elderly patients in their homes, check their physical conditionâŠand visit with them. Tim was always larger than life â and the life of the partyâŠand he had such a way with people. These patients would feed him and encourage himâŠand this job became his lifeline for the next year or so. Ultimately, the liver failure became so severe that Tim could no longer keep up with the workload of driving around the county for several hours and then spending countless more completing the mountain of paper work. So reluctantly, Tim stopped workingâŠand more than a few patients called my mother in tears to express their heartbreak. It was a hard time for Tim, as wellâŠhe had to give up something he truly loved to do.
By 1997, Tim was very sickâŠbut so was my dad.  In October 1997, my dad had an arteriogram that resulted in immediate âcholesterol showering.â The way the doctors explained it was thisâŠimagine scraping your fingernail down a piece of chalk. Think of the slivers and sprinkles of chalk that result. This is what happened during the arteriogram. And itâs more a more common side-effect of this procedure than we realize. The wire that was inserted to check for blockage scraped cholesterol plaque from Daddyâs arteriesâŠand they âshoweredâ his veins and arteries â and blocked his kidneys. By Thanksgiving, Daddy was in total renal failure and on dialysis. He spent most of the next two years in bed â sick and severely depressed.
Tim did all he could to help Mother â and to stay well. But by February 1998, he had developed an infection of some sortâŠand Daddy was being told that he would be on dialysis forever. He was given the option to quit this daily procedure â with the caveat that his life would end within a couple of weeks. My dad never made that choice. But there was a point where my mother was sitting with my dad in a Little Rock hospitalâŠand I was sitting in our hometown hospital with Tim, whose doctor had told me, âBy the end of the week, he will either be better â or dead.â
Tim got betterâŠ.enough that when my dad was transferred home and required a blood transfusion, Tim was the only nurse able to find a suitable vein and start the procedure â and the hospitalâs Director of Nursing generously gave him the âgreen lightâ to do so. A few days later, Daddy had an anxiety attack, and respectful nurses in the ER recognized that Tim was the only one who could calm himâŠso they generously let Tim treat our dad as they looked on.
During all of this time, Tim and I had lot of long talks. I knew how hard it had been for him to âcome outâ to my parents and my grandmother who was still living â and I really thought he did this. Only recently, my mother told me that Tim never actually told her and my dad that he was gay. I knew that Tim stayed in Los Angeles for years at a time, working up his courage to come home and tell my parents his âsecretââŠand more than once, he was unable to do so when he arrived. I remember the tears of fear and apprehension as he tried to muster up his courage to have the conversation. I thought I knew a lot about Timâs personal struggle. I honestly did not realize that this never happened. But for all that I was aware of, there was a lot that I did not know about the personal attacksâŠthe hurtful words and actionsâŠthe exclusions and the snide âjokesâ about âqueersâ and âfagsââŠthe stares and whispers that stung as much as a physical slap.
There were friends in our home town that graciously included Tim in their social eventsâŠand I am forever grateful for their kindness and thoughtfulness. Tim told me often that âthereâs nothing here for me in this town, sociallyâŠitâs a lonely place for a single gay man.â He also told me often that âIf you knew who all in this town is gay, you would be blown away.â In our childhood and early adulthood, homosexuality was not something to be discussed or acknowledged. It was considered by most to be ugly, sinfulâŠand weird. To âgo publicâ would be to instantly ostracize yourself and become something of a pariah. So you pretended that you were just happy to be singleâŠand you acted like you were having a good time at a party or in a group setting with a bunch of heterosexual couples who âplayed niceâ on the surface, for the most part. And maybe you even threw in a little talk of the time you dated someone of the opposite sex â or had actually had a few âheterosexual datesâ â just to try and throw people off the trail. You totally hid your feelings â and most certainly any relationship you developed with a member of the same sex.
As Tim grew sicker, he told me, âIf I were able at all to return to CaliforniaâŠI would. There is nothing here for me.â And in September 1998, Tim grew increasingly worse. Certain parts of his body would swell to several times their normal sizeâŠand then he would be violently ill with vomiting and diarrhea â and resemble a skeleton draped in skin within a couple of days. He would have days where he felt great one hourâŠand be sick as a dog the next. I once held his emesis bowl as he all but threw up his toenails. Then an hour or so later, I drove him to the hospital so that he could show a nurse friend how to hook up some heart monitoring machine for a seminar that she was conducting the next day.
At some point, Tim told my mother that he was signing himself up for Hospice. And he did. The very nurses he had worked alongside at the county health unit were now caring for him in his last days/weeks. And did they ever care for him! The âsistersâ who had worked beside Tim â some since his high school orderly days â became our âsistersâ and have remained lifelong friends. I will never forget their kindnessesâŠand I have seen them demonstrate this same level of care to others. They did Tim proudâŠand I know he would have done the same for any of them.
I will be honestâŠthere were many years that I did not fully understand TimâŠnor his sexual orientation. I learned a LOT when he moved home those last 2+ yearsâŠand as we grew closer than ever, I came to see the pain that had been his lifeâŠthe heartache that he had knownâŠthe attacks that he had enduredâŠand the confusion that he had experienced. I sat with Tim, my mother and our dear pastor friend, John, as we shared Holy Communion only two weeks before Tim died. Because you seeâŠthrough all of this, Tim trusted God. He believed in Jesus Christ and had faith that somewayâŠsomehowâŠthis would all be made right. One of his most hurtful moments as a Christian was the Sunday that he sat with my parents in a worship service, and the pastor (who is no longer associated with my parentsâ church) declared that âAIDS was Godâs punishment for homosexuality.â Tim never returned to that church. This pastor tried to visit him and my parents â just a day or so before Tim died, no less. And to her credit, my mother refused to let him in the door.
One night shortly after Labor Day, our phone rang, and my mother said, âTim is crying, and he is asking for youâŠcan you come?â We dropped everything and hurried to my parentsâ house, where I found Tim in bed, sobbing. He said, âIâm scared. I only have about 2 weeks left.â I tried to blow it offâŠto convince him otherwiseâŠbut he said, âIâve seen this over and overâŠI know what happensâŠand Iâm telling you, I only have about 2 weeks left.â And he was right â almost to the day! We sat and held each other until Timâs anxiety seemed to subside. He was mostly braveâŠbut even the strongest soldier has his moments.
On a Saturday morning in the third week of September, Tim called me. âIâm going to take Carmen to the lake to swim,â he saidâŠâand Iâve cleaned up all of my tomato plants and stored the cages for winter.â And then he addedâŠâWhen I get back from the lake, I want to buy something really nice for Mom for all she has done for meâŠwhat do you suggest?â I told him that I would think about it, and we could talk later. But when Tim returned from the lake, he was not feeling well enough to go shopping. And the next day, he was horrifically swollen and in excruciating pain.
A few hours later, Timâs nurse friends started a morphine drip. I talked with these seasoned Hospice nurses and asked them, âWhat do you think?â Ginger, one of Timâs oldest nurse friends, said, âIf he were my brother, I would not be leaving tonight.â So I stayed up with him all night. He drifted off into a morphine-induced sleep, but he would rouse occasionally⊠and with brute strength, order me to âGo home.â I refused.
Monday morning, I whispered to Tim that I was going home to sleep for awhileâŠthat I loved him and I would be back. He said, âOkayâŠI love you, too.â When I returned around 3:30 p.m., Tim was in a coma. His dog, Carmen, lay atop his legs in the hospital bed that Hospice had provided. Shortly after I arrived, Carmen jumped to the floor and left Timâs roomâŠand she never returned. It was as if she knew that she had done all she could for him. I sat that evening with him while my parents slept. My dad had to do overnight dialysisâŠand Mother was exhausted. I sang to Tim, held him in my arms and rubbed his headâŠkissed his cheeks and told him I loved him.
The next morning, Timâs breathing became labored, and I called for Ginger to come to my parentsâ home. We determined that the time was near, and shortly before 7:00, I awoke my parents and summoned my sister. And as we stood around Timâs bed, he opened his eyes and tried to speakâŠthen laid back on his pillow. I whispered to him to go to JohnâŠand since he was an animal lover extraordinaire â to take care of our two cats who had passed in recent years. And he let out one last breath and flew home to Jesus.
My brother was no saint. I know that. But he was a good man with a big personality and a huge heartâŠand he loved people â and animals. He was great with kids and an amazing nurse. I will forever remember how tender Tim was with my niece, Jasmine, who was only 8 when he died. They read books and played gamesâŠand when she got chronic nosebleeds, he gingerly cared for her and allayed her fears. Tim was equally loving to my then-87-year-old grandmother, who graciously accepted his sexual orientation and referred to him as âone of them that doesnât marry.â She gave it her best shot to understand.
Over and over, Tim told me that all he wanted was to have a partner to love and a family of his ownâŠto be seen â and treated â as ânormal.â My husband and I built a new home on my grandparentsâ farm, and Tim told me, âI could have built this house two or three times if I hadnât squandered all of my earnings.â He knew that he had chased his demons with money and drugsâŠbut oh, what demons they were. Now that I look back on his life, I see how tortured and misunderstood he often wasâŠhow people snickered and ridiculed â and just generally treated him as âless thanâ because he was wired to be attracted to men rather than women.
I honestly did not see how this could ever change. Until it did. And on Friday, June 26th, when the Supreme Court ruled that same-sex marriages were legal nationwide, my sister called me and asked excitedly, âDid you hear the news?â I told her that yes, indeed, I had heardâŠand that I could not wipe the silly grin off my face. We both talked about how thrilled Tim would beâŠhow different it is now for our young gay friends in comparison to the life that Tim left some 17 years ago. And I really did think it was differentâŠuntil a few days later.
On June 30th, I attended a summer Bible study at my church. We were about three or four weeks into our study, and I had really enjoyed the fellowship, wisdom and insights that I had gained. But almost instantly this day, the talk turned to the SCOTUS decision. It seems that the day before, our local county clerk had resigned her position in protest, so that she would not have to issue any marriage licenses to gay couples. Now mind you, she didnât have to do thisâŠshe did not have to physically touch a licenseâŠmuch less hand it to a gay couple or stamp her seal of approval or signature on said form. If she feels that same-sex marriage is something she cannot abideâŠthat she could not carry out her duties under this law â then by all means, she should resign.
But this ânewsâ of the resignation played on all three state TV stations the night before. It was the hot topic of the week around here. And people rallied to applaud this woman for her decisionâŠas was the case in my group that morning. She was not only applauded, but people commended her for âgiving up a $43,000 annual salary.â Others worried about her well-being and were terribly concerned for her and the terrible âattacksâ that they said she was undergoing because of this decision. I sat in silenceâŠwilling myself not to say anything.
And then someone mentioned the ârainbowâ avatars some were using on FacebookâŠand how disgusting that was. Another mentioned the White House and the ârainbowâ floodlights that illuminated the structure the night of the SCOTUS decision. The din of conversation escalated, and one person said, âItâs GODâs rainbow. Do they have to take that, too? They need to give it back!â
A woman politely spoke up and said that she was confusedâŠthat her 77-year-old cousin is gay, and he suffered tremendously because of thisâŠand she didnât understand what was wrong with him being allowed to marry if he wanted. Another said, âMy cousin is gay.â And I said, âMy brother was gay â and he was also a Christian.â The chatter continuedâŠand I honestly cannot say what all was brought outâŠbut I felt that it was hurtful and mean spirited. And I said again, âMy brother was gay â and a devout Christian. And what you are saying here is terribly hurtful and painful to manyâŠincluding me.â Through tears, I explained that all Tim ever wanted was to be ânormalââŠto have a partner and a family like each of these ladies.
I really donât know what else was said nextâŠexcept that most discussed how this âsinâ was no different than any other. I looked across the table and saw a young woman I did not recognize who was squirming in her chair. She mumbled, âItâs not sin.â I looked at her and asked, âYou donât think being gay is a sin?â She shook her headâŠâNo.â I smiled and said, âI donât either.â We shared an across-the-table bonding moment.
The study continued. I collected myself as best I could and sat in my chair, shaking a bit and asking God to calm me. And He did. Out of respect for the study facilitator and the group at large, I did not walk out. But when the session ended, I quickly gathered my purse and Bible, and I made my way to the hallway. One of the women caught up to me and tried to express that âŠâWe can disagree and still love each other.â I told her that there was no love in what was said in that roomâŠthat if you âlove the sinner, but hate the sin,â you have judged that person. I also told her that I could not talk about thisâŠI was just entirely too upset.
She tried to protest the point by saying, âBut I love the gays.â This sends me into orbitâŠthe use of phrases like âthe gaysâ or âthe blacksââŠas if they are a different species than we other homo sapiens. I pointed out that the ugly dialog that had been offered by her and others in the church chapel was not loving â not in the least. âBut we can disagree and still love each other,â she reiterated. And I said, âI really cannot talk about this now. But you all want to talk about how itâs Godâs rainbow. Well, itâs Timâs rainbow, too.â And I turned and left the building.
Several weeks later, I am still shaken by this incident. But I have not changed my mind. If anything I am more convinced than ever that this kind of attitude is not one of loveâŠcertainly not Godâs love in action. And I am reminded just how critical it is to our Christian faith that we operate in love in ALL THINGSâŠthat we forego judgments of anyoneâŠanytimeâŠand that we search our hearts and ask God to help us root out any un-inclusive thoughts and attitudes. And I am trying very hard not to judge those who judged me and my Tim.
FurthermoreâŠwe must guard our thoughts, words and actions. If we are going to wear our crosses and religious t-shirts â or put a fish symbol on our carâs hatchâŠor the church bumper sticker on our vehiclesâŠwe had better be prepared to fully represent Jesus and His teachings.
Someone who is truly a Christian and desires to live in Godâs will and follow the teachings of Jesus would never deliberately repeat a sin day in and day out. You or I may occasionally lie, cheat, or gossip (hopefully inadvertently)âŠbut we would not deliberately set out to do these things each and every day. To say that homosexuality is a sin is to say that gay couples make a conscious choice every day to say, âGod, I love youâŠbut Iâm going to do this my way anyhow.â And they expect God to say, âWell, okay then!â
In turn, we have to tell othersâŠâOkay, âSid and Jonathanâ are disobeying God every single day by living together and loving each otherâŠbut itâs alrightâŠthey get a pass. And by the way, you can lie, cheat, steal, and disobey God, tooâŠbecause sin is sin. If God will look the other way for âSid and Jonathanâ or âJane and Saraâ, He will do the same for you.â
I have two issues with this logic:
1) I do not believe that these men (or two women who are in love) are sinning â and God is merely looking the other way; and
2) I donât believe that this is the idea we want to present to others of how God operates.
Do you really want to tell people that God condemns a gay couple for their love and commitment to one anotherâŠand for expressing this love in the same manner as a heterosexual couple? What does this say about how God feels about us and our relationships? Would He honestly create two people of the same sex who form a physical and emotional attraction and attachment to each other⊠and then say, âIf you act on this, youâre a sinner and I will be brokenhearted.â? These are not the actions of my God.
I tried to tell myself that âYouâre just emotional right now.â After all, it was just after Timâs birthday â and that is always a hard reminder that he is not here. And I know that he would so have loved to celebrate the SCOTUS victory on that Friday. He would be incredibly proud of how far we have come.
I also celebrate some small âvictoriesâ of this incident. Just as the talk settled down and the facilitator began our DVD lesson, my best friend sent me a textâŠâThinking of you.â It was like God was saying, âYou can sit hereâŠyou can do this. Calm yourselfâŠIâm with you.â Then as I entered Walmart to grocery shop, I met the lady who had spoken about her gay cousin who married â and then âcame out.â We exchanged a wonderful conversation â and phone numbers â and I have made a new friend. And I encountered another friend who has also lost a gay brother. We had not seen each other in months. What were the odds that she would be shopping in Walmart at the same time as I was that day?!
So I was renewedâŠand encouragedâŠand I felt the presence of God. And in some small way, I felt Timâs presence, too. After he died, a fellow nurse friend told me that âTim always said you could fix anything.â I cannot fix thisâŠbut Iâm doing all I can champion my brother and those in the LGBTQ community. Itâs the least I can do for âbrothers and sistersâ who have suffered so much already. I did not do the Facebook ârainbow face,â because quite frankly, Iâm too lazy to change my avatar. But this doesnât in any way mean that I do not fully support the rights of others to marry whoever they wishâŠsame sexâŠdifferent raceâŠdifferent nationalityâŠor even those of a different faith. You cannot pigeonhole love into neat little categories that make everything nice and âpretty.â
Were Tim still alive today, I would hope that he could find a âlove of his lifeâ and settle down into old age with joy and peace. I know that he would probably have a great big ole rainbow flagâŠand wave it proudly right about now. And that would be his right. Because Godâs rainbow is Timâs rainbow, tooâŠand no one will ever convince me otherwise.
So on this day when I remember my little brother, Tim, I celebrate who he wasâŠand the countless lives he impacted. I thank God that he belongs to His KingdomâŠand that I will see him again someday. I applaud all who are bravely standing up and stepping out and being who God made them to beâŠregardless of their sexual orientation, color, ethnicity â or any other perceived âdifference.â I pray that we will begin to love all others as Jesus loves usâŠthat we will drop these ridiculous divisions and hurtful judgments â and live together as God ordained. I celebrate my brother for all he taught me about compassion and inclusivenessâŠand I remember him with a mixture of joy and sadness on this anniversary of his passing.
Ironically, Timâs favorite song was âOver the Rainbow.â We played it at his funeral Maybe today is the day Iâll finally color my avatar!
©2015 Debbie Robus