I was a military brat.  My father’s job moved us every few years, from Mississippi to Maine, New York to the Philippines, Italy and so many other wonderful places.  While my very liberal world-view was being created during my formative years, I spent most of it away from the places where my many relatives lived, grew up together, and bonded.  I was an orphan of sorts, to my extended family…

Between duty assignments, my parents would fly or drive us back to California’s conservative Central San Joaquin Valley, where we would all try to reconnect again.  There were plenty of awkward hugs and furtive glances to share, as my cousins and I became reacquainted, eventually playing and loving each others’ company again, while the grandparents, uncles and aunts sat at the table and caught up, often in hushed whispers or bellowed laughter.

There were a few times when our parents had to make arrangements for our next duty assignment, and left my older brother and I with the grandparents for a few days.  I have memories of feeling like a stranger lying in my grandparents’ spare bedroom, and resenting it, filled with jealousy for the cousins who knew the carpet, the paintings, the chairs and kitchen table intimately.  I have fond memories of my Grandfather Pete’s big, beaming, sun-carved face, smiling across the table at me early in the morning as he put bread in his glass of milk.  My Grandparents had moved to California during the Great Depression, and lived very simple lives.

A field hand all of his life, Grandfather Pete’s hands were layered with yellow, scratchy calluses, his fingers criss-crossed with long-healed and newly opened cracks.  I loved to watch his hands as he ate his breakfast with me.  Grandfather Pete told story after story, as my Grandmother Adelaide stood laughing at the stove, frying bacon, one eye closed against the line of smoke coming from the Marlboro Red dangling from her lower lip.

It was during one of these layovers, at around the age of 8 or 9, that I met uncle Pete (named after my grandfather.)  He was 16 at the time, and already causing fits with his parents, as he was proving to be quite a bit different from his 3 brothers.  He was not interested in sports, never made a girlfriend from the many young women who enjoyed his company so much, and seemed moody and indrawn often.  My faint memory of Uncle Pete was of a brooding, lonely young man, a dark question mark in my extended family’s life.  I knew Pete was dealing with a big inner struggle, but I lacked the time to pierce the shell.  Pete would remain a stranger to me.

We soon left for Italy for five long, wonderful years.  I never saw Uncle Pete in person again, but stories did from time to time waft over from my parents as they read aloud revelations received through long letters from Grandmother.  When Pete Jr. was 18, he revealed to the family that he was gay, that he was in love with another young man, and begged for their acceptance.  Sadly, this was denied him, and he bitterly moved away, to a variety of locales, eventually making his way to San Francisco, where he was embraced and came to know friends, lovers and a new family.  From time to time, Pete wrote letters, but they were unwelcome.

Many years ago, after spending time in the military myself, having had children and had settled into my own life, I wanted to come to terms with my loss of strong bonds with extended family. I wondered about my cousins and uncles, and especially Uncle Pete.  Pete had remained a question mark to me, and AIDS had been doing its evil in cutting down so many gay men.  I labored for hours in Internet searches, trying to find any snippet of news stories that could possibly include Pete.  Perhaps a raise at a company, speaking out at a City Hall meeting, a whimsical photo in the paper, or even a Civil Union announcement. Anything.  I am a diligent researcher, and unfortunately met with success.  My Uncle Pete had passed away years before.

It was presumptuous to believe AIDS took Pete from our lives.  He could’ve died of Cancer or Heart Disease like his father and mother before him.  But I knew it was AIDS, in my heart of hearts.  I just knew, and didn’t know why.  It took me years to move past the anger over Pete never having received the acceptance and love we all so dearly need in life.  I love my uncles, and do believe a few of them would finally accept Pete if he were alive today…

Today is National AIDS Awareness Day, and I have seen so many wonderful red avatars on Twitter in memory of those lives lost to this terrible malady.  A thought crossed my mind earlier today, that it would be nice to go to the AIDS Quilt project and see if it were possible for Twitter and FaceBook users to download a photo of a quilt square for use as a social media avatar.  I visited the AIDS Quilt website, and discovered a search mechanism you could use to search by name for people in a square.  People could look up someone who had shared their name, and use that as an avatar – how very meaningful and a tender reminder of life’s fleeting connections!

First, I thought I would search for Steve and see how many men sharing my name had lives commemorated on the quilt.  There were so many….  These were men like myself: loving someone, working each and every day beside the rest of us, caring and kind men, just regular guys brought down before achieving all they could in their life.  How many had been denied acceptance and love too, like my Uncle Pete?

My Uncle Pete.  Peter James Woods.  My fingers hovered over the keyboard, as I stared at the search box.  Dare I?  I slowly typed in his name, looked it over no less than 3 times, and clicked on the Search button…

I finally had my answer, to how my Uncle Pete had died, and as my eyes scanned the rest of the quilt square, I saw all of the men beside him commemorated, loved, missed.  These men were strangers to Pete just as I was, yet he and they were stitched forever in one terrible, shared experience.

Uncle Pete had been loved.  Here was the evidence.  Pete had been lost to those that cared about him the most, accepted him for who he was.  They saw the man outside of the shell.  I would like to think that my Uncle Pete had come to know a loving family, and during his too-short life had come to forgive our family for not accepting him.

I miss you, Pete.  I love you, and always will.