Who remembers my friend Brian? It was heartbreaking to see J.M. Sorrell’s account of 40 years of lesbian organization of Northampton Pride [“Misogyny as entertainment and entitlement,” Gazette, May 3]. Forty-one years ago, my high school friend Brian Robertson died of AIDS. Act-Up activist, an original organizer of Northampton’s LGBTQ alliance, and yes, Northampton’s Pride, a sandy red-head, camp, kind, energetic and thirsty for life, he died at just 25, after nursing his partner who predeceased him: “he would be my husband if …”
Brian was a lifesaver in 10th grade; his kind outreach and friendship finally gave me friends to each lunch with; his example taught me that teasing could be kind and warm instead of bullying. But it took me decades to absorb in his witness for same-sex marriage and support of all gender modalities. I grieve and remember Brian any time I see a Pride banner flying in an outrageous or in-your-face place; also when I see gay friends married, raising children … Would he have wanted children? I know he wanted marriage. What a dad he would have been. Who else remembers him? Who else did we lose, from our activists and citizens 40 or more years ago?
Patricia Joan Hawkins
Northampton