Eden Cafe

Part 5: GB – Most Likely To Succeed

Dear GB was one chic man. He aimed high and was an overachiever. He started his own business when he was 16 and by the time he was 18 had several employees. Consequently, he was always the one with money and a car and a great designer apartment in a cool neighborhood. He hung out in the gay clubs and ran in the same circles as me. Always polite, always a spectacular dresser, always very, very refined.

He introduced me to my first serious boyfriend, a man whom I would live with for many years. GB, however, was very private about his love life. Although he was openly gay, even with his parents (which was rare in my circle at the time), he was pretty tightlipped about any brief affairs that he may have had. Until one day GB met Bill, a young beautiful man, and they fell deeply in love. Soon they were living together and throwing lavish and stylish parties. Perhaps he was 20 or 21 years old at that time. GB and Bill were together for several years like well-matched, impeccably lovely bookends.

Over the years I lost touch with GB, as did my dearest friends who were also friends with him. I heard that he and Bill had broken up and that GB was in another long-term relationship. Then, one day GB found me. He had seen media coverage of a work event and recognized me. He called me and we caught up on 10 lost years. He told me of how I was now living in the city he’d recently left and of how he’d started and sold several businesses that now afforded him a rather comfortable lifestyle. He had a house in the tropics and one in a well-to-do part of our hometown. And he told me of how he had been with another partner, Alan, for the last 5 years and how much in love they were. It was wonderful to hear how happy he was and how well he had done for himself.

We pledged to stay in touch and see each other the next time we were in the same city. I called my dearest friends who knew GB and told them about our call. Everyone was pleased to have news of his good fortune. Then, as sometimes happens, busy lives take over and good intentions get lost to the demands of navigating your day-to-day life.

Two years had passed when my friend R called to say that GB had died. She had tried to find him online to call him for his address in order to send him a Christmas card. Instead, she found his obituary. Although the cause of death was not listed, donations were requested for an AIDS hospice in lieu of flowers. GB was 35 years old. One of us tried to find his parents for more information, but was told that they too had passed away. I tried to find Alan, but without his last name, that was futile. And so it remains a sad mystery that we’ll never really know what happened to this driven, vital and oh, so gentle man.