I must have been about four years old the first time my parents sat me down to have "a talk" with me. Apparently my uncle had said something to me the day before that contained some news I didn't really understand. In hindsight, I suppose my uncle had been a little drunk, or angry, or both. I'm not sure even what he said; but it caused a rift between my dad and him for a long time. It was probably something like "Your real dad's a fag, buddy boy". This meant something potent to adults; but to a four year old in the late 1960s it just was an uninteresting mystery and immediately forgotten.

At that age, lots of words were just sounds anyway. I didn't know the word fag, though I confess it strangely sounded warm and appealing to me. My parents weren't impressed when I went around the house singing silly nonsense verses with the words "fag" and "faggy" slipped into them. I just liked the sound of it. And I guess I liked the reaction of grown-ups when they heard me singing it.

It turned out the homosexual taunt wasn’t what had prompted "the talk". It was the phrase "your real dad". You see, I am adopted and this was the first time this news had leaked out to me. Mom and dad had wanted to engineer a time for this revelation so I’d grasp the implication. I didn't really understand it then, at four. Was Jessica adopted too? (She's my younger sister. I have since learned that many adopted kids are in families where parents have other biological kids after the adoption.) No, Jess was born to mom and dad directly.

Being adopted meant I was special because I was chosen. But I always felt like I belonged and was loved as much as Jess, or Corrie -- our beagle -- who was always getting into terrible trouble. When I was bad, I got scolded, and then hugged too, just like Corrie. For a while I thought they might love me more than Jess because everyone said what gorgeous eyelashes I had and what a wonderful voice (I was always singing). But then Jess got a little older, and she had lots of personality (it runs in the family even if it isn't genetic), and pretty soon adults fussed over us about equally.

What did become clear over the next year or two was that mom and dad weren't going to have any more children -- and especially a little brother. I asked for one three Christmases in a row but Santa brought dump trucks and a really neat toboggan instead. So after a time I stopped asking mom and dad for a brother. The last time I asked mom if we could to go to the place they got me and pick another boy out her face went all funny and she almost started to cry.

But I never stopped longing for a brother, a playmate who was a guy, like me. I was also growing up gay, without knowing what that was about. I had constant crushes on other boys and, yah, sometimes I skipped rope with the girls. I wasn't crazy about team sports except that I got to be closer to Henry or George or Sandy. Sandy and I walked home from school most days. Geez he was cute! At ten, he had the most seductive smile and girlish laughter. I used to tickle him just to hear him squeal and giggle. Our parents just thought we were buds but on a deep unspoken level we both knew there was something else going on. Sandy was cool, but he wasn't the brother I had wanted. So I invented one.

Jeff was all those things I wanted to be and that I imagined a younger brother would fill in my life. My sister Jess and I played a little but Jeff and I had adventures. Of course, it was all in my mind -- and in countless scriblings and drawings. Sometimes I'd stand on a stool and look in the bathroom mirror and imagine Jeff's nose and ears and neck and how they would be like mine, but not like mine. As I entered my teen years, and puberty, I returned to the mirror and, stroking my side or chest, wondered what it would be like to touch Jeff. Oh how I longed to go camping with him, or canoeing, or build a tree fort -- all that stuff I saw on TV, pure Brady Bunch stuff, that I knew I was missing. But at least I could have Jeff in my dreams.

Soon I was in high school and my crushes on other boys became pretty serious. Scott, the junior quarterback, sat right next to me in Physics. He had an amazing scent -- boyish, manly, sweet -- and his longish straight brown hair (this was the late 70s) fell over his eyes seductively. He was always brushing it away with his squarish fingers and when I caught his brown eyes staring right back at me I'd blush. Every time! Occasionally he'd ask me to explain something to him in class, and sit even closer, our legs touching. I don't know if he ever knew I had painfully intense erections around him but I sure did!

Sandy and I continued to hang out and after his voice changed -- and he shot up taller than me -- I stopped trying to tickle him. We'd wrestle afterschool sometimes but I always seemed to want to lose and just be held by him. After a while we stopped doing that, too. He did kiss me once, I think I was probably about 15, and it was incredible; he drove his tongue into my mouth as I gasped but hungrily wanted more. For a brief moment I thought that this is what it would be like to have Jeff kiss me. Sometimes we'd hold hands after that when we were alone but we never did anything more. At the end of grade 12, Sandy died in a car crash. I am sure he was gay but I don't think he ever acted on it.

In a number of ways, the imaginary Jeff and real-life Sandy became one person in my heart and losing him was a trigger to try to let go of my imaginary brother. I was already 17, and more or less fully grown, though I wasn't really shaving yet. And now when I looked in the mirror I only seemed to see me. Except when I would look directly into my own eyes and then I'd get a terrible lump in my throat. I started to wonder about my biological mom and dad, what colour eyes they might have, and if there was a real life brother out there, somewhere, growing up with them. Oh, I loved my parents, and I was cared for and loved back -- but still I knew I was missing something.

Soon I was in college and made some new friends and, in my second year, I officially came out. I was lucky to be living in a big city like Toronto where I could get lost in a new environment and make many friends all at the same time. Mom and dad were marvelous in accepting my homosexuality and even invited Brad, my first real boyfriend, to come to the cottage during the summer. We were given our own bedroom without a fuss. My mom even gave me knowing winks as we turned in for the night.

I got a decent job out of college, and made new friends, and for a couple of years tried living on the west coast. That's where I met Michael. Gawd! Was he hot! He was just 18 months younger than me, incredibly smart, had the most adorable eyelashes and a wicked smile. His voice was musical and manly and when I first heard it my knees went weak. And oh my! His green eyes were to die for! No doubt he had broken a lot of hearts, as he would mine. There was something deep about him though; he wasn't just a sexy party boi. He got involved with some local gay groups and organized bikeathons to raise money. He was athletic, and so incredibly full of life. I was in love almost immediately. Unfortunately, lots of people felt that way when they met Michael.

For some reason, he and I only ever made love once and it sure wasn't for my lack of trying. We kissed sometimes and would get all hot and bothered, still fully clothed, and then he'd pull back and look into my eyes, taking my jaw tenderly in his hands, and kiss my cheek, then whisper in my ear "Jase, you're too special. I love you, but not that way." I cried terribly the first time he said that to me, and didn't understand. But I had to accept it. Besides, I knew Michael was in a strange way a manifestation of Jeff, and the way we played, hung out and slept near one another, sometimes cradling the other, partly clothed, brought a peace to my life I had not felt before.

In April, 1991, while I was still living in Vancouver but planning to move back to Toronto -- a great job offer had come through and I really hated the rain -- Michael and I finally got carried away in a pretty trashed drunken state. His skin fully against mine was electric and, despite being half out of it, was the greatest sex I'd ever had. The best part was the feeling that I'd found, however briefly, that missing part of me. At one point, while he was in the height of passion, and I was feeling him deeply inside me, our eyes opened at just the same time and we just stared at each other. I drew him tighter to me and we kissed and kissed and rocked back and forth, our eyes locked to the other. When we finally reached release, his eyes fluttered shut momentarily, then returned deeply into mine and we collapsed, sweaty, spent, alive. But that look! There was a hunger, and a sameness, and a recognition that neither of us would feel again.

I could happily have died right then and there in his arms. But I didn't.

Somehow, in the move back to Toronto, I lost touch with Michael. Mail was returned and friends of ours didn't know where he went. I felt sick and worried he might have been beaten up or killed. It wasn't like him to drop out of sight; then again, he was a free spirit. I didn't forget about Michael, but my life moved on and after a time I was involved with someone new and very special. And my career was firing on all cylinders, too, so I had less time to grieve Michael's loss.

That is, until I got a call, one early gray morning in November, around 6 am. It was Michael. He sounded terribly weak, desperately lonely.

"Jase ... "

I recognized his voice instantly and my heart sank. "Michael?!? Where the heck are you?" I cried out into the phone.

"Back in Van, babe. I've done a lot of soul searching. I need you to know how much I love you. How much our time together was the most peaceful time I've ever had. How much the time we made love was ...." and his voice trailed off.

"Michael, you sound sick. Are you being taken care of? Do you need anything?"

"Oh god, yah, I need something. I need real peace. And it's coming, sweet Jase."

"What the hell do you mean by that?!?" My voice was filled with anger and sorrow and most of all fear.

"I'm dying and I'm not waiting. I won't waste away like some of our friends. I wanted to hear your voice one more time, Jase. I love you. I won't be able to hug you again but I am doing that now in my heart. I love you."

We hung on the line without speaking for a long time. I couldn't find any words. I loved him too much to fight him; I knew when he made a really deep decision, it was not to be unmade.

Quietly, I found some words and in a very tiny voice I said "I love you, Michael. I love you like the brother I never had and always wanted." And I started to sing, softly, a special song we had shared together. I heard him start to sob on the other end of the line and then, softly, "Good bye, Jase" and the dial-tone returned abruptly.

Having recently turned 30, Michael's death made me aware of my own mortality for the first time. Looking again into the mirror, I wondered if he were looking back into my eyes. And I started to feel, every now and again, a creak here and there in my bones. I was still a young man ... but I was no longer a very young man. That longing, lonely yearning to know about my roots returned with a vengeance. And now with a sense of urgency, too. If I sought my birth mom and dad, would they still be alive?

But then career issues took over, and as I licked my wounds, and made new friends, the need to know my roots, my parents, faded a little. I kept a picture of Michael in my bedroom, the one with one eye partially shut, laughing that wicked laugh of his, a beer bottle in one hand and a cowboy hat rakishly tilted to one side. Four more years passed and then, one night, I awoke in a terrible sweat. I cried out as I opened my eyes -- I was certain I could see Michael, shirtless and sassy, at the end of the bed. And the words fell from his lips: "Find your mom. Hurry." I scrambled up to greet him, kneeling, and blinked at him, reaching out. "Michael?!?" I howled. And for just a fraction of a second I thought I felt his strong, warm arms around me again, his scent wafting over me, subtly, but unmistakably. And then he was gone. Again.

Please see Part Two.

Alexander Inglis (November 18, 2002),
In Toronto