James,

Thanks so much for sharing this part of your history. It is heartbreaking when someone decides they can't be who they are.

When I was a teenager, I was friends with a guy who was openly gay. This was 1974. When I met him, I knew that my best friend while I was growing up was closeted. My childhood friend never talked about any questioning or spoke of his crushes and never , to my knowledge, examined his sexuality.

He was religious and I wasn't and that was ultimately what led us away from each other.

During our twenties he became a monk. He lived in a monastery and wore their robes and took a vow of poverty.

In our thirties he quit the monastery (under a cloak of unanswered questions from his family) went to law school, took the bar and became a lawyer. Just a regular lawyer, the kind who gets people money from corporations when they break their bones on wet floors. Not a lawyer doing pro-bono work or doing defense work. Just the kind that makes a lot of money.( not that there's anything wrong with that...)

He's lived alone all of his life. He's 66 now.

All of my adult life I've had gay friends. Some have stayed with their religions while at the same time being at peace with (or at least able to ignore ) contradictory teachings . I've witnessed a lot of pain and suffering that my gay friends have had to endure. But I've also been there and experienced their great joy at being alive and in love, in having openness to be themselves.

This is what I think of when you mention Brad. Stuck to religion, which is supposed to bring peace and happiness into someone's life but instead keeps them trapped and filled with shame.

Ugh, so sad.