Last Words from a Lover

Alexander, I don’t know how I was able to make it this far. I look like a skeleton clinging to life in this damn hospital bed and here you are by my side. I am forever grateful that you didn’t leave me. In this depressing time I have never been so happy that I was able to spend my days with you. You are my other half, you challenge me, and you love me more than a New Yorker loves the Yankee’s. The first time you came to my office at the Times with that awful jacket and asked me to write an article about gays and this disease, I didn’t want to write it. I had a deadline. But seeing you work to fight for the cause is a gift. I know that when you were not taking care of me you were looking for some government official to speak for us. You hated the mayor for not setting up a meeting sooner to help figure out a plan for gay New Yorkers, you were sad with Emma when funding was denied, and you never should have given up picketing the White House. You never shied away from getting what you want, and you never shied away as I have grew worse. I think the worse I got the harder you fought, because you wanted someone other than the CDC to do something. It takes a great man to watch his lover die in front of him, and I am grateful that I could spend my last months looking into that sweet face knowing you did all you could to get the country on our side to find out what this disease is. Know that when I take my last breathe I am proud of what you have done and I love you like no other for doing that. When my heart stops beating, know that you were the first person that I have ever loved more than anything else in the world.