Remembering Tyler and Celebrating Robert.

Robert is in the center (in green), Also Kendall, Jo, Wanda and others who have fallen out of my memory. The photo was from Breckenridge, Colorado. My iPhone time stamp says June 2011 but that it almost certainly wrong. I would guess about 2003? I think it may have been Martin Luther King Day weekend or there about.

Sometimes I amuse myself by choosing what day in my life I would want to live over and over in "Groundhog Day" style. A day that was so alive and sparkling that I might never tire of it. The night that I met Robert falls into that category.

I had just had a sixteen-year relationship end on me, and I was still in my early forties. Ample time to feel like the world was my oyster even if I didn't particularly want to spend time at the seafood bar. And I was in Denver, Colorado for a work trip but in the middle of ski season and surrounded by people who skied on a regular basis.

I was no skier. Instead, I was a pudgy gay mid-Atlantic boy from Baltimore where skiing is a concept more than a practicality. Once as a teen, I had gone to a gently hilled and icy resort called Round Top, but I failed even "Ski Lifts 101" and almost killed an older woman by running over the tail of her skis while she was in line and caused them to shoot out from under her and oof'ing her to the ground. She was not gracious about my faux pas. And that was the end of my ski career until this particular trip to Colorado. This time I was determined to start over again and to master it.

As a freshly single boy, I was confused and lonely, so when my colleagues pushed a weekend at a REAL ski resort, I jumped at the opportunity. The chance to meet new friends as I rebuilt my shattered personal life. To learn new skills that had eluded me. It was tonic.

I remember going out to dinner with some of my Denver work colleagues, including a lean, very handsome gay guy named Kendall. It didn't matter that he showed nothing other than platonic interest in me. He was cute. And I was freshly single and motivated to hook up.

So we all went out to dinner as a pod of co-workers, but I was delighted to find that another new seemingly gay guy named Robert was also joining us. And he was not only cute: he was hysterical. Charismatic. Professional. Built like a muscular fireplug. He may or may not have been Italian, but he had that vibe. And freshly out from a straight marriage, I knew this could be fun.

Once we checked into our ski apartment, I kept my fingers crossed that I'd get to room with Kendall but was not too upset to find that I got Robert instead. He was in one twin bed. I was in the other. We turned in late, and I had THE. BEST. NIGHT. OF. MY. LIFE!!!

Get your mind out of the gutter! We didn't have sex. Instead, we stayed up pretty much all night talking. About life. About gays. About skiing. About our coworkers. About libraries. The conversation didn't end, and we were so connected and charged up that we sparkled like Cole Porter flirting with Oscar Wilde. We both laughed in the dark until the tears rolled down our faces, and we would try to roll over, calm our laughter, and go to bed. Until one or the other of us blurted out another bon mot or joke, and we would start all over again. I distinctly recall us laughing and hyperventilating for the thousandth time as Robert would plead, "for God's sake, can you PLEASE shut up??" But neither he nor I did shut up until we passed out from endorphins and fatigue as the night wound down and the sun started lightening the sky.

That night cemented a friendship that has lasted over twenty years.

Robert went on to meet his boy Tyler. Tyler, who was a ragingly handsome but charmingly high-maintenance twink that designed his way through life. I was happy for them both but saw them too infrequently. Robert and I would just randomly call and talk forever but with less frequency. Only every now and then for updates. But somehow that friendship never faded.

Many years ago, Robert called to say that he and Tyler were in Mexico and Tyler had gone to the hospital with chest pains. The doctors there misdiagnosed his discomfort and, consequently, Tyler had a massive heart attack that had killed his heart muscle. He survived but lived with a mechanical heart pump for ages before finally getting a full-out heart transplant.

As you would expect, this changed him and became the start of his lifetime of challenges. He continued to live large but cautiously, and Robert would regale me with their exploits. But it was not the life that they had signed up for. And all the time, Robert was right by his side. Helping. Encouraging. Fighting his own occasional health challenges. But never leaving. Never faltering.

This week Tyler finally succumbed to his lifetime of challenges.

One of the pieces of wisdom that I got from my last long-term boyfriend (who was a funeral director) is that funerals are not for the dead. They are for the living.

While it is respectful to honor the wishes of our late loved ones, it may be more important to provide for the grieving needs of the living. If Socrates was right in his Apology and death is "but a sleep like the sleep of him who is undisturbed even by dreams," then I agree that death is likely not to be feared. We fear it because we do not know what it is, but trillions of lives have gone before us and have lit that dark path for us, so we are not alone even in death. With every birth: an inevitable death is announced, but we have yet to find a way to make that a joyous thing.

So we grieve Tyler's loss. His life of struggle. His indomitable heart with an insufficient heart. But I celebrate that he had Robert, who I may have enjoyed for one night; but for whom he got to enjoy for his entire difficult journey.

L'Chaim Tyler. L'Chaim Robert.

Tyler's obituary can be found online.