We live in a small village on the east end of Long Island. It's a remarkable place. Tom and I are openly gay and we're very active in our community. In fact, Tom ran for school board last spring and came within 16 votes of winning. He was up against three tough incumbents. It's wild how different life is from the Midwest and the 1970s. Our Mayor is a lesbian, but it's never been an issue. No one really cares. Unfortunately, I think she's a lousy Mayor.
I retired recently from the software industry. I got into computers when I moved to New York in 1982. I went to college at night and got my bachelor's degree in computer science and marketing. I rode a couple of waves in the software business and was in the epicenter of the dot.COM bubble burst in 2000. It was a lot of fun and I did well, but it also aged me. I was running U.S. Operations for an Israeli software company until this past summer, when they started to insist I travel to Israel a little more often than I wanted to. The last trip I made was in August, when a bus bombing occurred within a mile of my hotel. That was it for me. I decided there's more to life than living on airplanes.
Tom and Annie are glad to have me home and I'm enjoying not traveling as much. I've taken up writing and I've gotten involved with a human rights group. I want to spend the next chapter of my life working on something more meaningful than selling software. I'm currently writing a book about my first love and some of the darker days of my youth. I was doing research for this when I found you on the web.
It saddened me deeply to see how much of your life has been spent inside, Paul. My heart broke for you, all over again. It seems only a moment ago that you were that eighteen-year-old kid who slipped inside my life and taught me how to celebrate who I am. I miss that kid, that friend, that lover and mentor who made such a difference in my life.
It's hard to try to put into words all that I'd like to say. There are so many ways in which some of the things you taught me, I have been able to work in my life in positive ways. Thank you for that, Paul. I want to tell you how sorry I am that you are still there. But I don't want to press your bit either. I can't imagine what that must feel like.
Please understand that I'm very happy in my life and with my family. I would not change a thing. I recognize that who you and I were, twenty-five years ago, is a world and a lifetime away from where we're each at in our lives today. But I wanted to take a moment to say hello and to honor what we shared together.
Whenever the song "Always and Forever" cones on the radio, no matter where I'm at or what I am doing, I stop and think of you. I remember when you sent me those lyrics shortly after you escaped. I think about what you meant to me and about that wonderful period when I fell in love for the first time. I think about how you helped me put aside my shame and rejoice in who I am. It was the first time that I no longer felt alone in the world. And though I've enjoyed a few successes since, there has never been another experience like that time and space that you occupied in my heart.
I came across two fragments of poems that best express these thoughts:
Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage; If I have freedom in my love, And in my soul am free, Angels alone that soar above enjoy such liberty.
But though my wings are closely bound, my heart's at liberty; My prison walls cannot control, the flight, the freedom of the soul.
In spite of our circumstances and the repressive world we were confined to; you helped free my spirit and liberate me. I hope you can see this in yourself and that in some small way this may help you. You're a wonderful man Paul, and life has not been kind to you. I pray that better times lie ahead. And above all else, I wish for you to know how much you have lived freely and joyously in my heart these last twenty-five years. This will never be contained, subdued, or silenced by anyone and anything.
Always and Forever,
Tim
I didn't know if I'd ever hear from Paul or even if he received my letter. But contrary to his warning that I'd forget about him, I never have. It's been twenty-five years since I had last seen him, yet the pain and memory of those experiences are as vivid to me now as they were back then. The thought occurred to me that the only difference between Paul and me was that he didn't come knocking on my window the night he escaped.
My Dear Tim:
I wish I could explain how much you brightened my life today. There have been very few truly exciting moments in my life, since I last saw you, but opening that letter and reading your beautiful words has been very special.
I'm in the prison hospital right now. I had a quadruple by-pass on December 6th. I am very tender all over but getting stronger each day. I am not as articulate as you are, but I hope I'm able to express how truly proud I am of you. I have thought
