The Story of Roy and Learning to Love and Be
Loved
My Journey to Speak on Greif Loss and Trauma
Patti Wood
We met at freshman orientation at
Florida State University in Tallahassee. I looked across the room and saw this
tall, handsome Nordic blonde guy with a soft smile sitting on the floor next to a grand piano.. I said to myself: ‘There is my life’s best
friend.” I found out later he looked across the room, saw me and thought I would be his life's best friend. We became like brother and sister, closer even, we were twin souls.
For years, we did everything
together. We giggled and laughed and danced through our college years. We were
housemates along with our friend Lisa our senior year; we fixed hundreds of
awesome dinners together; we shopped and traveled together, and we shared our
innermost feelings and experiences. In fact, sharing something with Roy was
often the best part of a new event in my life, and hearing something wonderful
that Roy experienced made me as happy as it made him.
Roy was warm and funny, goofy and
silly in a Dudley Doo Right kind of way. He was a six-foot-two, kind and loving and generous, and had a deep full laugh that was contagious. He had deep scars all the way down his back where his father had whipped him with a belt. I believe each long scar showed where he had chosen to turn his pain to empathy and compassion for others.
As friends, we accepted each
other down to the core. Someone loving me that much made me feel loved
absolutely. Roy and I loved each other absolutely. Roy taught me that people showed their love in different ways even
saying “Patti when I fix your broken necklace, I am showing I love you.” “When
I reach something from a high shelf for you I am showing that I love you and I
know when you have my favorite big BLT fixed for me at lunch you are loving me and
when you let me sing off-key through a long car ride you’re showing that you
love me.”
We were tender and affectionate
with one another. Holding hands, sitting leaning up against each other like twins, brother, and sister. We weren't attracted to each other. We were a bonded pair. We completed each other.
When we were roommates in college
he was a social work major, a crises team counselor, head of gay peer counselor, and went on to work as a social worker in a mental institution and lived in Atlanta.
I went to Auburn University to pursue a master’s
degree, and then returned to Tallahassee to begin a Ph.D. program. Roy and I were as close as ever. We talked
for hours on our weekly phone calls and visited each other every few months we were still so very very close.
I lived in a small town where I
couldn’t go shopping without running into someone I knew. Roy and I were so close that when my friends
in Tallahassee who hadn’t even met Roy, did know that he was my “Twin Soul” so when they
would see me they would always ask, “How are you?”, “How is Roy?”
Years passed. I had a four-bedroom
house with a big fenced-in yard, a steady boyfriend a group of friends that
were like a second family, wonderful housemates, and a great dog. I took Thai Chi classes, and. I’d eat grape nuts for breakfast and joked with my housemate
Pat about our crazy dream from the night before. I’d start my day singing in
the shower and then get in my car singing along with the songs on my radio on
my way to work.
I had my own consulting company and
taught communication at Florida
State; my class in
nonverbal communication had 150 students enrolled each semester. I was living a
happily-ever-after existence, and Roy, was always a part of me and I was always
a part of him.
When Roy and I were 29 I went
to visit him in Atlanta. He took me on a walk in Atlanta’s Piedmont Park. His big 6’2 frame
towered above my petite five feet two inches and he held my hand as we walked. It was a beautiful spring day and
as we circled the lake and I was blissfully breathing the fragrant flowered air
so happy to be Roy. As we rounded a curve, Roy stopped, brushed back his blonde hair, turned
toward me and said, “Patti, I’m dying.”
I heard a loud gut-wrenching scream
crying “No!” echo across the lake. It took me a moment to realize the scream
was mine.
How could the world turn without sweet Roy? At that moment, everything in my
life began to change. I knew with certainty I had to move to Atlanta
to be with Roy.
I didn’t ask him if he wanted me to come, I just decided. People thought I was
crazy. But it was really selfish – I just had to be with him.
Within a few days, my boyfriend had
broken up with me - he was afraid of being infected from my innocent friendship
with Roy - and I began getting rid of my belongings. I sold almost everything
in the house down to the bare walls. I took the cash and left my house, my
friends, and my speaking business. I moved to an apartment that Roy could share with me and I
took a job as a temp receptionist in to make ends meet, exchanging a $1,000-a-program
speaking life for a $7.50-an-hour wage. Instead of being treated with respect
and admiration, I was treated like a servant. I didn't really care. I smiled and hid my pain.
I took a small apartment and
fitfully slept on a borrowed mattress on the floor of my closet. I was alone in
a city filled with strangers. I would
visit Roy every day he was in the hospital and sit on the edge of his bed, holding
his hand. And though Roy and I would laugh as we always did, our jokes were
about the glove-wearing hospital staff that tried to avoid touching him, his
new free hospital gown wardrobe with built-in” ties in back” air-conditioning and
about his new easy diet plan, we called “Wendy’s drive-through” a drip from plastic bag on a stand on wheels that he was hooked to when he could no longer eat.
All of our friendship we had incredible rapport with one
another. We
would dress in a similar way — same dark blue jeans, same
leather jacket.
Both of us even had red shoes, mine pumps, and his oxfords.
We would sit in
a similar way next to each other on the couch. When we got
on the phone,
we talked in a similar tone and rhythm. When we were sitting
across the
table from each other eating, we would both pick up and put
down our
knives at the same time. Our sameness made us feel
comfortable around one
another. Being with each other was like being home. My
roommate in graduate
school wrote her master’s thesis novel based loosely on our
lives as roommates.
Her professors said that my eerie matching with Roy did not
make
sense. So in the novel, she made us twins! Now I felt that we were sharing our parallel lives with each other, I was dying along with Roy and he was getting to live along with me.
Over the one year I watched Roy
decline, he went from a being a strapping six-foot 2-inch man to an emaciated
90-pounds that I could carry in my arms. I would return home each night, take a
shower and weep uncontrollably. My sleep was filled with concentration camp
filled nightmares. Over that year I had nine other friends die. I saw Roy
lose his ability to first walk, then to eat, then to remember, to speak and
finally his ability to breathe.
Roy died of Pneumonia in July before his 30th
birthday. I could not believe that
the world would keep spinning without that sweet “Roy boy.” But, it did. I could not believe
that I didn’t die too. I was so surprised that I could actually go on breathing
without him. His family insisted I have his ashes. He told me before he died,
he wanted me to have his ashes so someday he could come to my wedding. His big heart and tall frame fit into such a small box. I have a photo of us hugging and laughing in the hallways that I look at each day. I am grateful to have known such a good man.
I envision a reunion with him. It would
start out with just for the two of us. We would walk around his beloved Piedmont Park
in Atlanta. As
we walked, we’d catch up on each other’s news. We’d laugh about him never
getting older than 29 and the fact that I am much older but still a tiny
blonde.
We would cry over having missed so
many dinners and trips with each other. I’d tell him about the speaking
practice I rebuilt after he died. I’d express regret that I haven’t yet
married, so don’t yet have a son I can name Roy. I’d tell him how sorry I am that his sickness
prevented him from marrying the man he loved, who later also died of AIDS.
Then we’d go for dinner at one of
his favorite restaurants. He loved great food, and we would share a dessert. We’d
meet up with friends afterward and go dancing together until the wee hours.
And then we would curl up together
and I’d thank him for being the best friend in the world to me, for making my life
so much richer through the gift of his unconditional love, truly teaching me
what is to love and be loved.
We love, we grieve and we are grateful to have known such good souls.
--Patti Wood, Atlanta,
GA, motivational speaker, and consultant on body language and human behavior.
Patti Wood, MA - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at www.PattiWood.net. Check out Patti's website for her new book "SNAP, Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language and Charisma" at www.snapfirstimpressions.com.
