Anthony Venn-Brown speaking at the Newcastle Writers Festival @ QUEERSTORIES, 06 Apr 2019, The Playhouse, Hunter St, Newcastle.

Jason Gave You a Gift

Extract from A Life of Unlearning Chapter 18, Evolution

When I dropped Jason at Central Station at the end of Easter weekend 1994, I meant it when I said, “I never want to see you again”.

It wasn’t because over the weekend he’d revealed he was one of the first to contract HIV in Sydney in the early 80’s and the supposed ‘diagnosis’ in 1992, during our tumultuous 12 month relationship, was actually a fabrication. It was that he had stolen money from me once again. Having navigated the decades of self-loathing and finally coming to a place of self-respect I was committed to ensuring my world consisted only of people who treated me with respect. Jason, proved to me that even though his time was ending, nothing had changed. But I had.

Several years on, I was working in the Hunter Valley and had a sense that I should see Jason’s parents. Internally I felt resolved but somehow I also felt it was important to make contact. During that fateful last weekend together, Jason had promised that I could have the letters I’d written to him. It was these letters he’d discovered after coming out of six months in hospital recovering from the removal of a brain tumour, that had helped trigger his lost memories. I was hoping they might still be locked away somewhere at his parents’ house. At least they would be a positive memory of our time together.

Sitting in my car at nine o’clock in the morning outside the house I had visited eight years earlier, everything looked totally different. The changes in the garden and the new paint job made me wonder if Jason’s parents still lived there anymore. I began to doubt the sanity of what I was doing. How would they react? Would this open up old wounds or would they even remember me? After sitting for ten minutes, I thought, if I’m meant to see them, then they’ll come out of the house.

As I finished that thought, Jason’s parents stepped out the front door and walked towards their car in the drive. They’d hardly changed in the last eight years. Hearing my car door shut in the quiet morning, they turned and watched me cross the road and walk up the path to introduce myself. It took a little while for them to put the pieces together and realise who I was. Then they told me the story.

Jason died alone on 5 May 1997, in tragic circumstances. After being notified by the police they went down to Melbourne to identify the body. It took them a week to find his belongings, which had been packed up in a shopping trolley he’d used, as he was too weak to carry them.

‘Where’s Jason buried?’ I asked cautiously. ‘He was very significant in my life and I would like to say my goodbyes.’

They gave me directions to the cemetery about 30 kilometres away, just out of Newcastle and the memorial where his ashes had been placed; I left immediately.

The only other people at the cemetery at ten in the morning were a handful of people in the distance laying a loved one to rest. For a brief moment I thought how ludicrous it seemed to be here wanting to say goodbye to the person who had caused so much misery in my life. I walked around for twenty minutes, reading the little plaques on the small cement blocks under the native bushes searching for Jason’s lot. I was beginning to think it was an impossible task when I spotted a small picture of Jason under a bottlebrush bush, probably placed there by his sister who, years later, was still unable to come to terms with his death.

The laminated photo was of Jason in his prime and looked like it had been taken around the time we’d met. Once again, I felt the pain of sorrow in my heart, even regret, that things had turned out so poorly between us.

I knew that beyond the impenetrable wall of lies, guilt and deceit that separated Jason and me, there was love. Jason would never have called me out of the blue, from the Hunter that night, would not have moved to Sydney with me, or have contacted me again after the operation and finding the letters I’d written, if he didn’t love me in some way. Briefly, I’d seen the few tears no one else had seen as he walked out of our flat for the last time. There was just too much crap in the way, mine included, to find the depth that could have held us together. Could things have been different? I wondered, as I spoke softly to the laminated image on the cement block, ‘Goodbye, Jason.’

‘Jason gave you a gift.’ The words came from somewhere with amazing clarity, breaking through the many other thoughts and sad memories. It didn’t make sense. I shook my head as I thought of the heartache, stress, pain and black eyes Jason had given me – nothing I could call a gift. What had Jason given me? Nothing! Not even a birthday or Christmas present because his gambling always ensured he was broke.

‘Jason gave you a gift.’ rolled repeatedly in my mind as I walked back to the car. I was getting more and more frustrated with this statement and every time I wondered, what gift did Jason give me?

Stepping off the lawn onto the gravel carpark, the answer came with the same clarity as the statement: Jason gave you the gift of honesty and immediately the truth of that statement.

Until I’d met Jason I’d lived in denial, deceiving my wife, children and friends, but most of all, lying to myself and always pretending to be someone I wasn’t. Then I met Jason and, for the first time in my life, I was forced to face the truth; then to live it by being honest with myself and others.

Thank God for Jason, I thought, as I imagined what my life would be like if I hadn’t met him. Quite possibly I’d still be married, never being able to be the husband my wife deserved or longed for, even more tortured I guessed, preaching words to others I couldn’t live myself. Living a duplicitous, incongruent, fragmented life, never knowing the authenticity I longed for. Wanting to be real, but terrified of the cost.

What a tragic life that would have been.

As I contemplated the meaning of the simple words that had entered uninvited into my consciousness, the troubled memories of Jason melted and a wholesome love emerged in my heart. Even more importantly, gratitude for the gift he brought to my life.

Looking back at the synchronistic events of the day, someone, something, had taken me to this place that I might know this profound truth. I drove out of the cemetery released and empowered, having learnt that no matter how difficult or tragic a situation may appear, no matter how great the loss, if you look deeper there will often be a gift – some special treasure that would never have been experienced without the pain.

For some, tragedy, loss or suffering appears to be destructive, and they get lost in the abyss of anger, resentment and self-pity. For others, it’s a blessing, not a curse. I think the saying is true. ‘In life we either become bitter or better’. And the only person who determines that outcome is us.

Further extracts from the Australian gay classic, A Life of Unlearning, available on the website www.ALifeOfUnlearning.com

Read about the three editions HERE