June 19, 2024 • 38 mins
Jason Prefontaine's father died from AIDS related complications. Decades later, he reunited with him in an unexpected way. Special thank you to Trent Straube for originally writing about Chris & Jason in POZ magazine in 2021. You can read his article here.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
But We Loved is a production of iHeart Podcasts and
The Outspoken podcast Network.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
I think on the certificate it said where he was buried,
and so we went to it, and I remember going
down having to search on this cliff. It was very steep,
so if you kind of slipped, would fall down the hill.
And I had found his name plate and it said
his name, Roger Vasquez, and it said beloved son, beloved uncle,
(00:32):
and beloved father. Remember being like, wow, that was they
put father on there. That one really hit me because
he never got a chance to be the father. So
that made me think that he really wanted to be
(00:53):
a father and didn't get the opportunity.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
As a gay kid, growing up religious and in the South,
I thought being gay was the worst thing I could
ever be. Now, as a journalist, I'm trying to learn
that by seeking out our history, and what I've found
are people and stories full of courage, perseverance, and love.
(01:23):
In this continuation of last week's episode, we'll meet Jason Prefontaine,
who lost his father when he was nine years old
to aids. We'll learn what it was like for him
to spend his whole life longing for his dad and
how decades later, fate would help him find everything he
was searching for. From My Heart Podcast, I'm Jordan and
(01:46):
Solve and this is what we Loved. In last week's episode,
(02:11):
I mentioned how I grew up learning just how sad
the AIDS crisis really was. There was loss, in grief
and homophobia. But as I began diving into the history,
I realized that in all of the devastation, there were
these amazing stories of love, and in last week's episode,
(02:35):
we heard one of them. Chris Pimentel told me about
his first love with Roger Vasquez. Unfortunately, Roger was lost
to the AIDS crisis in nineteen ninety one, but before
Roger died, he had revealed to Chris that he had
a son who lived in California. Before meeting Chris, Roger
(02:57):
was married to a woman, his son's mother, but when
she found out Roger was gay, she kicked him out
and he never saw his son again. His son practically
knew nothing about him. He was three the last time
they saw each other, but Roger longed for his son.
He loved him. He had left things for him when
(03:18):
he died, and his partner, Chris hoped for thirty years
to find Roger's son so he could give him those things,
but he didn't know where to start. Roger's ex wife
wanted nothing to do with him, so he had no
contact with her. And Roger's son had a different last name.
(03:39):
His name was Jason Prefontaine, and in this week's episode,
he's my guest.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
I was probably about three the last time I saw
my dad. It wasn't a great memory, but I feel
like it's burned in my head. I remember there was
a bunch of cop cars on their lawn and he
ran out the front door and there are cops are
running after him, and he grabbed me and picked me
up and hugged me, and I just remember them pulling
(04:14):
us apart. Who pulled you aboard the cops?
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Wow?
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Yeah, So to find out later that he was getting
arrested because he hadn't paid his parking tickets, so he
had a lot of them.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
That's the last memory I have of him at that moment.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
So do you know why your dad left?
Speaker 2 (04:40):
I don't think he had a choice. I think my
mom made him leap.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Tell me about that.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
I think he was always fighting with himself to either
be straight or be gay. I think he was trying
really hard to stay straight for me and be in
this relationship to be a dad. But I think that
the struggle was too hard for him. From what I
know bits and pieces that she caught him with a
(05:09):
guy in our home and I was in the other room.
She got very angry. I think, when my mom gets angry,
cuts you off. You're done. So she wanted nothing to
do with him. She didn't want me around him. He
(05:30):
was just gone. I think she was embarrassed because she
was in love with him, and I don't know how
much he was in love with her. I remember going
to court, probably when I was about five, and they
were talking about custody and and he wasn't there. I
(05:52):
just remember sitting in the court. I knew it was
about their relationship ending, and they were going to talk
about who I was going to stay with.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
And so you said he didn't come to the court hearing.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
Yeah, he never shut.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Up, and so he lost all visitation rights at that point.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Yeah, they were gone.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Did you ever wonder why he didn't sort of fight
for those visitation rights or for that custody.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
I still wonder that in my whole life. I wonder
why he never showed up. I don't think I'll ever
get the answer I want to hear. I mean, that's
kind of haunted me my whole life.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Your mom had began to date someone else around the
same time when you were pretty young. Did you ever
miss Roger even though you had this new father figure
in your life. Did you feel like something was missing?
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Always, I never thought of my stepdad as my dad.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
I just remember.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Him being mean and he would just get in your
brain and make you think things like you were the
bad person, and treated my mom horribly, and I remember
one time he smacked me in the back of the
head so hard I could see stars. He wasn't a
great person, so I just always thought, Gosh, one day
(07:23):
I'm going to find him and he's going to take
me away from him. So I think that's probably why
I never thought negatively about him, because I just he
was like this, I guess prince to take me away
from that, you know what I mean, like a hero.
And that's why I never gave.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
Up on him.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Even though I didn't have Roger in my life. In
the back of my head, I knew he was going
to be in my life at some point. I just
thought Okay, once I'm eighteen, I can go find him.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
So in your mind, Roger was not just your dad,
but kind of like a savior that would come and
take you away from all of this chaos. Yeah, what
were the kinds of things that your mom and family
members told you about Roger, Because at this point, not
only was Roger cut off, but his entire family was
(08:15):
cut off too.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
I had no information about his side of the family.
I knew nothing about them, but I was told he
would disappear for days going on vendors and he would
just leave no money for my mom for groceries or diapers.
So it was just always drilled into me that he
was horrible, and I don't know why. I just never
(08:38):
believed it, but that's all I ever heard was negative
things my whole life. I had one picture of him.
It was just me and him. I was a baby,
I was probably about one one and a half, and
so I had a certain image of him in my mind.
So anybody that I passed by that sort of look
(08:59):
like him, I'm like, oh, I wonder if that's him.
And that happened for years. I just like, I just
remember one moment being at a gas station and someone
looked like him. I was in high school, and I
remember just staring like, I wonder if that's him right there?
And I always think about that moment, that one specifically
because this man looked just like him.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
So you mentioned earlier that you had heard certain things
about him, but you didn't really ask a lot of questions.
How come you didn't want to ask more about him?
Speaker 2 (09:34):
I think the couple times I did ask, I was
shut down pretty quickly, So I was always scared to
ask anymore about him, so I would even if I
would ask other family members, they quickly shut down, and
I don't I didn't know why. I didn't understand why
they were shutting me down. Well, I think the big
secret was was that he was gay and he had AIDS,
(10:00):
And I don't know if that was their way of
protecting me or if they were protecting my mom. If
I would ever bring up his name, I would get
shot down. So I got to the point where I
was probably too scared to ask her because she held
onto that anger for a long time, like years, I
(10:22):
mean past me being in high school, she was still bitter.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
So I just learned to keep my.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Mouth shut for a long time there was just it
was me and her, and I always just wanted her
to be happy. After Roger left, my mom started dating
the drummer for Rick Nelson. He was a singer from
like the sixties and seventies. His name was Ricky, and
(10:49):
I remember at the time I loved Ricky. He was
very similar to my dad.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
It was kind.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
He died on the plane crash with Rick Nelson. She
had another loss some of that she loved. So I
remember being a little kid being like, I just want
to make her happy. So I just went along with
anything she wanted to do. I was quiet where we went.
I was always the good little child that didn't say anything.
(11:19):
So to bring up Roger it made her angry, and
I didn't want her to be angry all the time,
so I was very careful.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
The year is two thousand and Jason is a senior
in high school. By this point, he knew he was gay,
but he had no idea that his dad was gay too.
He wouldn't find that out until much later. It was
this year when he came out to his very conservative,
very religious Mormon family. Tell me about the first time
(11:48):
you knew you were gay.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
I had known I was gay since I was five.
I remember being in school and I was in love
with the boy next door mm hmm. And I didn't
understand at the time, but I knew that you weren't
supposed to be in love with a boy, but I
didn't care, so I just knew. Always I was into
(12:14):
musical theater, dancing around the house and I'd put a
shirt on my head thinking it was long hair and
in front of everybody.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
So I mean, I.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
Feel like everybody knew I used to do that too.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
I just remember watching those old romantic movies and I
loved it, just movies where everybody was in love, and
I just like, I want to be in love like that.
And I think nobody in the family understood that. They
didn't understand my love for old movies.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
The other piece to this is that your family is Mormon, right, Yeah,
it's hardcore marks. So tell me all about that.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
The big time.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
The time I came out, it was an accident, my
best friend at the time had said she confessed her
love for me, and I was like, ooh, yikes, I
need to tell her, but I couldn't say it to her.
So I wrote her this letter and she wrote me
a letter back and she had said I understand, I'm
(13:17):
going to be there for you. I love you, and
I put it on the counter in the bathroom and
I left it and then I left and I went
to my grandparents' house and they were gone, so I
went into the pool. I was by myself with the
house swimming, and I kept hearing the phone ring over
and over again at the house. So I went and
(13:37):
answered it and it was my mom and she says,
I need you to come home right now. And I'm like,
what's going on? And she goes, we need to talk.
I said okay. So I hung up the phone and
I immediately went, oh my god, the letters on the counter.
So when I got home, I walked in and my
(13:58):
mom and my stepdad arend the couch sitting with their
Bibles open, and I remember being like, oh shit, and
they were just reading lines from the Bible about how
I'd go to hell for being gay. And then my
mom said, is this what you choose? Do you want
(14:18):
to be gay? And I like froze, and I was like, no,
I don't want to be gay. So she goes, well,
we have talked to a pastor that will help you
be straight.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
This is all in the matter of like a couple
hours since they found the note. Yeah. Wow.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
So that weekend they made an appoyment for me to
see this pastor, a Christian pastor. We showed up there,
we sat on the couch and he asked them to leave,
and he wanted to talk to me, and he said,
are you gay? And I said yes, and he said
he said, do you want to be gay? And I
(14:59):
said yea yes, And he says, then you don't need
to be here. And I only went back once, but
she assumed I kept going.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
And so you and the pastor sort of had like
a deal or a pact that you both wouldn't tell
your mom the truth.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Yeah, that was a traumatic moment in my life.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Going back to Roger. Did you ever try to find him?
Speaker 2 (15:29):
I didn't know how, and I was too afraid to
ask for help. So I remember being in the garage,
I think when I was in high school, maybe early on,
and I was pulling out drawers on a bunch of
these file cases, probably because I was nosy because my
mom had kept like old art pieces in there, and
(15:50):
I came across this certificate looking thing, and I remember
it saying Roger on it Roger Vasquez, and I remember
or for a very short period, I went by Vasquez
in elementary school, so I'm like, that's very similar. I
knew his name was Roger and Vasquez, so it took
(16:11):
a while for me to piece together what the Oh.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
You didn't even know that that was his full name?
Speaker 3 (16:16):
No, I just knew Roger.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Wow, that was the level of you not knowing anything
about this man that existed.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
Yeah. Nothing.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
I really went through the whole certificate and read the
whole thing and knew that he was gone.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
So I found his death certificate inside the drawer. For
a long time, I just kept going back to it.
I just stared at it because I had nothing else
of him. I just had the picture.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
What did it feel like when you realized that this
was actually a piece of paper telling you that your
dad was dead.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
I didn't want to believe that.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Even though it said that he had passed away, I
still didn't believe he was dead.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
I didn't want to believe that.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Because I to not know him, and then to hope
he was going to be there, and then he was dead,
so I was never going to know him.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
That hurt and.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
It took me a while to understand what everything said,
and I think it even had an address.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Jason had just found his father's death certificate. He didn't
know anything about his dad other than the fact that
he was dead. Jason also knew that talking about Roger
was taboo, so he didn't tell anyone that he found
the death certificate. But on that certificate there was a
clue as to where Jason might find more information about
(18:10):
his dad. It was an address, so he got in
his car and drove to it. What did you do
after you found the death certificate?
Speaker 2 (18:23):
I think on the certificate it said where he was buried.
So I went there and when I asked them, I go,
here's his name, and they said it's going to be
just a stone with a number. And I remember being like,
that's sounds like no one cared about this person. So
(18:43):
I said, okay. So it took a while to find
it. It was like on this kind of cliff looking thing,
and I finally found his number, and I remember just
being sad that he was just here with a number,
there was no name, nothing.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
He was just gone, Wow, that hurt.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
So I remember being like, at some point I need
to get him a headstone something with his name on it.
And so I don't know how long I had been,
but I came back again. I just wanted to be
with him. I mean, it just felt so lonely, him
just being on this hill with a bunch of other
(19:26):
people that are just numbers. So when I went back again,
I go, I just need to find that spot again.
Can you give me his number? And it was a
different person this time, and he goes, there is a
name plate and he gave me the directions to it.
So I went to it and I remember going down
having to search on this cliff. It was very steep,
so if you kind of slipped, you would fall down
(19:48):
the hill. And I had found his name plate and
it said his name, Roger Vasquez, and it said beloved son,
beloved uncle, and beloved father. And I'm being like, wow,
that was they put father on there. That one really
(20:08):
hit me because he never got a chance to be
the father. So that made me think that he really
wanted to be a father and didn't get the opportunity.
So that was taken away from both of us.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
At this point, Jason, did you know that your dad
had died of AIDS related complications.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
When I was in college. I think it was my
freshman year. I was like, I need to come out
to my aunt and I just wanted to tell someone
in my family, and she was the only one I
felt safe with that I could tell her that. My
aunt is three years older than me, so we're pretty
close in age. And I remember going to her home.
(21:02):
I sat on the couch and I said to her,
I just want to tell you that I'm gay. She
like looked at me and says, I know. She was
like duh, and I'm like, you knew. She's like, yes.
We used to play dolls together. We used to sing
and dance in the garage. And she had said do
(21:26):
you think being gay is genetic? And I said I
think so, and she goes, well, she goes, your dad
was gay.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
And I smember being blown away by that. And she's
and I said, well, how do you know this? And
she had said she overheard a conversation my grandma and
my mom had and my mom was telling my grandma
that Roger had called her and said I need you
(22:02):
to get tested because I tested positive. My aunt had
overheard everything.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
And for years I think she waited for me to
tell her that I was gay, but finding out he
was gay died of AIDS. That was so overwhelming, but
I felt closer to him.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
It seems like you guys have a lot of parallels
in the sense that you were both affected by homophobia.
Oh yeah, how did it make you feel to know
that your dad was also gay? Like you guys shared
(22:46):
this part of your life that, in a lot of ways,
seems like it defined both of you.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
I felt validated that he was gay, and like it
came from him, That's why I'm But then it was like, God,
I wish he was here to help me go through
being gay. I would have felt safer. I wasn't safe
(23:13):
for a long time. I was always scared to tell
anybody I was gay, But it would have been nice
to have a parent support me.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
In two thousand and five, Jason was twenty three years old.
He was still living at home to take care of
his two younger siblings. At this point, Jason did come
out to his mom, telling her he was definitely gay,
and she responded by kicking him out. While he was
on his own, The spark to learn more about Roger
(23:44):
lit up again. It had been several years since he
found his father's death certificate and his grave, but he
still didn't know much about him other than the fact
that he was lost to AIDS. And with some DIY
investigation using roger His death certificate, he learned that Roger's
dad was dead, but that his mom was still alive.
(24:07):
He also found what he believed was her address, so
he and a friend got in his car and drove
to the address he found.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
I remember driving by and it was like this metal
rod gate and there was like this awning over the
door and it said Veasquez and I was like, wow,
that's that's the home where he grew up. And we
showed up to the house. The door opened and she
(24:37):
had this bleach blonde flat top hair and like this
super tailored suit on. And we walked into this house
and it was like just packed with stuff, like majorly
hoarded house. What's interesting though, is throughout all the things
(24:58):
there is pictures of me as a baby. I just
remember being so uncomfortable, like nothing was welcoming. It was
very awkward. It kept getting more weird as I kept
seeing her. I mean, I think once I found out
my dad was gay, I'm like he must have had somebody,
someone must have been there with him through his life.
(25:22):
So I really wanted to know who this was. And
I had no idea how to get hold of this person.
And I had thought that my grandmother was going to
help me with that, and she never did.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
And I kept asking.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
I go, well, I want to know more about the
person that was taking care of my dad at the end,
and she would use that as bait to get me back.
She goes, well, next time, i'll talk to you about that,
and then she would never give that to me, and
I didn't understand why. And then it got strange. They
(26:00):
thought I was like out to get their money because
at one point they had mentioned Roger had put aside
money for me, and I remember I asked once and
I said, he left money for me. I didn't care
if it was a dollar or anything, but he took
the time to think about me and leave me something.
(26:22):
I just wanted something from him, but they took that
as and I just want the money.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
So things had gotten really awkward with the family and weird.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Yeah, So my partner and I got married in two
thousand and eight. So I called my grandmother left a
message and she called me back and left a message
and said that she doesn't support the idea of me
getting married to my partner, and that was the last
time we always spoke.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
So I guess that says so much about maybe how
she treated Roger and how he was treated by his family. Yeah,
did you ever give up on finding Chris?
Speaker 2 (27:07):
I mean there were moments where it was like, there's nothing,
I have no information, So I kind of gave up
for a while. There was moments where I was like,
I guess I'm just never going to know anything about them.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
When we come back, Jason finally finds what he's been
searching for his whole life. It's twenty twenty. Jason is
thirty eight years old. He's in a loving relationship with
his husband. By this point, he had also made up
(27:45):
with his mom, but she wasn't willing to talk about
Roger yet. It had been twelve years since Jason had
any contact with Roger's family, and twelve years since he
learned anything new about Roger. He did know that Chris existed,
but he didn't know where to find him or what
his name even was. But that was all about to change,
(28:08):
and Jason's life along with it.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
So twenty twenty, I had noticed on Instagram that it
was World Aid's Day, and like, oh, I want to
post a picture, the only picture I have of my
dad and me, and I kind of put a little
story behind it. I had mentioned like I always thought
I was going to meet him one day, and I
wish I knew what his voice sounded like. And the
(28:33):
World Aid's memorial page reached out and said, oh, we
love that picture of your dad and your story.
Speaker 3 (28:39):
Can we posted on our page?
Speaker 2 (28:42):
And I want to say, either that same day or
the next day, I got a message from someone named
Chris saying that I know your dad. So we talked
a little more, and then I think he had sent
me a couple of pictures he had of my dad,
but because I only had the one picture of my dad,
(29:04):
he didn't look familiar anymore in these pictures, and I'm like, oh,
I don't know about this. So by this time, my
mom had been a little more open about talking to
my dad about my dad a little bit. So I said,
why this guy reached out to me and said he
was with my dad and he sent me these pictures.
(29:24):
So I showed my mom, I go, is this Roger?
And she immediately was like, it's Roger.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
Well, walk me through that first phone call that you
had with Chris. What was that like? This is the
same man that you've been searching for for years.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
I remember him telling stories about their love and positive things.
I'd never heard positive things about Roger. He had told
me he loved old movies. Yeah, when he said he
loved old movies, I'm like, Oh, someone that's just like
me in the family m like because I never understood
(30:01):
why I liked that stuff. And when he said that,
I was like, oh my gosh.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
What Jason didn't realize yet was that Chris had been
searching for him. They both couldn't get to each other
because of Jason's parent and Roger's parent, and they didn't
have enough information for the Internet to be helpful either.
But as fate would have it, they found each other.
Before Roger died, he kept a box of things that
(30:29):
he wanted Jason to have. Chris held onto that box
for thirty years, hoping one day to give it to Jason,
and that day had finally come. So now tell me
about the first time that you met Chris. What was
that like?
Speaker 2 (30:50):
He came down to LA and I was coming up
there to meet him. I was so nervous. I just
remember my heart was racing the whole time. And when
he finally came out, he was so warm and he
hugged me, and I remember him taking a moment and
staring at me. He kind of went, oh, I need
(31:11):
to take a second. I'm like, do I look like him?
And I remember him saying, yeah, you do look like him.
I think the whole day became this blur because I
was giving getting so much information that whole day. I
didn't want it to end, but it was like a blackout.
(31:32):
It went by so fast. And we went to the
Aids Moyle wall and he had said he put his
name on it, and it was like we kind of
searched for it. And then right in this front wall,
right in the center, was Roger's name and that was
(31:52):
emotional because to see his name on something.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
It was a lot.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
What was it like when and Chris gave you the box?
Tell me that story?
Speaker 2 (32:03):
So it was at that same park. We went and
sat at a table. He would just kind of slowly
pull things out and we started with the pictures and
it was like pictures I'd never seen. It was pictures
of me and him, and he had these two little
picture frames and he says, your dad picked those picture
(32:24):
frames specifically for those pictures, so he had touched them
and put them together, and that that was pretty amazing, Like.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
The last time that those items were touched were.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
By your father. Yeah, well, yeah, I mean that was amazing.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
He had said that he wished he could have been
a father to me. He talked about me all the time.
Speaker 3 (32:55):
That really hurt. That one hurt.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
And then he like started pulling out little things. He
pulled out his watch, He pulled out this ring. I
don't know if you can see, but this ring that
I'm wearing is still wear at every day. This is
a really beautiful ring. And I immediately put it on
and I wore the rest of the day. I didn't
want to take it off.
Speaker 3 (33:13):
Wow. I mean he it was on his fingers.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
So that's as close as I'm going to get to him.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
What was it like kind of processing all of that?
I mean, from my perspective, it's like you've gone your
whole life not knowing anything about this man.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
There was this picture he showed me my dad sitting
in a graveyard, and I remember he was He's very
frail in this picture, and he was just looking off
at the at the gravestones, and Chris had said, yeah,
that was getting to the point where he was starting
to get really sick. It's such a sad photo. And
(33:59):
I the next morning after I met Chris, I was
going through the photos again and I saw that picture.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
And I lost it. That was such a sad.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
Picture and he just looked so tiny, and I wish
I could have been there.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
That one really hurt.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
Like for you in that moment, that's when it all
became real how he was the victim of this really
horrendous disease, but also the victim of homophobia as well.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
Yeah, I mean that moment affected me. It changed me
that whole, just that one photo. I mean, he didn't
deserve that. From what Chris tells me, he was so
full of life, and that horrible disease just took that
away from him.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
How do you feel when you look at the ring
every day?
Speaker 2 (34:55):
This is the closest I feel to him. I mean,
I'm wearing he's a part of me now every day.
I think I never stop loving him ever, even when
I heard bad stories about him, But to know that
he wanted me.
Speaker 3 (35:11):
Makes me love him even more.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
This is a show about history, but it's really a
show where we talk about a lot of love. And
I wonder what you think the love story is here?
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Gosh, I feel like there's so many love stories in
this moment. I mean, the big one for me is
learning about the love my dad have for me and
the love I'll always have for him. And the fact
that Chris and I found each other is the other one.
And even though it took so many years to find him,
(35:58):
it felt so quick after I posted that picture, so
it was like it was meant to be.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
And it's a complicated story. I think. On this show,
we've talked about AIDS and how it was defined by
loss and shame and homophobia, and you were sort of
a victim of that intersection of all those things kind
of coming together at once your dad being excommunicated and
(36:24):
then dying because of AIDS. But then you have this
other amazing story with Chris, him keeping the box of
memories and love for you for thirty years. And in
your mind, is this a sad story or does this
have a happy ending?
Speaker 2 (36:47):
I mean, I'll never get all the answers, but at
least I got to know the person he was. I mean,
the sad part is I'll never hear my dad's voice,
I'll never get to touch him. But the happy part
is that Chris brought my dad back to me.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
But We Loved is hosted by me Jordan Gonsolvus. New
episodes every Wednesday. If you want to write in to
tell your story, email us at Buttweloved at gmail dot com,
or send us a message on Instagram or TikTok at
but We Loved. We are a production of The Outspoken
(37:38):
Podcast Network and iHeart Podcasts. But We Loved was originally
developed with Pushkin Studios. Our producers are Shein O Zaki,
Michael June, Emily Meronof and Joey patt Our. Executive producers
are me Maya Howard and Katrina Norville. Fact checking by
Marisa Brown. Original music by Steve Bone. Special thanks to
(38:01):
Jay Brunson and Markel Willis. If you loved this episode,
leave us a rating and follow us on Apple Podcasts
and Spotify, and thank you for listening. I'll see you
next week.
But We Loved is a production of iHeart Podcasts and
The Outspoken podcast Network.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
I think on the certificate it said where he was buried,
and so we went to it, and I remember going
down having to search on this cliff. It was very steep,
so if you kind of slipped, would fall down the hill.
And I had found his name plate and it said
his name, Roger Vasquez, and it said beloved son, beloved uncle,
(00:32):
and beloved father. Remember being like, wow, that was they
put father on there. That one really hit me because
he never got a chance to be the father. So
that made me think that he really wanted to be
(00:53):
a father and didn't get the opportunity.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
As a gay kid, growing up religious and in the South,
I thought being gay was the worst thing I could
ever be. Now, as a journalist, I'm trying to learn
that by seeking out our history, and what I've found
are people and stories full of courage, perseverance, and love.
(01:23):
In this continuation of last week's episode, we'll meet Jason Prefontaine,
who lost his father when he was nine years old
to aids. We'll learn what it was like for him
to spend his whole life longing for his dad and
how decades later, fate would help him find everything he
was searching for. From My Heart Podcast, I'm Jordan and
(01:46):
Solve and this is what we Loved. In last week's episode,
(02:11):
I mentioned how I grew up learning just how sad
the AIDS crisis really was. There was loss, in grief
and homophobia. But as I began diving into the history,
I realized that in all of the devastation, there were
these amazing stories of love, and in last week's episode,
(02:35):
we heard one of them. Chris Pimentel told me about
his first love with Roger Vasquez. Unfortunately, Roger was lost
to the AIDS crisis in nineteen ninety one, but before
Roger died, he had revealed to Chris that he had
a son who lived in California. Before meeting Chris, Roger
(02:57):
was married to a woman, his son's mother, but when
she found out Roger was gay, she kicked him out
and he never saw his son again. His son practically
knew nothing about him. He was three the last time
they saw each other, but Roger longed for his son.
He loved him. He had left things for him when
(03:18):
he died, and his partner, Chris hoped for thirty years
to find Roger's son so he could give him those things,
but he didn't know where to start. Roger's ex wife
wanted nothing to do with him, so he had no
contact with her. And Roger's son had a different last name.
(03:39):
His name was Jason Prefontaine, and in this week's episode,
he's my guest.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
I was probably about three the last time I saw
my dad. It wasn't a great memory, but I feel
like it's burned in my head. I remember there was
a bunch of cop cars on their lawn and he
ran out the front door and there are cops are
running after him, and he grabbed me and picked me
up and hugged me, and I just remember them pulling
(04:14):
us apart. Who pulled you aboard the cops?
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Wow?
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Yeah, So to find out later that he was getting
arrested because he hadn't paid his parking tickets, so he
had a lot of them.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
That's the last memory I have of him at that moment.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
So do you know why your dad left?
Speaker 2 (04:40):
I don't think he had a choice. I think my
mom made him leap.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Tell me about that.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
I think he was always fighting with himself to either
be straight or be gay. I think he was trying
really hard to stay straight for me and be in
this relationship to be a dad. But I think that
the struggle was too hard for him. From what I
know bits and pieces that she caught him with a
(05:09):
guy in our home and I was in the other room.
She got very angry. I think, when my mom gets angry,
cuts you off. You're done. So she wanted nothing to
do with him. She didn't want me around him. He
(05:30):
was just gone. I think she was embarrassed because she
was in love with him, and I don't know how
much he was in love with her. I remember going
to court, probably when I was about five, and they
were talking about custody and and he wasn't there. I
(05:52):
just remember sitting in the court. I knew it was
about their relationship ending, and they were going to talk
about who I was going to stay with.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
And so you said he didn't come to the court hearing.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
Yeah, he never shut.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Up, and so he lost all visitation rights at that point.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Yeah, they were gone.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Did you ever wonder why he didn't sort of fight
for those visitation rights or for that custody.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
I still wonder that in my whole life. I wonder
why he never showed up. I don't think I'll ever
get the answer I want to hear. I mean, that's
kind of haunted me my whole life.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Your mom had began to date someone else around the
same time when you were pretty young. Did you ever
miss Roger even though you had this new father figure
in your life. Did you feel like something was missing?
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Always, I never thought of my stepdad as my dad.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
I just remember.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Him being mean and he would just get in your
brain and make you think things like you were the
bad person, and treated my mom horribly, and I remember
one time he smacked me in the back of the
head so hard I could see stars. He wasn't a
great person, so I just always thought, Gosh, one day
(07:23):
I'm going to find him and he's going to take
me away from him. So I think that's probably why
I never thought negatively about him, because I just he
was like this, I guess prince to take me away
from that, you know what I mean, like a hero.
And that's why I never gave.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
Up on him.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Even though I didn't have Roger in my life. In
the back of my head, I knew he was going
to be in my life at some point. I just
thought Okay, once I'm eighteen, I can go find him.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
So in your mind, Roger was not just your dad,
but kind of like a savior that would come and
take you away from all of this chaos. Yeah, what
were the kinds of things that your mom and family
members told you about Roger, Because at this point, not
only was Roger cut off, but his entire family was
(08:15):
cut off too.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
I had no information about his side of the family.
I knew nothing about them, but I was told he
would disappear for days going on vendors and he would
just leave no money for my mom for groceries or diapers.
So it was just always drilled into me that he
was horrible, and I don't know why. I just never
(08:38):
believed it, but that's all I ever heard was negative
things my whole life. I had one picture of him.
It was just me and him. I was a baby,
I was probably about one one and a half, and
so I had a certain image of him in my mind.
So anybody that I passed by that sort of look
(08:59):
like him, I'm like, oh, I wonder if that's him.
And that happened for years. I just like, I just
remember one moment being at a gas station and someone
looked like him. I was in high school, and I
remember just staring like, I wonder if that's him right there?
And I always think about that moment, that one specifically
because this man looked just like him.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
So you mentioned earlier that you had heard certain things
about him, but you didn't really ask a lot of questions.
How come you didn't want to ask more about him?
Speaker 2 (09:34):
I think the couple times I did ask, I was
shut down pretty quickly, So I was always scared to
ask anymore about him, so I would even if I
would ask other family members, they quickly shut down, and
I don't I didn't know why. I didn't understand why
they were shutting me down. Well, I think the big
secret was was that he was gay and he had AIDS,
(10:00):
And I don't know if that was their way of
protecting me or if they were protecting my mom. If
I would ever bring up his name, I would get
shot down. So I got to the point where I
was probably too scared to ask her because she held
onto that anger for a long time, like years, I
(10:22):
mean past me being in high school, she was still bitter.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
So I just learned to keep my.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Mouth shut for a long time there was just it
was me and her, and I always just wanted her
to be happy. After Roger left, my mom started dating
the drummer for Rick Nelson. He was a singer from
like the sixties and seventies. His name was Ricky, and
(10:49):
I remember at the time I loved Ricky. He was
very similar to my dad.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
It was kind.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
He died on the plane crash with Rick Nelson. She
had another loss some of that she loved. So I
remember being a little kid being like, I just want
to make her happy. So I just went along with
anything she wanted to do. I was quiet where we went.
I was always the good little child that didn't say anything.
(11:19):
So to bring up Roger it made her angry, and
I didn't want her to be angry all the time,
so I was very careful.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
The year is two thousand and Jason is a senior
in high school. By this point, he knew he was gay,
but he had no idea that his dad was gay too.
He wouldn't find that out until much later. It was
this year when he came out to his very conservative,
very religious Mormon family. Tell me about the first time
(11:48):
you knew you were gay.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
I had known I was gay since I was five.
I remember being in school and I was in love
with the boy next door mm hmm. And I didn't
understand at the time, but I knew that you weren't
supposed to be in love with a boy, but I
didn't care, so I just knew. Always I was into
(12:14):
musical theater, dancing around the house and I'd put a
shirt on my head thinking it was long hair and
in front of everybody.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
So I mean, I.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
Feel like everybody knew I used to do that too.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
I just remember watching those old romantic movies and I
loved it, just movies where everybody was in love, and
I just like, I want to be in love like that.
And I think nobody in the family understood that. They
didn't understand my love for old movies.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
The other piece to this is that your family is Mormon, right, Yeah,
it's hardcore marks. So tell me all about that.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
The big time.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
The time I came out, it was an accident, my
best friend at the time had said she confessed her
love for me, and I was like, ooh, yikes, I
need to tell her, but I couldn't say it to her.
So I wrote her this letter and she wrote me
a letter back and she had said I understand, I'm
(13:17):
going to be there for you. I love you, and
I put it on the counter in the bathroom and
I left it and then I left and I went
to my grandparents' house and they were gone, so I
went into the pool. I was by myself with the
house swimming, and I kept hearing the phone ring over
and over again at the house. So I went and
(13:37):
answered it and it was my mom and she says,
I need you to come home right now. And I'm like,
what's going on? And she goes, we need to talk.
I said okay. So I hung up the phone and
I immediately went, oh my god, the letters on the counter.
So when I got home, I walked in and my
(13:58):
mom and my stepdad arend the couch sitting with their
Bibles open, and I remember being like, oh shit, and
they were just reading lines from the Bible about how
I'd go to hell for being gay. And then my
mom said, is this what you choose? Do you want
(14:18):
to be gay? And I like froze, and I was like, no,
I don't want to be gay. So she goes, well,
we have talked to a pastor that will help you
be straight.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
This is all in the matter of like a couple
hours since they found the note. Yeah. Wow.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
So that weekend they made an appoyment for me to
see this pastor, a Christian pastor. We showed up there,
we sat on the couch and he asked them to leave,
and he wanted to talk to me, and he said,
are you gay? And I said yes, and he said
he said, do you want to be gay? And I
(14:59):
said yea yes, And he says, then you don't need
to be here. And I only went back once, but
she assumed I kept going.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
And so you and the pastor sort of had like
a deal or a pact that you both wouldn't tell
your mom the truth.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Yeah, that was a traumatic moment in my life.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Going back to Roger. Did you ever try to find him?
Speaker 2 (15:29):
I didn't know how, and I was too afraid to
ask for help. So I remember being in the garage,
I think when I was in high school, maybe early on,
and I was pulling out drawers on a bunch of
these file cases, probably because I was nosy because my
mom had kept like old art pieces in there, and
(15:50):
I came across this certificate looking thing, and I remember
it saying Roger on it Roger Vasquez, and I remember
or for a very short period, I went by Vasquez
in elementary school, so I'm like, that's very similar. I
knew his name was Roger and Vasquez, so it took
(16:11):
a while for me to piece together what the Oh.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
You didn't even know that that was his full name?
Speaker 3 (16:16):
No, I just knew Roger.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Wow, that was the level of you not knowing anything
about this man that existed.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
Yeah. Nothing.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
I really went through the whole certificate and read the
whole thing and knew that he was gone.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
So I found his death certificate inside the drawer. For
a long time, I just kept going back to it.
I just stared at it because I had nothing else
of him. I just had the picture.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
What did it feel like when you realized that this
was actually a piece of paper telling you that your
dad was dead.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
I didn't want to believe that.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Even though it said that he had passed away, I
still didn't believe he was dead.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
I didn't want to believe that.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Because I to not know him, and then to hope
he was going to be there, and then he was dead,
so I was never going to know him.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
That hurt and.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
It took me a while to understand what everything said,
and I think it even had an address.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Jason had just found his father's death certificate. He didn't
know anything about his dad other than the fact that
he was dead. Jason also knew that talking about Roger
was taboo, so he didn't tell anyone that he found
the death certificate. But on that certificate there was a
clue as to where Jason might find more information about
(18:10):
his dad. It was an address, so he got in
his car and drove to it. What did you do
after you found the death certificate?
Speaker 2 (18:23):
I think on the certificate it said where he was buried.
So I went there and when I asked them, I go,
here's his name, and they said it's going to be
just a stone with a number. And I remember being like,
that's sounds like no one cared about this person. So
(18:43):
I said, okay. So it took a while to find
it. It was like on this kind of cliff looking thing,
and I finally found his number, and I remember just
being sad that he was just here with a number,
there was no name, nothing.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
He was just gone, Wow, that hurt.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
So I remember being like, at some point I need
to get him a headstone something with his name on it.
And so I don't know how long I had been,
but I came back again. I just wanted to be
with him. I mean, it just felt so lonely, him
just being on this hill with a bunch of other
(19:26):
people that are just numbers. So when I went back again,
I go, I just need to find that spot again.
Can you give me his number? And it was a
different person this time, and he goes, there is a
name plate and he gave me the directions to it.
So I went to it and I remember going down
having to search on this cliff. It was very steep,
so if you kind of slipped, you would fall down
(19:48):
the hill. And I had found his name plate and
it said his name, Roger Vasquez, and it said beloved son,
beloved uncle, and beloved father. And I'm being like, wow,
that was they put father on there. That one really
(20:08):
hit me because he never got a chance to be
the father. So that made me think that he really
wanted to be a father and didn't get the opportunity.
So that was taken away from both of us.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
At this point, Jason, did you know that your dad
had died of AIDS related complications.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
When I was in college. I think it was my
freshman year. I was like, I need to come out
to my aunt and I just wanted to tell someone
in my family, and she was the only one I
felt safe with that I could tell her that. My
aunt is three years older than me, so we're pretty
close in age. And I remember going to her home.
(21:02):
I sat on the couch and I said to her,
I just want to tell you that I'm gay. She
like looked at me and says, I know. She was
like duh, and I'm like, you knew. She's like, yes.
We used to play dolls together. We used to sing
and dance in the garage. And she had said do
(21:26):
you think being gay is genetic? And I said I
think so, and she goes, well, she goes, your dad
was gay.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
And I smember being blown away by that. And she's
and I said, well, how do you know this? And
she had said she overheard a conversation my grandma and
my mom had and my mom was telling my grandma
that Roger had called her and said I need you
(22:02):
to get tested because I tested positive. My aunt had
overheard everything.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
And for years I think she waited for me to
tell her that I was gay, but finding out he
was gay died of AIDS. That was so overwhelming, but
I felt closer to him.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
It seems like you guys have a lot of parallels
in the sense that you were both affected by homophobia.
Oh yeah, how did it make you feel to know
that your dad was also gay? Like you guys shared
(22:46):
this part of your life that, in a lot of ways,
seems like it defined both of you.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
I felt validated that he was gay, and like it
came from him, That's why I'm But then it was like, God,
I wish he was here to help me go through
being gay. I would have felt safer. I wasn't safe
(23:13):
for a long time. I was always scared to tell
anybody I was gay, But it would have been nice
to have a parent support me.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
In two thousand and five, Jason was twenty three years old.
He was still living at home to take care of
his two younger siblings. At this point, Jason did come
out to his mom, telling her he was definitely gay,
and she responded by kicking him out. While he was
on his own, The spark to learn more about Roger
(23:44):
lit up again. It had been several years since he
found his father's death certificate and his grave, but he
still didn't know much about him other than the fact
that he was lost to AIDS. And with some DIY
investigation using roger His death certificate, he learned that Roger's
dad was dead, but that his mom was still alive.
(24:07):
He also found what he believed was her address, so
he and a friend got in his car and drove
to the address he found.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
I remember driving by and it was like this metal
rod gate and there was like this awning over the
door and it said Veasquez and I was like, wow,
that's that's the home where he grew up. And we
showed up to the house. The door opened and she
(24:37):
had this bleach blonde flat top hair and like this
super tailored suit on. And we walked into this house
and it was like just packed with stuff, like majorly
hoarded house. What's interesting though, is throughout all the things
(24:58):
there is pictures of me as a baby. I just
remember being so uncomfortable, like nothing was welcoming. It was
very awkward. It kept getting more weird as I kept
seeing her. I mean, I think once I found out
my dad was gay, I'm like he must have had somebody,
someone must have been there with him through his life.
(25:22):
So I really wanted to know who this was. And
I had no idea how to get hold of this person.
And I had thought that my grandmother was going to
help me with that, and she never did.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
And I kept asking.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
I go, well, I want to know more about the
person that was taking care of my dad at the end,
and she would use that as bait to get me back.
She goes, well, next time, i'll talk to you about that,
and then she would never give that to me, and
I didn't understand why. And then it got strange. They
(26:00):
thought I was like out to get their money because
at one point they had mentioned Roger had put aside
money for me, and I remember I asked once and
I said, he left money for me. I didn't care
if it was a dollar or anything, but he took
the time to think about me and leave me something.
(26:22):
I just wanted something from him, but they took that
as and I just want the money.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
So things had gotten really awkward with the family and weird.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Yeah, So my partner and I got married in two
thousand and eight. So I called my grandmother left a
message and she called me back and left a message
and said that she doesn't support the idea of me
getting married to my partner, and that was the last
time we always spoke.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
So I guess that says so much about maybe how
she treated Roger and how he was treated by his family. Yeah,
did you ever give up on finding Chris?
Speaker 2 (27:07):
I mean there were moments where it was like, there's nothing,
I have no information, So I kind of gave up
for a while. There was moments where I was like,
I guess I'm just never going to know anything about them.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
When we come back, Jason finally finds what he's been
searching for his whole life. It's twenty twenty. Jason is
thirty eight years old. He's in a loving relationship with
his husband. By this point, he had also made up
(27:45):
with his mom, but she wasn't willing to talk about
Roger yet. It had been twelve years since Jason had
any contact with Roger's family, and twelve years since he
learned anything new about Roger. He did know that Chris existed,
but he didn't know where to find him or what
his name even was. But that was all about to change,
(28:08):
and Jason's life along with it.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
So twenty twenty, I had noticed on Instagram that it
was World Aid's Day, and like, oh, I want to
post a picture, the only picture I have of my
dad and me, and I kind of put a little
story behind it. I had mentioned like I always thought
I was going to meet him one day, and I
wish I knew what his voice sounded like. And the
(28:33):
World Aid's memorial page reached out and said, oh, we
love that picture of your dad and your story.
Speaker 3 (28:39):
Can we posted on our page?
Speaker 2 (28:42):
And I want to say, either that same day or
the next day, I got a message from someone named
Chris saying that I know your dad. So we talked
a little more, and then I think he had sent
me a couple of pictures he had of my dad,
but because I only had the one picture of my dad,
(29:04):
he didn't look familiar anymore in these pictures, and I'm like, oh,
I don't know about this. So by this time, my
mom had been a little more open about talking to
my dad about my dad a little bit. So I said,
why this guy reached out to me and said he
was with my dad and he sent me these pictures.
(29:24):
So I showed my mom, I go, is this Roger?
And she immediately was like, it's Roger.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
Well, walk me through that first phone call that you
had with Chris. What was that like? This is the
same man that you've been searching for for years.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
I remember him telling stories about their love and positive things.
I'd never heard positive things about Roger. He had told
me he loved old movies. Yeah, when he said he
loved old movies, I'm like, Oh, someone that's just like
me in the family m like because I never understood
(30:01):
why I liked that stuff. And when he said that,
I was like, oh my gosh.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
What Jason didn't realize yet was that Chris had been
searching for him. They both couldn't get to each other
because of Jason's parent and Roger's parent, and they didn't
have enough information for the Internet to be helpful either.
But as fate would have it, they found each other.
Before Roger died, he kept a box of things that
(30:29):
he wanted Jason to have. Chris held onto that box
for thirty years, hoping one day to give it to Jason,
and that day had finally come. So now tell me
about the first time that you met Chris. What was
that like?
Speaker 2 (30:50):
He came down to LA and I was coming up
there to meet him. I was so nervous. I just
remember my heart was racing the whole time. And when
he finally came out, he was so warm and he
hugged me, and I remember him taking a moment and
staring at me. He kind of went, oh, I need
(31:11):
to take a second. I'm like, do I look like him?
And I remember him saying, yeah, you do look like him.
I think the whole day became this blur because I
was giving getting so much information that whole day. I
didn't want it to end, but it was like a blackout.
(31:32):
It went by so fast. And we went to the
Aids Moyle wall and he had said he put his
name on it, and it was like we kind of
searched for it. And then right in this front wall,
right in the center, was Roger's name and that was
(31:52):
emotional because to see his name on something.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
It was a lot.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
What was it like when and Chris gave you the box?
Tell me that story?
Speaker 2 (32:03):
So it was at that same park. We went and
sat at a table. He would just kind of slowly
pull things out and we started with the pictures and
it was like pictures I'd never seen. It was pictures
of me and him, and he had these two little
picture frames and he says, your dad picked those picture
(32:24):
frames specifically for those pictures, so he had touched them
and put them together, and that that was pretty amazing, Like.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
The last time that those items were touched were.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
By your father. Yeah, well, yeah, I mean that was amazing.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
He had said that he wished he could have been
a father to me. He talked about me all the time.
Speaker 3 (32:55):
That really hurt. That one hurt.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
And then he like started pulling out little things. He
pulled out his watch, He pulled out this ring. I
don't know if you can see, but this ring that
I'm wearing is still wear at every day. This is
a really beautiful ring. And I immediately put it on
and I wore the rest of the day. I didn't
want to take it off.
Speaker 3 (33:13):
Wow. I mean he it was on his fingers.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
So that's as close as I'm going to get to him.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
What was it like kind of processing all of that?
I mean, from my perspective, it's like you've gone your
whole life not knowing anything about this man.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
There was this picture he showed me my dad sitting
in a graveyard, and I remember he was He's very
frail in this picture, and he was just looking off
at the at the gravestones, and Chris had said, yeah,
that was getting to the point where he was starting
to get really sick. It's such a sad photo. And
(33:59):
I the next morning after I met Chris, I was
going through the photos again and I saw that picture.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
And I lost it. That was such a sad.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
Picture and he just looked so tiny, and I wish
I could have been there.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
That one really hurt.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
Like for you in that moment, that's when it all
became real how he was the victim of this really
horrendous disease, but also the victim of homophobia as well.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
Yeah, I mean that moment affected me. It changed me
that whole, just that one photo. I mean, he didn't
deserve that. From what Chris tells me, he was so
full of life, and that horrible disease just took that
away from him.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
How do you feel when you look at the ring
every day?
Speaker 2 (34:55):
This is the closest I feel to him. I mean,
I'm wearing he's a part of me now every day.
I think I never stop loving him ever, even when
I heard bad stories about him, But to know that
he wanted me.
Speaker 3 (35:11):
Makes me love him even more.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
This is a show about history, but it's really a
show where we talk about a lot of love. And
I wonder what you think the love story is here?
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Gosh, I feel like there's so many love stories in
this moment. I mean, the big one for me is
learning about the love my dad have for me and
the love I'll always have for him. And the fact
that Chris and I found each other is the other one.
And even though it took so many years to find him,
(35:58):
it felt so quick after I posted that picture, so
it was like it was meant to be.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
And it's a complicated story. I think. On this show,
we've talked about AIDS and how it was defined by
loss and shame and homophobia, and you were sort of
a victim of that intersection of all those things kind
of coming together at once your dad being excommunicated and
(36:24):
then dying because of AIDS. But then you have this
other amazing story with Chris, him keeping the box of
memories and love for you for thirty years. And in
your mind, is this a sad story or does this
have a happy ending?
Speaker 2 (36:47):
I mean, I'll never get all the answers, but at
least I got to know the person he was. I mean,
the sad part is I'll never hear my dad's voice,
I'll never get to touch him. But the happy part
is that Chris brought my dad back to me.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
But We Loved is hosted by me Jordan Gonsolvus. New
episodes every Wednesday. If you want to write in to
tell your story, email us at Buttweloved at gmail dot com,
or send us a message on Instagram or TikTok at
but We Loved. We are a production of The Outspoken
(37:38):
Podcast Network and iHeart Podcasts. But We Loved was originally
developed with Pushkin Studios. Our producers are Shein O Zaki,
Michael June, Emily Meronof and Joey patt Our. Executive producers
are me Maya Howard and Katrina Norville. Fact checking by
Marisa Brown. Original music by Steve Bone. Special thanks to
(38:01):
Jay Brunson and Markel Willis. If you loved this episode,
leave us a rating and follow us on Apple Podcasts
and Spotify, and thank you for listening. I'll see you
next week.
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