There's a FB page called The AIDS Memorial. It's posts from various people remembering a friend, partner, or other loved one in tributes.
This was posted to the page earlier this morning.
"I met Terry Lester (April 13, 1950 - November 30, 2003) one evening years ago. It was the early 1980's and most anything could happen back then, including walking into a steam room just as a tall blonde naked man was stepping out of it. I recognized Terry immediately because at the time he was staring in the daytime soap opera, The Young and the Restless. I was face to face with a very naked and very wet Jack Abbott! With a huge grin on his face, Terry said hello, turned around, and followed me back inside.
Terry was not only an actor but an accomplished pianist, vocalist and composer. He was a gay male running away from a flawed image of himself, that he’d acquired while growing up in Indiana. He’d made quite an effort to please his family throughout his life, and couldn’t reconcile his sexual orientation. He was often conflicted, living an open secret and a double life that he grew weary of trying to hide. Terry was always generous, kind and lovable. Terry always sought to help others, made the effort to go the extra mile for a friend or stranger, even getting involved in Big Brothers.
Terry loved to laugh, loved riding his motorcycle through the Hollywood Hills and up the coast as I clung tightly to him. He loved singing and playing piano duets with me late at night. He loved dimly lit, intimate restaurants. In typical Terry fashion, complicated, conflicted and contradictory, he adored his privacy but loved being recognized in public.
Eventually, after years of attempting to suppress his sexuality, Terry’s darker side surfaced and his behavior and sexual antics put him at risk. There was no reasoning with him, no cautionary warnings that were effective.
Ultimately, Terry went back home to Indiana where the news story said that he’d died after a series of “heart attacks.” Even in death, as in life, the truth was secreted. Shortly after Terry’s death I had the good fortune of being contacted by one of his cousins back in Indiana, a young gay man, who because of the age difference, had never known his older cousin Terry, and talking about Terry within the family, had often been avoided, because of Terry’s sexual orientation.
It’s been a privilege to share my memories of Terry, with his cousin and filling in details of his life that would otherwise have gone unknown forever. This young man tells me that he wishes he’d known Terry, and had been able to gain support from him while growing up, it would have meant having at least one family member who could have related to his issues.
It boggles my mind that so many years after Terry’s death, his family still harbors issues of shame over his sexual orientation. They find it painful to speak of him and share his memory. The sadness sometimes never ends when people find reasons for judgement, guilt, anger, shame and fear, instead of simply loving one another.
Terry just wanted to be loved and accepted for who he was, without feeling the need to live up to the expectations of others. All these years later, the love and the memories remain."
