I remembered that right before his surgery he had taken a business trip to Texas. It seemed strange that his company wouldn’t send someone else, that he would insist on traveling so close to the surgery. I passed it off as stoicism, not wanting cancer to interrupt his life or schedule, or just denial. But that night in Seattle he told me that on an earlier trip he had met a couple in Houston, both lawyers, gay. The trip he took right before his surgery was to come out to them. In case he didn’t make it. To strangers. In Texas. He put down a small “x” on a map, a little scrawl of visibility.
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