Shooting Star

“John-Bryan loved and respected Pauline.” Brian James O’Neill

For 45 years I have thought of John-Bryan as my brother. Therefore, the fact that my brother loved and respected Pauline makes perfect sense. To know her was to love her. That being said, I was 7,000 miles away from Fellowship Street, in 1972, when John-Bryan arrived on the scene. 

Mama, on that trip to La Paz

Descriptions of events that occurred in La Puente, were conveyed to me while I was in the army through a finely-meshed filter, shielding me from the negative, while spotlighting the positive. Even if I were able to read through the lines of Mama’s bright, cheerful letters, I had too much on my own plate to fully comprehend, that 1972 was a particularly dreary year on Fellowship Street.

My father’s oldest brother, Tom, died just before I went into the service. I remember because I did not want to attend the funeral-desperately-and I appealed to Mama, who exonerated me from any obligation. It was nothing against Uncle Tom; I was afraid of a panic attack.

My sister JT further recalls, “1972 was one of those rough years…It started off badly with you leaving [January 10th] and escalated with… Grandpa’s death a couple of weeks later [January 27th]. There was also someone from State Steel ** whose name I can’t recall now-someone who was a positive in Robert’s life-who died in that same timeframe.”

JT continues, “Death was hovering over the house and I know that affected both Robert and Pauline. I was 18 in January of 1972…I didn’t yet know that the death of someone you loved could decimate you. There was a darkness and a silence that winter/spring and I think into the summer-the house felt relatively empty.”

Of course the house seemed empty: Eric and I were in Korea, while Noel and Brian got the apartment on Manchester Blvd, and attended Loyola Marymount University. Afterwards, Brian went down to Mexico to learn to speak Spanish. 

Papa, on that same trip to Lower California

In June came the long-planned trip down to La Paz, in Baja, California. Mama, Papa, Noel and Matt spent three weeks in the new Chevy Blazer. where things, indeed, blazed. As JT put it, “That trip led to great unhappiness but you can’t put your finger on the root of that unhappiness. Sure, Noel was excited about political/social change and I know there were harsh words exchanged between Papa and Noel. But I also think Papa was depressed and change was all around and he longed for life the way it used to be.”

Additionally, JT described taking brother Kevin to his first day of kindergarten, instead of Mama. She writes, “…I think Mama was tired. That I would take Kevin to school that day might [must?] have been helpful to her. I wonder if it was also a sadness thing. After all, he was her last child going off to school. Perhaps she wanted to escape that sadness  whereas I felt like a grownup in that role.”

Into this bleak world came John-Bryan: flamboyant, colorful in both appearance and language, vibrant, witty, charming and on a mission from God to better the lives of all he encountered. That he brightened Mama’s life is evident. 

My brother Brian observed the other day that John-Bryan had an excellent command of the English language, and I agree. In his own words, in a letter written to me dated December 5th, 1972, John-Bryan wrote,  

Eric and John-Bryan, sitting in LA Intl. Airport,
January of 1973, as Eric and I prepared to return to Korea.

     “I went up to La Puente last Tuesday and returned this past Saturday afternoon. It was a good time. I spent most of it, as I always do, in talking with your mum. It’s incredible that relationship. No one would understand how a 25-year-old guy could feel so close to a 50-year-old woman. Amerikan (sic) * society doesn’t understand a lot of things; it doesn’t try to. 

This is one very real example of that. I can imagine how people would be totally disbelieving if they knew the hours upon hours that your mum and I talk, discuss, relate, communicate. On levels that others cannot even imagine. Knowing a fair bit of what this society of ours is about, they would immediately assume that your mum and I have some mad love affair going. 

Well, in a way we do but it isn’t the type of physical encountering that those voyeurs would be sniggering about. It is a love affair: of the mind, of the spirit, of the soul. It’s an incredible closeness which transcends and makes unimportant any consideration such as age, sex and background.

At first, I approached your mum as someone who was important to me because she was the mother of the best friend I have. But very quickly she became more than that. She became someone I valued in her own right, on her own, for herself. It’s a safe thing to say that she never met anyone like me before. And that she’s never had the type of relationship she has with me before. 

John-Bryan and my brother, Brian, at
Robert's memorial, October of 1996

I can relate with her as totally, as openly, as candidly as I do with Eric or Brian.  And that is an awesome thing to witness, a beautiful thing to live. So most of my time was spent in the sewing room, talking and sharing, listening and offering, receiving and internalizing.”

John-Bryan, closeted from the reality of his being a gay man in 1972, cherished the acceptance and affection heaped upon him, and returned it tenfold, relishing the opportunity to get to know our entire family. He provided more than just a ray of sunshine for our family in a dark period; he provided a meteor shower of appreciation over the next 45 years, dashing in and out of our lives like a shooting star.

John-Bryan’s passing was unexpected and the flow of memories continues unabated. He enriched my life and the lives of many others, with whom he came into contact, and I will love and miss him forever.

• I do not think this is a spelling mistake or a typo. I think JBD intended to convey the same sort of derision that I do, when I prattle on about Corporate ‘Merica.

** State Steel became Standum Steel, at some point in this timeframe.