The Nomadic Life

Chapter 39

Reflections

I am back in San Diego, a city I once loved. A city I once called home.

Doug is settled in Houston. Richard is safe and comfortable in his Jackson home. Today, as always, Dad and David are in Cincinnati, living, loving, and happy.

Everyone seems to be exactly where they are meant to be.

Except me.

San Diego has changed. Not just the skyline or cost of living, as those things have indeed exploded, but in spirit. The soul of the city I once knew has fractured. Shiny new buildings rise to house transplants arriving in droves from the northeast. I cannot quite call these people neighbors. They tend to be less friendly, more distant. The bond I felt from our once close-knit community has thinned. Friends only come into town for weekends now, and even the coffee shop discourages lingering on the patio.

The city is full, but I have never felt more alone.

Wandering its streets, I keep asking myself: What else can go wrong?

Sebastian, my German Shepherd, is gone. Doug is gone. And Jan, distant now, offering only silence where love used to be. He will not speak to the space he has put between us. I learned years ago not to press him when it comes to things he does not wish to share.

So, I sit alone at Dietrich’s, a lukewarm cup of hazelnut flavored coffee in hand, wondering where the hell I am supposed to go from here.

I need a place to rest this tired body, maybe a part-time job. At least I have a truck now, I am no longer bound to the city limits. I find a shared home in Chula Vista with a couple. Not married, but together over a decade. Straight, yet surprisingly understanding of my lifestyle. They too are into a Master/slave dynamic, part of the BDSM community. We do not talk about it, but in their quiet acceptance, I feel a strange kind of kinship, something many gay men never gave me.

So, this is home now. I guess.

But it is just a house, and these are just walls. I am comfortable enough, and call it home, though something is missing and I know I am just trying to convince myself of the lie.

I feel hollow. Like refuse, tossed out, no longer useful.

The feeling of being disposable has carved a space inside me. It is cold and buried deep. I trust no one anymore. Not with my truth, not with my heart.

How could I?

My father, the man who once said he loved his son, taught me how easy it is to walk away from those who refuse to bend to his will.

Sometimes, I drift back to happier days. I think of the first time I met my grandfather.

Grandma lay silent in assisted living at Llanfair, unresponsive. I never truly met her, just looked at her through a haze of sadness. Dad never said how long she had been like that. We did not speak much about her current condition, but Dad shared with me in great detail how much he loved grandma and that she would have loved me as well.

If not for Grandpa, Dad and I might never have had the relationship we once enjoyed.

My childhood lacked male role models worth remembering, a fact I have shared before. No cousins, no extended family. Mom and her husband were both only children. I grew up without grandfathers, without the love of elders. The man my mother married never cared for me. I assumed this is how family worked. Distant and without affection.

Then Grandpa entered the picture.

He looked nothing like Dad, apart from the shared baldness gene. Still, Dad introduced me as his son. And Grandpa, without hesitation, opened his heart and arms.

From that moment on, I was his grandson. No questions asked.

It felt natural to call him Grandpa, as if I had always known him. One day, when we were leaving for a shopping trip, someone asked him who I was. Not missing a beat, and with pride swelling in his chest, he boomed: “This is my grandson.”

My heart soared.

In that moment, my family felt whole. Complete. For the first time in my life, I belonged.

But even happiness has shadows.

Dad noticed bruises on my skin, dark blotches that appeared without cause. I brushed them off. After a lifetime of pain, bruises were nothing new. They always faded.

Except these did not.

And Dad, for all his flaws, never ignored something when it came to the family’s health. He was and still is, many things: controlling, stubborn, intense. But he is not careless. Not with people he loves.

He and David insisted I see a doctor.

I scoffed and brushed it off. Trying to convince them I was alright.

They would hear none of my excuses and an appointment was set.

Blood work. Routine tests. Nothing to worry about, I thought. I wish Dad could have felt the same. But worry is his language, and he spoke it fluently.

Then the call came.

Dad answered. I watched his face drain of color. His knees buckled. David caught him and eased him into a chair.

“The doctor wants us to come in immediately,” he said, voice barely steady.

“Why?” I asked.

“He didn’t say. Just that it’s urgent.”

David looked shaken. I laughed it off, played strong. It is what I always do.

Besides, I only felt tired, nothing serious.

But it was serious.

At the office, we barely sat down before they pulled us in.

The doctor’s voice softened. Too soft.

“Mr. York, may I speak freely in front of these men?”

“Yes. They’re my parents.”

He hesitated.

“Mr. York... you have no platelets.”

The words did not land at first.

He explained what platelets were, and why they mattered. “You have six,” he said. “If you cut yourself, you could bleed to death before help arrives. Your blood won’t clot. Even a nosebleed could be fatal.”

Dad went ghost white.

I felt... nothing. Or maybe I was just numb. I wanted to believe I was fine. That I would always be fine.

The doctor referred me to the Barrett Center, Cincinnati’s top cancer research facility.

Cancer?

No. That could not be right. That is not how my story ends. I had already made peace with dying young, but not like this. Not because of some rogue cells in my blood.

The doctor could not confirm it was cancer, just that something was very wrong. They scheduled a spinal tap and other tests.

For months, Dad and David missed work to make sure I got to every appointment. I never appreciated the weight they carried for me, financially, emotionally, spiritually.

But they never once made me feel like a burden.

Because of them, I am still alive.

Had they not stepped in, I most certainly would have ignored the signs. I would have bled out, somewhere, all alone, unnoticed, and unloved.

Parents, by definition, are those who give life to you.

Mine did just that, making certain I would live to see tomorrow.

And now, here I sit in Chula Vista, wondering how that same father could throw me away so easily. After everything we fought through. After everything he saved me from.

But I have heard the tales regarding parents disowning their children for a myriad of reasons, and I have now joined the club, becoming just another one of those stories.

Only for me, the loss feels deeper, perhaps even more cruel.

I waited 39 years to find my family, my dad, my papa David, and my grandpa.

And now they are gone, torn from my life like a calendar page, crumpled, discarded, forgotten.

So, I curse God.

How dare he give me a taste of love, of family, of wholeness. only to rip it away.

Well, screw you, God.

I will survive this. I will survive anything you throw my way. I always have and always will.

And then... I get sick again.

There is no Dad. No David. No one to call. No one to care.

Not even me.

At night, I lie in bed praying I do not wake. It is not the physical pain that is unbearable, it is the emptiness.

I had it all once, love, a place to belong, people who saw past my facade, who took time to get to know the real me and still took me in and cared for me.

And now, because I honored a dying woman’s wish and refused to betray myself, I am alone.

I am tired.

So very tired.

And if tonight is to be my last night on earth, I am okay with that.