ABSTRACT
Six days after our third anniversary, my partner was diagnosed with cancer. Eighteen days later he died. Kim's death reorganized my entire life. My being gay, once an immobilized position of shame, marginalization, and disenfranchisement, is now a point of political departure. In writing this essay, my aim is to present in narrative form the liminality between silence and speech, between privacy and public discourse; and I situate the limen in the context of communication about health, sexuality, and, ultimately, death. I address issues of patient-physician power, family communication, and the conterminous construction of gay men and HIV disease.
