During the last six weeks of his life on this earth, I brought my Baba all the ice cream that he wanted. One night in mid-May during an important discussion with Baba, a man I grew to see as my father over the last decade, Joey (another member of my queer family of choice in recovery) brought home Dairy Queen Blizzards and sundaes. I saw Baba’s face light up as he ate this precious Blizzard from Dairy Queen as if it were sacred manna from heaven. Strawberry Banana manna to be specific. He polished it off and then threw it into the wastepaper basket by his reclining chair with dramatic flourish. Not just a Dairy Queen, a drama queen to boot!
Baba was fighting all of us about eating as he battled cancer once again, so it made my heart and my face smile to see him eat something with enthusiasm. Later that week, I brought my new partner over for a Saturday afternoon visit to meet Baba. It was hot and Baba was clearly tired, transitioning in and out of sleep. As all of our energy seemed to drop a bit, I asked Baba, “Would you like me to go out and get us Blizzards?”
His face illuminated at the very mention. On this weary, almost 83-year-old face that fought too long and too hard, continuing to press the snooze button on his own death, I saw a little child. He was three, and someone offered to bring him his favorite ice cream. How I loved when that little mischievous child would peek through!
Over the next few weeks, as I committed to spending at least a day a week in my hometown area where Baba lived, ice cream really became our thing. And over the decade of our friendship, which included us sharing many things in the realms of recovery, yoga, meditation, spirituality, movies, artistry, queer advocacy…ice cream will remain, in my soul, the most special connection.
On a random afternoon in early June, the month when he would eventually leave this world, I drove Baba home from an outing where we ran some errands, which included lunch. He touched the food only a bit. As we made our way back towards his house, Baba gently rubbed his hand on my upper arm and said ever so sweetly, “Pull into the Dairy Queen.”
How could I not oblige?
He told me that ice cream was the only food that went down easily and was actually pleasurable to eat at that point. As an avid ice cream lover myself, I certainly could not fault that logic. During one of our ice cream bonding sessions I mentioned to him that, thanks to my partner, I’d become reacquainted with the Strickland’s Frozen Custard, an Akron institution. If you thought the Blizzard made Baba smile, you ought to have seen the radiance that the very mention of Strickland’s created! That radiance was not just about ice cream, it was about memory. Dharl told me tales of how Denny, a recovery friend of his who passed away in 2018, made it a quest to try all of Strickland’s specialty flavors. I recalled attending Denny’s funeral and then afterwards going to Handel’s, another Northeast Ohio mainstay, to get a pint of ice cream in his honor.
Of course I brought Baba some Strickland’s for him on my next visit, getting him whatever flavors he wanted. I took a lot of pictures of him and with him over the years, so I find it poetic that on the last day I spent time with him at his house, the last picture I ever took of him is eating a bowl of that ice cream. As he was working on the pistachio you see in the picture, he asked me to get him a bowl of the black raspberry ready to go. He was always a man who knew what he wanted, and indeed, what he needed.
In LGBTQ+ circles, we talk a great deal during Pride, especially in this scary reality in which we find ourselves, about honoring our queer elders. The people like Baba and his late husband Mike who blazed the trail ahead of us are two such elders who I had the privilege of getting to know well as I navigated my own public coming out in 2015, which included finally coming out to my conservative family of origin. On a tearful day in 2018 when they accompanied me to court as my second divorce was finalized, it felt like they were truly the dads I needed, unwalking me down the aisle of a crazy marriage and a lifetime of dysfunctional patterns I’d acquired about marriage, family, and relationships. Mike and Baba were legends to me. Together 61 years, both of them lived as out gay/queer men in the state of Ohio in an era when it was still so rare. And as, thanks to the hard work of advocates and examples like them, when it became safer for more folks to be out about who they really are publicly, the two of them mentored and supported so many other confused kids looking for recovery, for authenticity, and indeed for a greater sense of joy in their lives. How grateful am I to have been one of their kids?
Baba, whose name was Dharl, would caution me not to put him or Mike up on a pedestal. Indeed, I saw them fight like cats and dogs. Dharl was the first to admit that he had character defects and could be a “bastard rat.” And during our long conversations, especially in the last year, he disclosed plenty of times to me when he made mistakes, both in active addiction and in recovery. He recognized that he could have a huge ego. I will forever cherish these conversations and every insight that they gave me about my own life and how I can better enjoy it. Less laptop, more ice cream!
In the days since his death my mind has stirred over and over on how I can properly honor my Baba in a way that I haven’t already in my writing (he shows up in a lot of it). And in doing so, honor all of our queer elders who are cheering us on. I workshopped an entire thinkpiece on resistance and legacy, yet that felt too complicated to honor what I came to treasure most in these last weeks. Perhaps it is as simple as, now that their lives may be coming to a close, ask them what they enjoyed most. If you can experience those simple joys with them, like Baba and I did with our ice cream, do it. Bring them all the ice cream they want and say thank you. Keep your ears open to receive any golden nuggets that they are willing or able to share on what it means to live an authentic life. Baba taught me that there is no Higher or Inner Power greater than our authenticity and our humanity. That is where we find God.
