My great-uncle, Robert Maiani, was the first gay person I ever met (apart from myself, of course). He lived in a house in East Vancouver, not far from Boundary Road. He spent most of his life in the closet, and finally came out when he was 67. He was from an Italian-Canadian, Roman Catholic, working-class family, and for most of his life coming out wasn’t much of an option. His father, Hugo, was not open to any discussion on the subject of his son’s gayness.

Bob was a devout catholic until he was about 27, when he went to a priest to talk about his problem, and the man tried to recruit him to the priesthood.

Bob’s mother, Mary, lived with him after Hugo died, and he took care of her until her Alzheimer’s became so bad that she had to be moved into a rest home. Bob had suffered from bouts of depression throughout his life, and at the time of this mother’s health really began to decline, he became quite depressed. His doctor urged him to be honest with himself and his family about who he was, and come out. He did, and no one was really surprised.

I don’t remember what he was like before he came out (I was seven at the time). He always seemed happy to me, except when Mary died in 1996. He was quite close to my mother, who lived with him for a time when she first moved to Vancouver from Port Alberni as a teenager. When my family went to visit him, he and my parents would talk upstairs while my sister and I would watch movies in the basement.I remember he had a collection of campy and raunchy toys, including a little wind-up penis that would jump up and down on the table. He also had a black lab named Winston.

Bob died 5 years ago, at age 80. He was a life-long heavy smoker, and unsurprisingly died of lung cancer. He had made it clear that he didn’t want to be buried anywhere near his father, so he was cremated and now rests in a brown plastic cylinder on my mom’s bookshelf, next to my grandfather, Bill, who’s ashes are in a little box. We will get around to burying or scattering them some day.

Knowing that Bob was gay made it easier for me to come out, because I saw that my family were supportive of him and would likely be supportive of me. Bob lived most of his life in the closet, unable to talk to his family about it or even acknowledge it himself. As far as we know, he never had a romantic partner, which is a tragedy, but I think it was a situation that a lot of people of his generation faced, especially those from very traditional and devoutly religious immigrant families. It is a problem that many people in minority groups still face today.

Robert Maiani, age 20.

Sam with Robert Maiani, 2009.