My Dad

My dad is one of the most amazing people I know. He’s been raising me on his own since I was seven years old. That in and of itself doesn’t seem like much of an accomplishment to some but to me, it’s absolutely amazing. He’s made sacrifices for me that most of the people in our family don’t know about. He gave up his dream career for a steady job that would have him home when I got home from school. He’s made sure that I know he loves me. I’m probably the only eighteen-year-old in existence that’s never hated their dad. Ever.

Now that that is said, I should probably explain who I am. My name is Alexandra Nicole Taylor-Kinney. I am the biological daughter of Justin Taylor and Daphne Chanders. I was raised by my father and his lover, my other dad, Brian Kinney. When I was born, my father and my mother were twenty-five years old. Brian was thirty-seven at the time. You may wonder why I refer to him as Brian. During his life I called him dad and Justin was daddy. I’ve found, though, that when talking about them it’s easier to refer to them as dad and Brian so as to limit confusion. When I’d talk about them as dad and daddy, I would often get interrupted and asked who was whom.

I remember the first time Brian heard me refer to him by his name rather than calling him dad. He was nothing short of devastated. That was until I explained things to him. After that he just smiled and hugged me and kissed my forehead. I was closer to Brian than I was to my father. I guess it has to do with the lack of blood relation. I know my older brother Gus is closer to my father than he was to his own.

I’m the third of four children born to our strange little family. Gus, who hasn’t exactly liked his name since he found out he was named after dad’s teddy bear, is the oldest. He’s seven years older than I am. He’s been married for two years and I should be an aunt some time in the next month or so. He’s got a good job working in advertising at the agency Brian started. Though he actually owns half the company thanks to Brian’s will, Gus wanted to earn a position as partner and has started at the bottom. He’s proving to be as brilliant in advertising as his father. Must be in the genes.

Jenny Rebecca, or JR as she likes to be called, is the second born. She recently celebrated her twenty-second birthday. There are only two words that properly describe my older sister: butch dyke. She is so her mother’s daughter. This disappointed Uncle Michael just a little bit. JR is following in her mother’s footsteps. She’s going to start Harvard law school in the fall. Everyone is extremely proud of her.

I feel like I’m disappointing the family and upsetting a tradition as I’m not following in my father’s footsteps. Not completely anyway. I start PIFA this fall and my dad is very proud of that. I am studying art, as he did, but I have no intention of using that in advertising. That’s what my father does. He’s senior partner and Art Director of Kinnetik. But I’m talking about my siblings at the moment.

The youngest is my little brother Aiden. He’s eight years old. He’s actually my half brother as we have the same father but different mothers. He was given the name of Aiden because his mother wanted to name him after Brian but Justin thought naming him Brian would be bad so my little brother was given Brian’s middle name. They decided that Aiden’s middle name would be Justin’s middle name so my brother is Aiden Kelsey Taylor. But I didn’t tell you that.

Here’s my little family make up. It helps a little if I explain things, even though I’ve already explained it a little bit. At least I’m hoping this’ll clear things up. Gus Kinney is the oldest of four and the biological child of Lindsay Peterson and Brian Kinney. He was raised until the age of four by Lindsay Peterson and Melanie Marcus. After the age of four, Lindsay raised him on her own until Gus turned nine and Lindsay met Andrew Charleston. That’s a hard one to explain but I’ll get to it eventually. Jenny Rebecca Novotny is the second born and biological child of Melanie Marcus and Michael Novotny. She was raised only by Melanie until age six when Melanie met Danielle Hendrix.

I am the third of four children. I am the biological daughter of Justin Taylor and Daphne Chanders. I was raised by Justin Taylor and Brian Kinney until I was seven when Brian died of a recurrence of cancer that he suffered when he was younger. My father has been alone ever since. Aiden Kelsey Taylor is the youngest. He is the biological child of Lindsay Peterson and Justin Taylor and is being raised by Lindsay and her husband Andrew Charleston. Because of his youth, Andrew is unable to have children, thus my father donating sperm to help them. I guess I should mention our adopted brother James Hunter Novotny-Bruckner. He had his name legally changed shortly after his eighteenth birthday. I don’t like to talk about him because he died last year and it’s still painful.

Being HIV positive since the age of sixteen and possibly before, the medication stopped working and he took a turn for the worse. He stopped taking the medication two years ago when he was told his HIV had gone to full-blown AIDS. Almost exactly one year to the day later he died of complications caused by a severe case of pneumonia. His death hit Uncle Ben the hardest as he is still healthy and has not progressed to AIDS yet. He started using steroids again until Michael left him. When he stopped the steroid use, Michael went back home. Ben is still sad and I think he always will be, but he’s handling it better now.

I guess I should stop avoiding the subject of Brian’s death. I’d like to talk about him first, though. As I said, I was closer to him than anyone else in the family. He helped me with my homework and took me shopping. If I had to put a label on it I would have to say that he was like a mother would have been, I guess. He’d hate to be classified like that, though. I could talk to him about anything. He never judged me, rarely got angry with me. Justin was the one responsible for punishing me. I found out later that was because Brian didn’t trust himself to not hit me, though I never thought he would. I never felt anything for him but love.

He was the one that chased the monsters from the closet and out from under the bed. He kissed my scrapes and bumps and made them better. While Justin was okay at that, I always insisted on Brian just to make sure. He sang away my bad dreams. He held me when I cried. I felt safe in his arms, never wanting him to let me go. Brian Kinney was my hero. Though I know he was only human and he was far from perfect, I still idolize him today. He might not have been perfect but he was the perfect father.

Before I go on, I want to explain something. I’m not saying that Justin wasn’t and isn’t a good father. He is loving and dedicated. He spends time with me and tells me he’s proud of me and encourages me. He is strict and he does punish me, but it’s only because he wants to keep me safe. I don’t remember ever uttering the words “I hate you” or “I hate him” when talking to or about my father. He’s what I would consider the perfect father as well. He’s just the right balance of authority and friend. There are just certain things I can’t talk to him about. The fact remains that he is my father and he is the one that disciplines me and I can’t tell him everything the way I could with Brian.

Even though I knew that Brian would tell Justin and I would get in trouble, I still went to Brian when I needed to talk. I miss him greatly and I wish he was around for me to talk to now. His advice was always the best and he always helped me. People have told me that I’m a poor unfortunate child for having been raised by a gay man. That I would be better off with a mother and a father. While I am missing having two parents, I want Brian back, not a mother. Daphne is a wonderful mother and we have our girl time and I call her mom, but I always went to Brian first. Possibly because I spent more time with him than anyone else.

When I was a year old, Brian retired. Though he still owned the company, Ted and Cynthia ran it so that Brian could be a stay at home dad. Everyone that knew him before he met Justin and before I was born was completely surprised by this. None of them could believe that the great stud of Liberty Avenue was going to be a stay at home dad. It just didn’t seem like something he would do. Until they saw him with me. Grandma Deb said when she saw Brian with me after a week of being alone with me all day every day, she didn’t understand why he’d waited until I was a year old. She’d expected to see a frazzled, rundown, ready to give up man on his last nerve. Instead she’d never seen him happier. He was relaxed and smiling and a completely different person. That’s the Brian Kinney that I know.

He was rarely without a smile on his face. He taught me how to tie my shoe, how to ride my bike, how to cook. Well, how to cook anything that came with instructions like mac and cheese. Justin taught me real cooking. Brian never treated me like a kid. He always talked to me like I was an adult and because of that I was talking better than anyone in my pre-k class. Brian insisted that I be sent to private school, though I was told that St. James wasn’t even considered. It wasn’t until recently that I learned why that was. But that’s a different story. Brian made sure that I had the best of everything, but he never spoiled me. Though it was hard, “no” was part of his vocabulary. Whenever I wanted something I didn’t really need, he would come up with chores for me to do to earn the money. When I was three and four, it was simply picking up my toys or putting my dishes in the sink. Since they were plastic there was no problem with me having to stand on my tiptoes and just drop them in. When I was five and six, he added putting my clothes away or taking my laundry bag down to the laundry room. Simple things that weren’t a problem for me. By the time I was seven he was too sick to come up with chores. He just gave me whatever I wanted. It was like he was trying to make up for the fact that he was dying. By that time, though, all I wanted was to spend time with him. I knew he was dying, though I didn’t fully understand it, and I wanted to eat up every last second I could. I’d begged to be home schooled so I wouldn’t lose those precious hours but he insisted that I stay in the school I was attending.

I remember the day he died like it was yesterday. I came home from school and he was in his room, as usual. He’d refused the chemo and the radiation because he and his doctors knew it was useless. The cancer was going to kill him regardless and he said he didn’t want me seeing him bald and pale and too weak to move. While he was pale and weak, he did still have his hair. He was afraid seeing him without it would traumatize me, but I think he secretly wanted to die with a full head of gorgeous hair. He’d also hired a nurse for in home care. He didn’t want to die in a hospital. Whenever I came home from school, I would go straight to his room. We’d talk for a little while, then take a nap together. Justin would come home and wake me up and we’d make dinner, then we’d all eat together before I’d get my books and Brian would help me with my homework. It happened every day. Somehow, though, I knew this day was different.

When I went into his room, he looked worse than usual, but I didn’t say anything. He managed a smile when he saw me and patted the bed. I climbed up and snuggled close to him as I always did, listening to his heart beat. He kept calling me his sweet little girl and his precious angel, telling me over and over again how much he loved me and how proud of me he was. I could hear the tears in his voice but I didn’t look up. I didn’t want to see him cry. The nurse came in and said it was nap time. Because Brian was such a light sleeper, he wasn’t hooked up to a heart monitor. They’d tried that at first but the beeping kept him awake all the time. I usually fell asleep shortly after he did but this time I couldn’t sleep. I just laid there wide awake listening to his heart beat get slower and slower and slower and eventually stop. The strange thing was, when his heart stopped beating, I was able to sleep and I did. I slept in his arms until Justin came home to wake me. I didn’t tell him that I knew that Brian was dead. I acted just as surprised as he was. I didn’t cry though. Brian wouldn’t have wanted that.

I did end up crying eventually. Everyone kept telling me I should be crying and that I wasn’t taking it well and that they were worried because I wasn’t crying. Of course they all had experience in how to handle dealing with the person you were closest to in the world dying, right? When it came to advice on how I was supposed to handle Brian’s death there were only two people I listened to. Those two people were my father and Grandma Deb. They were the only ones that came close to knowing what I was going through. Justin told me that it was okay if I didn’t cry. I was always the strong one, never really emotional. I got that from Brian. Eventually I did cry just so that people would get off my back about it. I was sad that he was gone, but crying wouldn’t bring him back. I saw no real point in it. Justin says I get that from Brian too.

Since the time of Brian’s death my father hasn’t even attempted to go out on a date. He’s devoted his life to me and to his job. While I love him for that, he needs to get out and get laid. I understand that I’m not fulfilling his every need and he needs someone to love and to hold him. He needs another man in his life, but he refuses. He tried to go on a date once but he said that he felt like he was cheating on Brian the whole time. I told him that was ridiculous. Brian would want him to date again. Brian would hate to see him spending the rest of his life lonely. He simply shrugged at me and went into his bedroom. That night I heard him cry himself to sleep. I went into his room and snuggled up with him. It was the best night sleep I’d had in a long time.

I’ve been afraid of what’s going to happen to him when I leave the house. That’s one of the reasons I chose PIFA. That way I can stay home that much longer. But it’s not because I’m afraid to grow up and be out on my own. I wanted to go to a school in New York that accepted me. I stay because I’m worried about my dad. I don’t want him to be lonely. I want him to know that I will always be there for him the way he’s always been there for me. I just hope that he finds someone before I move out on my own after I graduate. As much as I love my dad, I don’t want to live with him forever. But I would die before I’d let him be alone. I love him too much for that.

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