He Remembered

He had been watching the sunrise when, as he glanced away from the brightness, he spotted a wooden fence. He knew what today was and he remembered another fence. Well not even a real fence just a property marker really.

It was there that in 1998 Matthew Shepard was found tied and badly beaten; his face completely covered in blood except for the paths made by his tears.

He didn’t survive, and today was the anniversary of his death.

Did it change anything? He wondered.

There was still so much hate.

He remembered the so-called reverend Jerry Falwell preaching hate, blaming the 9/11 attack on gays. Falwell even managed to find gay characters in children’s tv shows.

Never mind the little fact that the same holier-than-thou man had been caught with how many hookers?

You had to wonder about a guy like that. The people who bitch the loudest against things were usually the ones either thinking about doing it, or already doing it and hiding it. They gave the word anal a bad name.

He remembered a man dragged to death behind a pick-up truck because of the color of his skin. A woman raped and killed because she was different; she chose to live her life as a man. So many innocent victims of hate.

What could their deaths... no, their murders change?

Did it open the eyes of the world?

The nation?

A single person?

Did it make them think?

If it made just one person think, one person care, one person who would remember...

And try to change things for the better...

Then his death and the other victims of hate crimes did make a change.

One that was long overdue.

He would always remember.

A warm hand touched his shoulder and turning, he saw his partner’s face.

He smiled as his partner’s arms wrapped around him and drew him close. He was loved and accepted as who and what he was.

Yet even as he was feeling safe and secure in his lover’s arms, he couldn’t stop the single tear that ran down his cheek as he still remembered.