A Love Story -- It's `Just What Parents Do': A Father And Son Rediscover Each Other In The Shadow Of A Deadly Disease

It isn't often you see a story about a father and his son who's dying from AIDS. Fathers, for a dozen reasons, justified or unjustified, don't like to talk about it. But that doesn't diminish the impact. A father's stoicism doesn't prevent his son's predicament from striking the tenderest emotions. The Wall Street Journal recently told one story, about a father and his son. We thought it worth repeating.

Duncan Henderson grew up on a wheat farm, walked two miles to school every day and always believed he could find answers in the Bible. He lived in a world where sex was private and the most dreaded disease was cancer. Life wasn't easy, but he found comfort in the knowledge that he was making a better life for his only son and his grandchildren-to-be.

On a warm night in April 1973, Mr. Henderson's 26-year-old son, Paul, told him he had a confession to make. "I haven't really been honest with you," Paul said. "I'm gay."

Mr. Henderson, who didn't think he'd ever met a gay person and had been taught homosexuality was a sin, was speechless.

Finally, he looked up at his son and said, "Paul, you're our son and we love you." He wrapped his arms around his boy.

Years later, on the evening of May 19, 1989, Mr. Henderson and his wife, Virginia, got a call from their son at their St. Louis home. The parents, their ears cupped to the receiver, knew it was bad news as soon as they heard Paul's voice. "Mom, Dad," he said, "I got some test results back today. I have AIDS."

AN UNSEEN TOLL

Over the next months and years, as Duncan Henderson helped his son battle AIDS, he learned things about himself that he had never imagined. He became a stronger and more complex person than even his wife had known. And Duncan and Paul, once intimate strangers, found a deeper love. "As the years go by, I will always be grateful I went up there and took care of him," says Mr. Henderson.

With so much written, said and filmed about AIDS, the toll on fathers remains largely an untold story. In many cases, dads who had hoped their sons would follow in their footsteps are forced to deal at once with the shock of their son's sexuality and the ugly specter of AIDS.

R. Duncan Henderson, for one, could never have imagined this. Until he was 20, he lived on a farm in Canada, then moved in with an aunt in Missouri. His aunt had another boarder, a shy young woman who was a student at Southeast Missouri State College. Mr. Henderson was smitten. "She was just so sincere," he says.

Virginia Weisheyer's provincial new suitor wasn't a college boy and used funny expressions, like "crazy as a jaybird." But she liked the fact that he went to church and didn't drink. On May 3, 1942, the two married. He was 26, she 23. After Mr. Henderson served in the Air Force, they settled in small-town Jennings, Mo.

The marriage was happy although, in many ways, the Hendersons were opposites. Mrs. Henderson tended to be a perfectionist. "I was a lot more easygoing," Mr. Henderson recalls. "If we had a flat tire or something, I wouldn't start hollering or screaming. We'd get there a little late." Mrs. Henderson played the piano and loved books, theater and classical music - interests her husband didn't share.

On April 18, 1947, their son was born. Mr. Henderson was mopping floors at his $75-a-week job at Sears when his brother-in-law called to say Mrs. Henderson was in labor. He dropped the mop and ran to catch the bus to the hospital. "I was real pleased to have a son," he recalls. He dreamed of Paul becoming a doctor.

The delivery was difficult, and the Hendersons, worried about future pregnancies, agreed to have no more children. Both had grown up in the Depression. "We thought we'd rather have one child and have him want for nothing than have six children we maybe couldn't afford to send to college," Mr. Henderson says.

"Paul became the focus of their lives," says Mary Graue, a friend for 37 years.

Mrs. Henderson taught kindergarten. Mr. Henderson rose at Missouri Portland Cement Co. to become the company troubleshooter. He was elected an elder of Jennings United Presbyterian Church, but in his own home, he often let his better-educated wife take the lead, especially in raising Paul. He deferred to her on decisions about Paul's education, the kinds of books he read and activities he attended. "I thought her degree in education counted for something," Mr. Henderson says.

Paul and his father joined a Cub Scout troop together. Weekends, they'd sit at the edge of a lagoon and wait for the whitefish to bite. They never talked much on these outings. "I just enjoyed being out with him," Mr. Henderson says.

But as Paul grew into his teens, he came increasingly under his mother's wing. Soon the two were singing together Sundays in the Jennings church choir and attending concerts.

"I didn't care for that high-C stuff," Mr. Henderson says. Paul and his mother discussed books and classical music. They shared private jokes. Paul didn't go fishing with his father anymore.

Mrs. Henderson says she only wanted the best for Paul. "I guess I expected perfection of my son," she says. "He was my only child. I wanted so much for him."

Paul saw it another way: "I became aware at an early age that I was my mother's favorite. It was as if I was my mother's ally and my father was some kind of outsider."

"I never did feel badly about it," says Mr. Henderson. "I just accepted that I wasn't qualified in many areas that Paul was interested in. Virginia was."

When Paul was 12, Mr. Henderson told him he wanted to have an important talk. They got into the family car in the garage. There, Mr. Henderson talked to his son about sex. He explained "the basics," he says, then told his son having sex wasn't a good idea at his age. "He seemed interested, but he didn't ask a whole lot of questions," Mr. Henderson says. And the subject didn't come up again.

That same year, Mr. Henderson did something he thought would bring him closer to his son. He enrolled in college. His wife was working on her master's. Paul was headed for college in a few years. "I just thought Dad should have something," Mr. Henderson says.

In high school, Paul became even more involved in music and theater. He consistently made the honor roll and his classmates voted him Most Active senior. "Whenever Paul went into anything, it was whole-hog," his father says.

Mr. Henderson encouraged Paul to date girls from their church. But when one girl wanted to go steady, "Paul wouldn't have anything to do with her," his father says. Mr. Henderson thought this a bit odd, but never mentioned it.

In 1965, Paul enrolled at Westminster College in Fulton, Mo. It was his father's suggestion, because the all-male school was affiliated with the Presbyterian Church. Paul had a tough freshman year. "He started coming home on weekends, even when we weren't expecting him," Mr. Henderson says. He seemed depressed. "I thought he was lonesome. It was a big transition, going away to school."

In fact, Paul was wrestling with his sexuality. Home for Christmas his sophomore year, he confided to his mother that he loved a boy he was tutoring in French "the way you love Dad." Mrs. Henderson offered to pay for counseling for her son. But the issue was left unresolved. Mrs. Henderson never mentioned the conversation to her husband. She dismissed it, she told him later, as "an adolescent phase."

Paul graduated with honors in June 1969 with a degree in psychology and French. Although he didn't follow his parents' hope that he study medicine, he was thinking about a career as a minister, something that made his father equally happy.

Shortly after Paul's graduation, Mr. Henderson finished his degree in business administration. He enjoys telling people, "My son and I graduated college the same year." It had taken Mr. Henderson 10 years of night classes.

THE CONFESSION

Paul got a job teaching French at a private school in Jennings, but the Army drafted him in 1970. He went to Korea - not Vietnam - and spent his tour with the Army Choir. But the separation from her son was more than his mother could bear. "I took Paul down to the recruiting center on a Monday. On Tuesday, Virginia went into the hospital," Mr. Henderson says. The doctors called it a severe ulcer attack, brought about by emotional stress. Mr. Henderson nursed his wife back to health. He even cooked - something his wife had rarely seen him do.

In 1972, Paul returned home, teaching at a local college preparatory school, and the next year the family vacationed together in New Orleans. When they got back, Paul came down with hepatitis. One night, as Paul lay on the living room couch with a fever, his father asked him: "Paul, how do you think you got this? I mean, your mother and I didn't get any hepatitis down there. It's a puzzlement to me." That's when Paul, who may have thought he'd contracted hepatitis from a lover, told his parents that he was gay.

Mr. Henderson's mind went blank. "I hadn't ever come into contact with anyone who was gay," he recalls. Now, face to face with his own son, he says, "I got a real empty feeling in my stomach."

The secrets of 26 years tumbled out. How Paul had always been attracted to men. How, as a boy, he'd take his mother's department-store catalogs so he could look at the pictures of male models. How he'd fallen in love with a freshman boy his sophomore year. How, on a trip to New York in his senior year, with the Westminster Men's Chorus, he'd had his first sexual encounter with a man.

Tears filled Mrs. Henderson's eyes. "I was looking forward to grandchildren," she said. Paul simply looked down.

Mr. Henderson put his arms around his son and told him he loved him.

"That's the best you can hope for," Paul said later. "That a parent will see you as the child they loved instead of this monster who came out of nowhere."

That night, the Hendersons stayed up late consoling each other. "We kept saying how sorry we were for him. We knew the obstacles he would face," Mr. Henderson says.

"What did we do wrong?" Mrs. Henderson kept asking.

The Hendersons wondered what to tell their friends. They decided to tell them nothing.

Soon afterward, Paul moved to Chicago to pursue a double masters in divinity and social work from McCormick Seminary and the University of Chicago. Mainly, he felt a gay man could live more freely in Chicago.

In the years that followed, the family talked very little of Paul's homosexuality, Mr. Henderson says, though Paul still came home for birthdays and Christmas. The visits were pleasant, and the Hendersons were eager to hear about his studies. One time, however, Paul brought home a friend he was dating. Though Paul's friend slept in a guest bed, "I wasn't real comfortable with the whole thing," Mr. Henderson says. But he said nothing of his misgivings. "We tried to treat him like any other guest."

Then, as the young man was leaving, he turned to Mr. Henderson and kissed the flabbergasted father right on the lips. Mr. Henderson jumped back. He was furious. But he didn't say anything. "I didn't want to embarrass the fellow." Later, in private, he told his son, "I wasn't expecting anything like that." Paul apologized. He never brought home a date again.

In the summer of 1976, Paul sought ordination as a minister. At the time, a debate was raging over whether the Presbyterian Church should ordain homosexuals. Paul's church supervisors asked about his sexual orientation - and he told them the truth. Despite numerous recommendations and a flawless school record, they rejected him for the ministry.

Paul drove to his grandmother's grave outside St. Louis and spent the afternoon there, crying.

Mr. Henderson was crushed, too - and angry. "We'd always gone to church, we'd always been generous with our money. And here they were being heavy-handed," he says. "Paul never was a problem in school, never went out boozing. Still, they wouldn't have anything to do with him."

But he felt helpless to change things. Leaving the church, he thought, "wasn't the answer." He took to reading books and magazine articles on homosexuality. He tried to figure out if it was something that could be changed, or if "people are just born that way."

A REALIZATION

Paul, meanwhile, embarked on a career in social work. He ran a program for placing troubled youths in foster care. U.S. News & World Report wrote about him once. In the interview, Paul said, "It's difficult to accept sometimes that all you can do is just help someone live with the pain."

One morning in 1983, as he walked to the post office, Mr. Henderson, then 66 and retired, felt as if "an elephant was sitting on my chest." When the pain didn't subside, his wife called an ambulance. Waiting for it to arrive, Mr. Henderson phoned his son in Chicago. "I wanted him to know what was going on, in case I died. I wanted him to know so it wouldn't come down on him as a big surprise." Paul rushed home.

Mr. Henderson recovered from the heart attack, though he has to take medication for the rest of his life. He and Paul spent a relaxing two weeks together, going for drives, talking about Mr. Henderson's childhood. Those days, Paul said, made him come to a realization: "Dad was always very available. I was the one who shut the door on a closer relationship."

When it came time for Paul to leave, the two stood alone in the family room. For the first time Paul could remember, he put his arms around his father and said, "I love you, Dad." Mr. Henderson burst into tears.

The two walked with their arms around each other to the car. "I watched him back out of the driveway. And then I stood in the middle of the street and watched him until he made his left turn to go on back to Chicago and I couldn't see him anymore," Mr. Henderson says. "I watched him as long as I could see him. I hated to see him leave."

A NEW DISEASE: AIDS

The newspapers were starting to write about acquired immune deficiency syndrome, a new disease predominantly affecting gay men. The Hendersons asked their son about it on his holiday visits home. Paul admitted he was at risk. He had been sexually active in the years before much was known about the disease.

"Take precautions," Mrs. Henderson urged her son.

Back in Chicago, Paul worked tirelessly to open Chicago House, one of the first hospices for AIDS patients. But on New Year's Eve 1988, he ended up in an emergency room with pneumonia. He was treated, but never felt fully well again. His concentration faltered. He tired easily.

Paul's doctor diagnosed his illness as pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, a major killer of AIDS patients. Paul called his parents. The Hendersons heard the dreaded words: "I have AIDS."

Mr. Henderson went numb. "We're just so sorry, Paul" was all he could think to say. His head was swimming. He thought: "You grow old. You think your children are going take care of you. But we will be burying Paul."

"What can we do to help?" he asked finally. "Do you need us there?"

"Please come, Dad," Paul said weakly.

That night, the Hendersons again stayed up late, talking. "Is there anything we could have done differently?" Mrs. Henderson kept asking.

"The fact that he's gay is just the way things turned out," her husband told her. But that night in bed, Mr. Henderson cried so much his tears soaked both his pajama sleeves.

The Hendersons drove to Chicago from St. Louis whenever Paul needed help. But the six-hour drive was taking its toll. Mr. Henderson was 74, his wife 71.

By November 1990, Paul could no longer climb the stairs to the second floor of his home. Driving back to St. Louis one morning, Mr. Henderson made a decision: They should sell their house in Jennings and move in with Paul. "I just thought that's what parents do," he said later. His wife agreed.

Mr. Henderson gave away family heirlooms, including the organ his wife inherited from her grandmother. "We had been saving all that for Paul and for our grandchildren. There didn't seem to be much point to it anymore," Mr. Henderson says. Before they left, he put a deposit on an apartment in a retirement home outside St. Louis, for the day they would return without Paul.

When they arrived at Paul's house in Chicago, "I looked around and I saw all the shrubs and hedges running wild, needing trimming. That's when I knew he couldn't do anything," Mr. Henderson says. Paul greeted his parents from the top of the stairs, looking pale and drawn. He apologized for not being able to help them with their suitcases.

When they went inside, the Hendersons saw that Paul had decorated the house for them with fresh flowers. The couple eventually settled into Paul's old rooms on the second floor, and moved Paul downstairs so he wouldn't have to climb steps.

Mrs. Henderson took care of the cooking and cleaning and running the household so Mr. Henderson could tend to his son's medical needs. Though Paul suffered bouts of dizziness and diarrhea, he continued to do volunteer work. Each night he picked up dirty clothes from a men's shelter, then brought them back washed, dried and folded the next morning. His father often helped him. Paul had never seen his father wash clothes before.

One evening, the family watched a made-for-TV movie about Ryan White, the young Indiana boy who contracted AIDS from a blood transfusion. Paul asked why they'd never told their friends the truth about his illness.

"Do you think we're ashamed of you?" Mr. Henderson asked.

"No," Paul said. "But if people ask what's wrong with me, I think you should answer honestly."

The next morning, Mr. Henderson called all of their friends back in St. Louis. After idle chit-chat about Chicago's weather, Mr. Henderson told each one, "I've got some bad news for you. Paul was diagnosed with AIDS." There was "no way of pussyfooting around the thing. They all said, `We're so sorry to hear that.' "

Paul had always wanted to visit Disney World, so a few months after the Hendersons arrived, they went there with Paul. "As long as I live, I'll be glad we took that trip," Mr. Henderson says. But in July, Paul and his parents traveled to Wisconsin to attend a funeral; the man's death made Paul the last survivor of the original eight members of an AIDS support group.

On the ride home from the funeral, Paul became severely ill with diarrhea. His father constantly had to stop the car by the roadside. "You didn't have to be a genius to know he was going down fast," Mr. Henderson says.

By the time they reached the house, Paul had a 104-degree temperature. Mr. Henderson sent his wife to bed to get some rest, then stayed up all night with Paul, continually placing cold cloths on his head. At times, Paul's eyes rolled back in his head. "There were times I thought he was gone."

Paul's bedroom was only about 10 feet by 7 feet, but Mr. Henderson managed to squeeze a cot in beside the bed so he could sleep next to his son. He set the alarm to ring every two hours so he could give Paul his medicine with a glass of orange juice and a teaspoon of sugar. "Many times I said to myself, this can't be happening, this isn't real - it's a nightmare," Mr. Henderson says.

The care his father had given him helped Paul regain his strength. It also gave him new insight into his dad. "For years, I had looked upon him as this sort of bumpkin. I resented the fact that he wasn't more forceful. But I give him credit for a tremendous amount of patience and faithfulness," Paul said then.

Each day, Mr. Henderson took on more of the burden of his son's care. And each day, his son saw new qualities in his dad. "A central theme in my life has always been a need to be perfect," Paul said. "I got that from my mother. In hindsight, I wish I had had more of my father's relaxed attitude, his ability to punt when it was necessary."

THE LIVING WILL

Mr. Henderson was changing, too. Now, even when he went out to pick out linoleum for his son's back porch, he told the saleswoman that it was for "my son who has AIDS and isn't expected to live long."

As for Mrs. Henderson, Paul used to joke that she was so conservative that she wore long-sleeve blouses even in the summer. But after Paul became ill, she attended a Christmas concert with him given by the Chicago Gay Men's Chorus and "really enjoyed it," she said. He overheard her one day after church telling a gay man she barely knew, who had lost his companion to AIDS, "I know how you feel."

Another bout with pneumonia took a big toll on Paul. At 5-foot-10, he had never weighed more than 140 pounds. Now he lost 20 pounds in a few weeks. He felt tired all the time. He talked more frequently of death. In mid-July, he gave his father power of attorney over his legal and financial affairs. He wrote a "living will," stating he didn't wish to be kept on life support. One morning, he handed his father a typewritten page with the heading: Notes on Paul Henderson's Memorial Service. The next day, he asked his father to drive him to the Illinois Cremation Society. Mr. Henderson sat in a wooden armchair in a small, sparsely furnished room as his son handed over the $525 cremation fee.

For Mr. Henderson, the scene was like being in a dream. "You sit there and you can't believe what's going on." He left the office with a splitting headache.

On Aug. 20, Mr. Henderson's 75th birthday, he awoke at 6 a.m., picked up his Bible and happened upon this passage from James: "We too can bring about healing and other blessings for one another if we are fervent in our prayers." It cheered him. He thought he'd go right downstairs to Paul's room. If Paul was feeling up to it, they could all go out that night and celebrate his birthday with barbecued ribs.

But when Mr. Henderson looked in on Paul, the change in his son was astounding. Dressed only in undershorts, Paul lay in bed in a fetal position, barely coherent. "Please don't let them take me away," he begged Mr. Henderson. He clasped his father's hand and wouldn't let go.

When his mother came downstairs, Paul grabbed her hand, too. When she tried to leave, he held it more tightly and wouldn't let go. He responded to their questions by nodding. No, he didn't want the doctor. No, he didn't want an ambulance.

For the next 10 hours, the Hendersons sat on the edge of Paul's bed, holding his hands. Late in the day, Mr. Henderson was able to break away from Paul and get six cookies, the only food he and his wife ate all day. Finally, Mr. Henderson felt he had to do something. "I love my son and I want to do what he wants," he said at the time. "But I can't sit here and watch him commit suicide."

He called Daniel Derman, the internist who had been treating Paul. The doctor came over early the next morning and recommended hospitalization, suspecting the AIDS infection had entered Paul's brain.

THE CONFRONTATION

That night, Paul lay in Chicago's Northwestern Memorial Hospital with one arm strapped down. His hair seemed to have turned completely gray overnight. Pink and white bumps dotted his forehead.

He acted like a deranged man. He would laugh and hum the musical scales one minute. The next, a look of sheer terror would come across his face. He opened his mouth as if to scream, but no sound emerged. Without speaking, he moved his lips and hands as if he were having a conversation with someone.

His parents arrived at his hospital room carrying a vase with red roses. "This is Dad. Do you know me?" Mr. Henderson said. "Got a smooch for me?" he asked, bending over his son to kiss him on the forehead.

Paul simply stared back blankly. That morning, he had told his doctors he heard voices telling him he was already dead. The doctors told the Hendersons that Paul probably would live only a few more days. But they kept performing tests - and Mr. Henderson began to grow angry.

"It's not as if they don't know what's wrong with him," he kept saying to his wife. He was especially upset over the frequent blood draws. One time, it took doctors 45 minutes to draw enough to fill a sandwich-sized plastic bag. Paul writhed in pain during each new draw.

The next day, a doctor came by again with a plastic vial and needle in hand. This time, Mr. Henderson folded his arms, blocked the doorway and refused to let the doctor in. He stared her straight in the eye and demanded to know: "Is this going to be another 45-minute thing?"

But before the doctor could answer, he started in again. "Because if it is, I'm not sure it's worth Paul going through all the agony again." The doctor, Sandra Swantek, explained that it was necessary to monitor the level of antibiotics in Paul's blood.

With his wife and now one other doctor looking on, Mr. Henderson held his ground. "If it's going to keep him alive for two more days, or two more weeks, is it worth it? What is his quality of life going to be? What he has in there now certainly isn't living."

If they stopped taking blood, they'd have to cut back on Paul's medication, Dr. Swantek said. "You understand, Paul had a very high fever. He was hallucinating. That could be a painful death, too."

"What would you do if you were a parent?" Mr. Henderson asked.

"I'd want to make him as comfortable as possible."

"In that case," Mr. Henderson said, "I want to see about putting Paul in the hospice program."

In a hospice, terminal patients receive medication for pain, but are no longer treated for their illness. Mr. Henderson insisted Paul was ready for such care. The next day, the doctors agreed.

The hospice provided a far different atmosphere. Except for the hospital bed, Paul's private room resembled a parlor. While most of the other AIDS patients on the floor had few or no visitors, Paul's room had a steady stream of friends.

Day after day, when Paul drifted off to sleep, his friends sat outside his room and remembered the man he'd been. From Paul's former boss, Mr. Henderson heard about the time their program for runaways ran out of funds to pay its employees. Paul, a board member, argued that the employees must be paid. To drive home the point, he pulled out his own checkbook and made a donation.

Co-workers told Mr. Henderson that Paul often slept in the office, and bought haircuts and new shoes for youngsters out of his own pocket. Paul had spent hours on his own time counseling a foster mother who had been raped.

Mr. Henderson also learned that Paul once took in a youth whose father, a doctor, had hit him so hard it left the boy deaf in one ear. When the young man died of a brain aneurysm on his school's basketball court, Paul donated a $5,000 scholarship in his memory.

To Mr. Henderson, the stories were remarkable. "We knew generally what Paul was doing. He wrote us all the time, but never put in much details. What we didn't know was how much of himself he put into his job."

Mr. Henderson tried to comfort Paul's friends. He embraced the woman his son had counseled after she was raped, and promised to bake her some bread. He asked if anyone wanted to take in Paul's Siamese cat, Sasha. By focusing on the mundane, the Hendersons kept their own emotions in check.

As the days passed, Mrs. Henderson leaned more heavily on her husband. She let him ask doctors all the questions. He told her when she should try to feed Paul. He decided what Paul should eat.

For the next few days, Paul's breathing seemed forced. He slept with his eyes half-open. "He won't last much longer," a nurse told his friends. Paul himself told his father, "I'm ready to go. Are there any papers to sign?" Mr. Henderson says he "prayed to God that He would take him so he wouldn't suffer anymore."

But each day, Paul somehow pulled through. After he'd been in the hospice nearly a week, a nurse took the Hendersons aside and encouraged Mr. Henderson to tell Paul "it's all right to let go." But Mr. Henderson refused. Instead, he went into Paul's room, kissed him on the cheek and told him he loved him. "No, no way" was he going to encourage his son to die, he said later. "That was up to him - and God."

`YOU FEEL SO HELPLESS'

After seven days, the medical staff at the hospice, which is designed for short-term care, urged the Hendersons to take Paul home. There, the Hendersons nursed their son as they had when he was a baby. Again, Mr. Henderson was the chief caregiver. He sponge-bathed his son and diapered him. He and his wife took turns feeding him. Mr. Henderson learned how to insert a catheter and measure the doses of morphine Paul needed for pain.

Paul slept in a hospital bed Mr. Henderson set up in his living room, next to a window ledge that contained the pair of bronzed baby shoes his co-workers had presented him for his work with troubled children. Mr. Henderson slept alongside Paul on a cot. At night, he awoke every two hours to turn his son.

Paul had withered to 85 pounds. His legs and arms looked like a baby's. For the Hendersons, frustration set in. "We watch over him night and day, we wait on him hand and foot. And yet, you feel you haven't done enough. You feel so helpless," Mr. Henderson said then.

The Hendersons went once to a support group for friends and relatives of AIDS sufferers. "It wasn't really for us," Mr. Henderson says. "There was a girl there with a live-in boyfriend who had AIDS and some drug users. We were looking for other parents our own age who were supporting a son with AIDS."

BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH

Paul continued to decline. He told a friend he could float above his body, held by a string - and the string was getting more fragile. "The line between life and death is thinner than you think," he said.

One day in October, Mr. Henderson noticed his son shivering "like he was freezing to death." He called the hospice and insisted they take Paul in. The Hendersons vowed to be with their son when he died. On Oct. 10, they spent 5 1/2 hours holding his hand as he gasped for air. By midday, Mr. Henderson says, he couldn't stand to watch anymore. "I had to get out of the room." He passed his fingers over Paul's knuckles. They were blue. Crying, he gave his son a kiss. Then he told his wife they were leaving.

Paul, then 44 years old, died 15 minutes later. Mr. Henderson got the news from a nurse over the phone back at Paul's house. "Thank you for calling. I'm glad he's no longer in pain," he said, and hung up the phone. Then, he told his wife, "Paul's passed."

Both stood silent for a minute. Then Mr. Henderson put his arms around his wife, and for the first time since they learned of their son's illness, they cried together.

The Hendersons have moved back to the St. Louis suburbs. They have a two-bedroom apartment in a red-brick retirement home surrounded by spruce trees. Mr. Henderson looks back on his ordeal with a mixture of acceptance and regret. "Sure, I would give anything for grandchildren to spoil," he says. "But I have many things to be thankful for. Paul didn't marry and have three or four children. But in his own way, he did a tremendous amount for society. He touched the lives of hundreds of people."

Of their final months together, he says, "We became closer than we had ever been. I was never interested in music or theater, like his mother was. So I couldn't help him with that. But when he was sick, if he needed turning or needed to be helped to the bathroom, those were things I could do. This was one time I was able to help."

This time it apparently counted the most. Before he died, Paul asked that his ashes be buried with his dad.

(Reprinted with permission of The Wall Street Journal. Copyright, 1992, Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All rights reserved.) --------------------------------------------------------------- WHERE TO TURN FOR A HELPING HAND

These organizations offer support and information to parents or others who are concerned about a child who has AIDS, is HIV positive, or who is seeking information about prevention.

-- Northwest AIDS Foundation, 329-6923, Ext. 241 (information and referral office). -- Seattle AIDS Support Group, support groups and drop-in center for people with HIV/AIDS and their family and friends, 322-2437. -- POCAAN (People of Color Against AIDS Network), provides outreach and education in communities of color, 322-7061. -- SHANTI, a volunteer organization that provides free one-to-one confidential emotional support and companionship for persons with AIDS or other life-threatening illnesses and for their loved ones. 322-0279. -- Seattle Treatment Education Project, researches and disseminates information about any new treatment, approved and experimental; scientific review committee. (Information also available to friends and family.) 329-4857 or 1-800-869-7837. -- AIDS Prevention Project Hotline, information, including pamphlets on AIDS and adolescents, and how to talk to children about AIDS, HIV counseling and testing, needle exchange, Sea-King County Department of Health, 296-4999. -- Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, support group and information source, 325-7724.