Go back to Arts & Features pageSAN FRANCISCO -- Whenever you would see educator Tim Curbo and his lover -- comedian, school board member and now San Francisco supervisor Tom Ammiano -- together, Tom would introduce him as "My better half." Curbo, in public, especially if he was with Tom, usually hung back, a knowing smile on his face, his eyes twinkling above a mustache that seemed to have a life of its own.
Tim and Tom were together a long time. More than 15 years. Which is sure longer than both of my marriages put together. But when Tim Curbo died from complications of AIDS, it was a scant week before Tom was elected to the Board of Supervisors. Thursday night, the children of Cesar Chavez School, where Tim taught, remembered him in the best way possible. They threw a pageant that turned into a party. And, I am told, Tim dearly loved a good party.
Cesar Chavez Elementary School is in the heart of the Mission District on Shotwell Street. Its ethnic diversity was reflected in the faces of those who sat in the chill of an early winter night in folding chairs arranged on the tarmac of the playground. School children, some of them Tim's students, stood holding candles or raced around the perimeter playing.
Then there were the others, not students, not associates, not parents, who came to yet another "celebration" for a gay man whose productive life had been cut short. "We've been to too many of these," said one man, thoughtfully.
Gay men stood in pairs, their sad faces reflecting the flicker of candles, holding on to each other in comforting embrace. Lesbian couples, too, like Tim and Tom's close friends Kate Monico-Klein and Louise Minick, who carried their 2-year-old adopted Guatemalan child, Maya. "The nicest thing Timmy gave us," said Monico-Klein, a darkly beautiful woman who fought back tears all evening, "is a sense of uncompromising family. The children of this school understood that Tom was Tim's family."
Other teachers, educators of children, came to remember Tim. Said Tom Ruiz, who teaches international studies on the college level, "I had a chance to visit his classroom. He had a way of connecting with his kids that showed respect for them and made learning fun. You can know teachers by the way the kids recognize them. Tim's kids were alive!"
Seated or standing, also, were men and women of city government come to pay their respects: Supervisors Carole Migden, Susan Leal, Angela Alioto and Terence Hallinan. Also school board member Lawrence Wong and former mayoral aide Jean Harris.
Harris, now special assistant to the director of the health department of the city and county of San Francisco, told me that Tim "wasn't just a school teacher but a teacher for all of us. He taught us to have self-pride and self-esteem. He was my teacher and helped me stay in the trenches and keep doing what I have to do."
The long and culturally diverse program began with an Aztec ceremonial dance and blessing, ushering Tim's spirit to its new home. Dancers dressed in costumes trimmed in gold, sequins and huge spiked feathers moved constantly to the solemn beat of a huge drum and the rattle of the seed pod "bells" attached to their bare or sandaled feet. They performed in front of a stage that had been decorated with children's art -- Dia de los Muertos skulls, lacy cut-outs, streamers and balloons.
And the tributes and mourning came, delivered by friends, teachers, students -- to remember Tim the best way they knew how, through music, poetry, spoken thoughts. Each and every statement translated into four different languages: Spanish, English, Chinese and International Sign Language.
Jeremy Devries, a tow-headed boy who couldn't have been more than 11, stood in front of a microphone reading from a prepared speech. He had been one of Tim's students in the first and second grade. "It made me feel bad to go to the hospital and see Mr. Curbo," he said with simple honesty. "Not everyone knew he was gay," he continued, "but that's what I liked about him -- that he was out and honest about himself."
The teachers of Cesar Chavez had written a poem in a workshop, and Frances Lee read it.
Finally, it was Tom Ammiano's turn to speak. He did it the only way he knew how: he did a stand-up turn.
He joked about Tim's mom in Waco, Texas, a woman named Blanche -- "a Blanche Davidian." He remembered Tim at one of the huge gay freedom marches in Washington, backstage with Cesar Chavez and Whoopi Goldberg. Tim, he said, never asked for an autograph. He asked them to come to the then-Hawthorne Elementary to be role models for his students.
And then, suddenly, the enormity of Tim's death overtook Ammiano. Tears came when he said: "Tim had his demons, and he dealt with them with honor. He gave us so much. . . and he was such a pain in the ass. I taught him how to fight, and he taught me how to let go. . . Sevarados nunca. We'll never be separated."
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