Robert Hopkins is a career officer with the United States intelligence service. He & his family have lived all over the world, & he has held top-secret meetings with leaders of many countries. No stranger to Washington, Hopkins literally grew up playing in the White House, as his father, Harry Hopkins, was one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's closest advisors. Nothing in Robert Hopkins' life among the privileged & the powerful, however, prepared him to face his gravest ordeal: the death of his son & only child, Sean, at age 26. This moving memoir traces the odyssey of this close-knit family from Sean's precocious childhood, to his adolescent conversion to Catholicism, to his stunning revelation as a young adult of his homosexuality. Hopkins candidly chronicles his own transformation from a stoic CIA careerist to a grieving father coming to terms with the secret world of homosexuals & the ravages of AIDS. As his parents' only child, Sean was given the best education, remarkable travel experience, & special opportunities to develop his many talents. By his early teenage years, however, he was already finding ways to seek comfort with others who realized they were different; who knew they were gay; who could not tell those who loved them most. Sean was a senior in college when the first tests revealed he was HIV-positive. Over the next four years, he & his mother & father fought AIDS with every means at their command, at times selling treasured possessions to pay the mounting medical costs. As this touching story unfolds, readers will discover the cruel effects of AIDS on the body. But they will also see, through the Hopkins family, Sean's friends, & their church community, that there are spiritual resources which can keep love alive to the very last moment & beyond. It has not been easy for Robert Hopkins to write this book. A career of keeping secrets did not prepare him to wear his feelings on his sleeve. But the need became overpowering to tell Sean's story on behalf of millions of others suffering his pain - & most of all, to help families & religious communities minister to victims of AIDS.