SAM, I AM WHAT I AM

The incomparable Sam Singhaus, AKA Miss Sammy

My friend Sam is dead. Too soon. Too painfully. Contrary to his nature. Sammy wasn’t one to dwell on pain. Joy was his domain. And sequins. And sparkle. Pretty things.

Sam Singhaus was crinoline personified.

Miss Sammy, as he was known, was an exceptional drag artist. Sparkling eyes, dazzling smile and legs for days. Laughter will be his legacy.

Sam should’ve died ironically. Dramatically. Without suffering. Better he’d been run off the road by a semi-trailer full of pride flags.

Were he here, I'd tell him brain cancer is obviously caused by the wearing of cheap, poodle cut acrylic wigs. He would howl.

My friend Sam was Auntie Mame. Fabulous chaos, served up on a midcentury pupu platter of fun. His home was a place where anything could happen.

He had two sibling poodles, he neglected to get fixed. They had inbred puppies. He kept the runt, who went on to be one of the loves of Sam’s life.

Lesson learned. Ignore judgment. Embrace the joy of consequence.

That big, stupid dog was always happy. Sure, he’d walk into walls and chase his own tail, but everyone did at Sam’s. The drinks were that good.

Sam lived with his sister-in-law Marci, the wife of his many thought gay brother Steve. Marci designed all of Miss Sammy’s dresses, with a cigarette dangling from her lips. Ash growing. Defying gravity, lest one of her fabulous creations get ruined.

Sam’s dad was a Florida football coach. Couch-ridden with emphysema during our Sunday pool parties. Gay boys saying, “Hi Coach!” as we stripped down on our way to the fun. Coach smiling. Loving his son and his friends more than he cared about former expectations, or what he had thought Sam’s life might be.

I was hit by a truck while biking in 2001. Multiple fractures to my pelvis and shoulder. I was unable to walk for 3 months, bedridden and depressed. Sam, who loved me, wouldn’t have it. He grabbed my walker, put me in a Veronica Lake, blonde wig, and a pleasant blouse to go to the premiere of Legally Blonde.

Our picture was in the paper. We were beautiful. And we laughed.

Sam’s partner was beefy, burly Jess. He made a fortune developing apps, one of which hit hard. He kept working at Home Depot because he loved it, so much so that Jess stayed there when Jess finally became Jess after acknowledging that he was a she, and began living as a woman.

Jess was holding Sam’s hand when he died.

While Sam was in a coma, a friend posted a video from the 1983 Tony Awards, featuring Sammy as an original Cagelle in the first Broadway production of La Cage.

I remembered myself watching from the closet while those beautiful men performed “We Are What We Are”.

They were braver and stronger than I could ever imagine myself being. To know one of them. To have such a friend. What would that be like?

Then it happened.

Sam left Broadway to open a many thought gay bar in Orlando called Big Bang. The backroom was a black box theater. I’d come to see friends in a play, intending to leave afterward but then the theater morphed into a dance floor. The music was incredible. I stayed until closing.

While walking to my car a handsome man in Daisy Duke shorts with long hair in a ponytail rollerbladed up. It was Sam. I escorted him to the night deposit box like a Brink’s bodyguard.

The start of a 30-year friendship.

If heaven is a TV talk show, and who’s to say it isn’t, a big stupid dog was waiting for him, and the band was playing “I Am What I Am” when Miss Sammy entered.

He lived that anthem. Sam saw life from a different angle. He loved each feather and each spangle. He understood there’s just one life and that it was his to live proudly, in the open.

There was no room for Miss Sammy in his closet. It was stuffed full with fabulous dresses.

I’m trying to lead by my friend's example and let the joy of knowing him outweigh my grief. I have tried to face this loss with a little guts, and lots of glitter, just as Sam taught me to do, long before I ever knew him.