My Best Part
In 1979, on a bus traveling through the streets of S o Paulo, two pairs of eyes met.
Jeff was eighteen years old when he met Amilton. Neither of them could have imagined that this seemingly ordinary encounter would mark the beginning of a story that would span forty-six years.
It was a time when Brazil was still marked by dictatorship and by a society in which two men had to measure their gestures, hide their feelings, and often find ways to exist without attracting the attention or judgment of others. Their relationship could not always be shown to the world. But Jeff and Amilton chose to stay together.
In telling the story of his life with Amilton, Jeff also records part of the experience of an LGBTQIAP+ generation that lived through profound transformations: from a time when a relationship had to be hidden to the possibility of acknowledging it publicly and securing rights that once seemed far beyond reach.
And perhaps many LGBTQIAP+ readers will recognize something of their own stories in these pages.
The first challenges came: rejection, the need to create a space of their own, and friends who, little by little, became family.
Then came the borders.
From Brazil to Canada, the two faced immigration, the difficulty of a new language, exhausting jobs, separation from those they loved, and the need to begin almost entirely from scratch. They built homes, made friends, achieved stability, became Canadian citizens and, years later, chose to return to Brazil to begin once again.
Life moved on.
There were other homes, new dreams, parties, journeys, animals who became part of the family, losses, reunions, Christmases, and a house by the sea that became a refuge.
Over more than four decades, the world around them changed as well.
The relationship they once had to hide endured across generations until it could finally be recognized and celebrated.
But MY BEST PART is not simply the story of two men who remained together for forty-six years.
It is the story of an entire life built together.
And it is before the sea, at sunrise, that Jeff decides to return to the beginning.
Sitting on the sand beside Amilton, he begins to remember everything.
The bus.
The first home.
The suitcase that crossed a border.
Canada.
The friends.
The achievements.
The losses.
The new beginnings.
The small things that, when brought together, make up a life.
As the sun rises, forty-six years return through memory.
But there is something about that morning that the reader does not yet know.
And only when the story returns to the same sea where it began will it be possible to understand why Jeff needed to tell it.
MY BEST PART is an autobiographical narrative about memory, belonging, family, new beginnings, and the experience of building a life beside someone when the world was not always ready to recognize it.
A story that began with a glance, crossed countries and decades, and left behind a question that only time could answer:
What remains of an entire life shared together when we reach the final page?
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