My brother's name was Doug, the partner he left behind is Skip (Hers: "A Brother's Death," by Barbara Lazear Ascher, Nov. 19). Doug's ashes rest in the sea off the coast of Maine, and he has been gone two years. In every other respect (that he was 31 when he died of AIDS, that he was the brother of two sisters and that his parents were unashamed of the cause of his death) the circumstances of Doug and Bobby are the same. Ms. Ascher's description of grief is eloquent. She captures the feeling as if she had stepped into my skin.

I can assure Ms. Ascher that the happy days will come again. But I can also promise her that if she picks up The Times one Sunday two years from now and reads about AIDS taking someone's brother, she will be transported to "the mule-drawn wagon" - and the tears will come again. CANDACE R. CORVEY Watertown, Mass.

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