His mother Alice Gerard recalls:
"Simon was not an easy child. He would have ideas for great projects, but would often become dissatisfied and abandon everything before it was completed. Later, as he grew older and realized he was gay and what it meant, he hid a lot of his life from us and, like most kids in our area at the time, did a lot of experimenting with drugs. He was alternatively happy and deeply depressed. Eventually, he accomplished a great deal and had many close friends. Although he never graduated from high school, he was the most intelligent person in our family and had read his way through the whole of the Encyclopedia Brittanica. I miss him a great deal. He and I shared interests in books, music and people. I have wondered if his life would have been easier today, when being gay is not the stigma it was in his adolescence. Whatever the reason, his life was always full of ups and downs, euphoria and despair, and the results of using alcohol to deal with this situation eventually led to his early death at the age of 55".
