My sister who is an outreach for aids patient told me a lot of stories about them. This was around 1994. Some patient begged her to let them go. She would see them i the morning and the patient would say goodbye and told them not to come back the following day. Most of them were vibrant, happy at one time but when the disease hit there is so much worries.
It's easy when you're suffering to want a final exit, a way to make it all end. And if you're "in the community" and saw all the other suffering, your dear friends (who had been on the dance floor with you stepping out to
Take a Chance On Me) falling to the disease all around you, it's hard not to see that they got to leave the horror and the fear behind (not to get philosophical, and they understandably couldn't seem to take it anymore).
I can't tell you how many times I felt that way, especially during medical interventions, once waking up from gut surgery to this giant tube down my throat, intubated because I had gone into respiratory distress during the surgery. I said to myself, "You idiots! Why did you save me?" My family was there looking down at the youngest son with smiling, compassionate fear, all sorts of beeping machines around making sure I was within tolerable levels of vital signs. I didn't want the life-saving. My family's sweetly veiled fear was another reason to hate living, they deserved to not live in fright. This was 1995.
I was lucky; my gay best friend (an absolutely gregarious, fun, magnetic guy who was an amazing artist who taught me more about seeing art than I ever could imagine. He introduced me to
The Museum of Neon Art in L.A. when it was in the manufacturing district, wow. He loved to backpack. We hiked up to
Long Lake on the eastern side of the Sierra where my family would hike so many times when I was a child. Although never romantically, we "got" each other like there was some kind of heightened connection), Peter, died around '90. His family had basically abandoned him after they found out he had AIDS. By that time I was living up north with my partner, focusing on my career, when I heard of his death. I immediately knew I had to be there for his memorial service, then I found out his parents weren't going to let his gay friends attend. I love you Peter!
At one time when I was living with my partner down here in a big house with roommates, I came home early from work with two new boxed bicycles to assemble, it was just before Christmas and I wanted to surprise him. Our roommate (also HIV infected) was despondent after a breakup. As I went to the garage to get the tools, I heard a car running in it. I went to open the door but it was blocked by something inside. I instantly knew that our depressed roommate was inside trying to kill himself. For a split second I realized that he had every right to do that. But instead of letting it happen I broke the door down, somehow busting through the panels (I still can't explain how).
There he was, crouched down near the exhaust pipe of his little, cute Tercel with a scarf trying to aim the fumes at his face. He looked up at me with the saddest eyes I have ever seen. I picked him up, and got us both out of that exhaust-filled garage. He couldn't hold himself up, but he was short and slender enough for me to carry. I called 911, and he obviously needed medical intervention. The cops arrived right after the ambulance. He refused the intent to get him to the hospital. The paramedic said, "You can come with us or go with them (pointing at the cop who had sympathetic eyes)." He went to the hospital and "broke out" on his way to many more years of life. We lost contact, but I heard through a mutual friend that he died of the disease up north somewhere. I had to hope that he was happy to be saved, as he said.
A good friend and vocal student of my mom's went out the day after his HIV test, bought his first gun, and blew his brains out with the first bullet ('88?).
You see a lot. And it can school you or it can depress you. I love(d) all the guys I've seen fall. I imagine them up there with my mom and Louise Hay and all the rest, carrying on, free from burden. They know the love that they shared and the love they got back. All that really matters.
I assert that you and your sister are angels on earth, her work and your sharing it. You gave me the gift of the therapy of writing and its way of lightening the load.
Angels in America is amazing (HBO), they're all around.
As I do, some songs. As all gay artists of the day were, these guys
were affected by watching the unjust epidemic unfold.
You gotta love Dusty Springfield
You can break the chains of love, but you can't break love.