DECEMBER 8, 1995 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE 13

OPEN ROADS

That Day: What it meant then, and what it means now

by Thom Sommers

If I were to have made a journal entry last week, it may have read something like this:

November 30, 1995-In just two days it will be the third anniversary of "That Day," December 2, 1992. Can you believe it? Three years already... three very strange years. As I look back on that day, one memory remains most prominent: those chilling words of that tall slim man, the one with the somewhat warm smile hidden behind his full mustache. He sat at his desk and asked casually, "So how have the last two weeks been?"

"Don't ask," I replied, with a heavy sigh. The anxiety was returning in monumental proportions, I could feel the sweat on my back, my feet were tingling, and everything suddenly went silent. I watched his every move. He opened the file, closed it and set it aside, and looked at me. I felt sick. I could sense his tension.

"Well, your test came back reactive, that means you're positive."

I know for the next few seconds my heart had stopped, my mind went horribly black, and I just stared at nothing. Pulling all my energy together, I somehow found the strength to utter the words, "How am I going to tell my mom? My poor, poor mother."

I never thought I'd live three years with this thing. This thing has changed my life, created a new personality in me; not a new one, but a different one. Do you tell? Do you not tell? Who do you tell? Will I die? When will I die? How will I die? For months I wanted to know how, where, when, who! In time it just wasn't important. I am here, and I need to move forward. Counseling, groups, healing weekends, lawyers, clinics, doctors, tests, medications, relationships, friends, my family, my brother (he's dead), and friends who have died. Again I ask, "Can you believe it? Three years already."

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Three years later I can sit here and tell you that I am glad that I have made it, for the most part. I have been through some tough times, emotional times. There has been so much that I never thought I could have done. I feel alone so often, not that there aren't people around me, but alone because no one can understand this. I sometimes think my brother had the right idea, to just deny it all until he no longer could. I know, though, that I am doing the right thing. Not even just for me, but for all of the people around me.

On this third anniversary I can't help but remember my brother, who died only months after That Day. Just days before Michael died, I had gone to my first support group. I can remember driving home that evening feeling empowered. I did not know if I could beat this thing, but I did know I was going to give it my everything.

Being HIV positive has become a very empowering statement to me. I have taken this "wake up call" as an opportunity to try to get to know myself, understand myself, and amazingly enough, like myself. The people that I have met along the way have bridged the laughter, the tears, and the paralyzing fear with love and friendship. The comfort that I have found getting to know ACT-UP Cleveland,

Nightsweats and T-Cells, the Ohio AIDS Coalition, the Living Room, the AIDS Taskforce of Cleveland, and the incredible volunteer staff at the Free Clinic, including my doctor Steve, has helped relieve some of the isolation, fear, guilt, and shame of That Day.

I can also remember watching the movie Longtime Companion and not understanding what it was they were all talking about: HIV, CMV, MAI, KS, CD4s and CD8s, T4s, Bactrim, AZT, night sweats. I watched that movie a couple of

I wrote a letter that Monday OPEN ROADS months later and suddenly I unnight, to Michael. I needed to

tell him that I loved him. I needed to tell him that I had forgiven him. Preparing that night for the worst, I had to make everything okay for me. Unfortunately, I was unable to share that letter with him until the final viewing of his body on the morning of his funeral. I believe that letter to be one of the most difficult things I had written in years. So much honesty, so much truth, on one piece of paper. As Michael's body was buried that day, my soul was born.

People ask how HIV has changed my life, my family's lives, my friends' lives. For me, I truly have come to enjoy living through today, not making it through today. I have learned to create much more deep and intimate relationships with those around me, even with myself.

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ally does have its privileges. I am looking forward to this World AIDS Day. I will be speaking for the first time, solo, in Oberlin. I enjoy sharing with people the thoughts I have on the infection, and what i means to me and how it has become a part of

me.

With my diagnosis that day came and opportunity for spirituality and growth. I like to feel I am utilizing all of the experiences that have come with this uninvited guest.

I have watched the face of AIDS change over the last three years. I have witnessed the government's continued ignorance to this pandemic. In Cleveland we are fighting to save our football team-what about our lives? Cleveland, now a Title One city (more than

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This is my journey, from my initial diagnosis through each of the ups, the downs, the learning, the struggles, and even the triumphs of acceptance. I don't know where my journey will end or what will become of my future, but through the daily encouragement of my friends I am able to continue my commitment to share, and to grow from this experience, this most consuming and confusing experience called HIV. I thank them and I love them.

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