MARCH 8, 1996 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE 11

OPEN ROADS

Talk about your HIV with family, friends-don't hide in fear

by Thom Sommers

Ring.. "Hello?"

"Yeah, Mike's dead." Click.

"Hello, Dad... Dad?”

Dial tone.

sorry...

It just didn't matter now, he had really died, he was really dead. It was the final curtain on what had become the most dramatic eight months of our lives.

If I could give just one thought, opinion, or hope to people infected with HIV, I would tell them the same thing I have told myself for three years: Talk about it, not with everyone you meet, but with your family and your friends.

LIFE

AIDS LOVE

I jumped from the couch, still hung over from the night before, stood in the center of the living room, and let out a dramatic scream that came from deep inside my mind, my heart, and my gut. I walked through every room in the house frantic, desperate, every room, looking, my mind racing.

Perhaps I was making sure I really was awake. I stopped, looked at the phone. I wanted to call my mother, but what would I say? Sorry your son is dead? That did not seem too appropriate, so I didn't call, and I didn't have to say anything. Three years later, I still haven't said anything.

OPEN ROADS

Eventually, I just sat on the steps and stared at a poster hanging on the wall. It was the one he and I had taken out of the old Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus back in 1985. ALL OFFICERS AND INMATES STOP! It was the summer he told me he was gay. It seemed like only yesterday. I just repeated out loud, over and over, "I loved you, I'm sorry, I loved you, I'm

I often speak of my brother. I say that, in my opinion, he died a very sad, dark, and terrible death because he was afraid. I believe that what a person does with that information makes the difference between life and death, literally. There are thousands of people living with HIV, just in Ohio. Many are simply afraid. The only way for people to receive the help they need, medically, physically, mentally, and emotionally, is to feel safe enough to come out.

When I look back on my brother's life it makes me very sad. He had no friends at his funeral. The service consisted of many relatives that Mike had closed out years before as he began to get sick. The only friends were those that read his name in the local paper, and they had not seen him in 12 years.

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He lived in tremendous fear. In the beginning, I thought it was courage. Now I feel pity; it was simply his fear. I wish he had been able to share with our aunts and uncles, our cousins, and even our parents, brother, sister and me. I was diagnosed HIV positive in December. Fourteen weeks later, he was dead. We never talked about it. Never!

I sometimes feel, in some strange way, fortunate that he went before me, as he always did in our lives, paving the way. This time, I learned from him how not to go. I am paving my own way. When I go to visit his grave this week I will wonder, while staring at his name, "Is there really another side?

And if there is, can he see me? More importantly, would he be proud of me? Healing weekends, walks, radio shows, columns, demonstrations, panel discussions, books, and tapes-would he be proud that I am living my life, growing with each day, not dying with each passing hour, grieving for myself and those around me? Letting go of the guilt and the shame and working to help others to remain productive and healthy?

If you or someone you know is HIV positive and has built those proverbial walls, please call for help. One phone call is all it takes sometimes. The Ohio AIDS Hotline number is 800-332-2437.

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