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Silverfoxesclub-digest
Sunday, May 13 2001
Volume 01 : Number 237

In this issue:

-Mother's Day (3)

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From: "Ben Boxer" benboxer@mediaone.net
Subject: Mother's Day

Several years ago, I knew a beautiful young man from Mexico. He had a generous nature and a loving heart. He had known great sadness in his life. His mother had died when he was a little boy, leaving him in the care of an irresponsible older brother and a drunken father.

At 22, never having had sex with anyone in his entire life, he met a man thirty years his senior and fell madly in love. It was a brutal relationship. The older man was prone to jealous rages, accusing my friend of sleeping around. Not true. My friend had a faithful nature and had sex only with his lover, but he could not take anymore abuse. They broke up.

My friend was living in San Francisco which was like a candy store for handsome, gay young men. He nibbled some of this and some of that, everything he could get. He was so lively and bright that everybody wanted him, and most of them got him.

HIV got him, too, in an age when it didn't even have a name. Nobody had ever heard of HIV or AIDS. We talked about some strange new "gay cancer," but no one knew---nobody in the world. My friend moved from the HIV infection to full-blown AIDS in three short years. By that time, San Francisco General Hospital had an AIDS Ward where many people I knew went to die. One of them was this friend.

No one had ever taken good care of him before. No mother, a bad brother, a drunken father, a vicious lover---the cards were stacked against him. We who were his friends knew this, and we also knew what a wonderful man he had become in spite of it all, how kind, how loving, how giving of himself in other ways than sex alone.

A group of us sorted out our schedules so that at least two of us were in constant attendance on him at the hospital. The staff were happy to have us as they were so overloaded with work. Night and day we came, and when our friend was asleep, we visited others in the ward who had no visitors, who had been abandoned by family and friends on account of their dread disease. We read to them, joked with them, hugged them, and the religious among us prayed with them.

In the last few days of my friend's life, we could see it coming, and were present with him in even greater numbers than before. He was rarely conscious and was often incoherent. But one night, he woke up and recognized the five of us who were present. We were fluttering around doing this and that---plumping his pillows, wiping his brow, trying to be cheerful as best we could.

I shall never forget how he watched us with his large, luminous, dark eyes as vivid as coals in his wasted death-mask of a face. He was beyond comfort, but he understood that it was comfort we so desperately wanted to give him. Then, in his small, weak voice, we heard him whisper: "So many mothers! It must be Mother's Day!" He died the following morning. He was 28.

(Note: the attached picture is not of the above young man, but of another friend who died of AIDS at the age of 24.)
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From: "UKFANFL@aol.com" UKFANFL@aol.com
Subject: Re: Mother's Day

Dear Ben:
Your Mother's Day letter touched my heart. I have not had an easy life but not as hard as a lot of people. My lover died last month. He had been in a nursing home for a couple of months and both his son and I alternated shifts in the home first of all because of my love for him but also because the staff in the home was lacking in experience, compassion and in most cases humanity. Their feelings had been dulled by too many double shifts and too many patients. We did similar duty with Lou as you did with your friend. While Lou slept, we often talked with other patients and the staff trying to raise all there spirits and keep ours from going into the dumps. There was a senior lady that must have been something when she was younger. She was 96 and walked the halls, often not knowing ware she was or who she was talking to but some of the things she talked about were pretty risque. She helped everyone that she came in contact with by the gift of laughter. She could make any and everyone howl. Lou developed more complications and the one day out of the 90 some he was there, neither his son or myself could rearrange our schedules. We thought that one day he would be fine. He was unconscious from early in the AM until his son got there at 5:00. Just minuets before I did. We immediately called 911 and the paramedics arrived in no time. They took him to the hospital and gradually he regained consciousness. They said he was malnourished, dehydrated and had pneumonia. We couldn't understand, he was on a strict diet but we thought he was eating and drinking the amounts the dietitian prescribed. The Sunday before he died he was sitting up in a chair laughing and talking like he was on his way to recovery. I walked into the room and Lou's eyes brightened and through his arms out and said come here I want to kiss you. I don't even remember walking across the room. I was in his arms and never had I experienced a more passionate kiss. We talked for about a half hour, then they gave him an insulin injection and some other medications. He said he was tired and went to bed. He fell asleep and for three days was in and out of consciousness. Not another lucid word came from his lips. Lou passed away at 78 years old. I have never met a more youthful, energetic, and sexually active man in my 48 years. I will always love him for the friendship, laughter, stories and most of all the unconditional love he gave me. I miss him so much. The reason that I wrote this epic letter is to implore you to ask your younger members that are searching for a vocation to consider nursing or health care of some sort. There is an epidemic that is sweeping our land and it is worse than AIDS and all other plagues that have ever attacked humanity put together. This is the lack of well educated and caring health care workers. I had heard on the news a few nights ago that there is a major need for nurses and other health care workers. I said to myself that there are plenty of nurses on duty when I go to the hospital to visit. Yes, they are there but how many shifts have they worked? How tired are they? How many days have they worked without a day off? How many little or big mistakes will they make and who will be next? I hope for Gods sake it's not the love of your life as it was mine. It's unbearable. You want to kill yourself rather than live without him. Please consider the health care profession.

Thanks,
Jim
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From: "[SGMS]" sgms@bigfoot.com
Subject: Re: Mother's Day

Ben Boxer wrote: "Several years ago, I knew a beautiful young man from Mexico...."

At least he died happy. He obviously realised that you and the rest of his friends were doing everything in your power to let him go on a better tone than his earlier life.

Nowhere near enough information about AIDS is given here in France. There are a few freefone numbers you can call for counselling but the buck stops there. There is no sex education in schools, let alone safe-sex education. It's still considered a relatively taboo subject to be talked about in any other way than through inuendo, so there are no safe-sex campaigns on TV, radio or billboards. There is nothing blunt enough to really draw people's attention to the importance of the subject. There was a fairly poignant anti-drugs campaign in the media a few years ago, but even that seems to have frazzled away over time.

Even today in the minds of most str8 people in this country, "SIDA" (French for "AIDS") doesn't mean "Syndrome Immuno-Dificitaire Acquis" but "Sauvagement Introduit Dans l'Anus" (savagely introduced into the anus). I think that says it all.

GRS
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End of silverfoxesclub-digest V1 #237
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