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AIDS, a life, not death sentence

  • Published
  • By Lt. Col. Timothy White
  • AMC Test and Evaluation Squadron commander
MCGUIRE AFB, NJ. --  Though not an interesting topic for discussion, AIDS has made its way into almost every person's life in one form or another. Secrecy about the disease has been lifted and the associated treatments have lengthened many life spans ... but it is not a gentle journey for the afflicted or for those who love them. I hope my journey sheds some light on this "taboo" subject. 

In 1984, when HIV and its final stage, AIDS, were still relatively unknown, one of my older brothers applied for life insurance and the letter denying him coverage cited the following reason: "HIV-Positive." As a recovering alcoholic and participant in, as he called it, the "Free Love" generation, my brother was in many ways the "Black Sheep" in our family of cops. 

I, being the youngest of 11, was always the one who got away with everything while maintaining a secure place in everyone's heart -- I enjoyed that position fully. One day, I went to my brother's condo in Florida and found him on the balcony, drinking! I asked him in a very obnoxious (and colorful) tone, what he was doing. His response was shocking: "What does it matter?" My brother had been given six months to live and told the majority of that time would be spent clinging to life while in agony. But my brother's biggest fear was not the prognosis, it was the judgment he anticipated from our family when they found out. He dreaded being ostracized, being set aside as an oddity to be shunned as if a leper. He feared the embarrassment of non-acceptance and the loneliness of isolationism. He was concerned and worried about the reaction of his father and brothers who were more comfortable fighting than hugging. 

I cleaned my brother up and took him home. There, our mother and one of our brothers met us and asked, "What's going on?" I gave the letter to my mother and, though she did not know what it meant, she began to shake. She gave me a puzzled look and I asked her if she had ever heard of the disease that caused AIDS and she fell to the floor crying. I turned to my other brother who, with tears in his eyes, walked over to our brother and gave him the strongest, most loving hug I had ever seen him give. We then began to walk down the long road of HIV. 

Though the doctors in 1984 could only offer my brother six months, they did not take into account his remarkable strength or the drugs that would make their way on to the scene in the decade that followed. My brother kept death waiting at the door for 10 years. He never gave up; quite the contrary; he started and cultivated a thriving business, invested in real estate and left a legacy of giving throughout his local community. I'd say he lived a fuller life than most. 

Of all my memories of him, the most powerful would have to be in the last month before he died. I was in the Air Force and took leave to visit him in the hospital. I surprised him when I walked in; he had been battling pneumonia for a few months and it had taken its toll on his body (AIDS is never the killer of a person; what kills is usually complications from the simplest of illnesses. An illness cannot be fought effectively once the body has lost its immune system ... that illness becomes the killer). I walked into the room and had a hard time recognizing him; my brother was well over six feet tall and over 240 pounds; the man in the bed was closing in on his death weight of 114 pounds when I arrived. 

Unshaven and hair mussed, he looked like a man about to lose his fight. During our conversation, his depression increased and I asked why; the had to go to the bathroom and hated using the bed pan. I picked him up and carried him into the bathroom. He began to cry while I was carrying him, saying that he was the big brother and was supposed to carry me. I lovingly responded, saying, "You have carried me your whole life ... let me return the favor this once." I spent the next hour cleaning my brother up, combing his hair and giving him a much-needed shave. 

My parents did not know I was coming into town, so when they arrived at the hospital they did not notice me in the corner but were so happy to see my brother looking like he was getting better. The truth is, he was still failing, but he was sitting taller, talking proudly ... he had been given back his dignity; AIDS couldn't take that away -- it was his to give away and he took it back. 

Thirteen years have passed since my brother was called home to Heaven; I still love and miss him deeply. He lived his death sentence with pride and hope and courage. He taught me that we are all living with a death sentence and it is how we live that matters!