My mother worked with The Terrence Higgins Trust, an HIV hospice in London, when she retired from teaching art. She would tell me tales of her experiences over tea. It had proven to be an enlightening process discovering upon her retirement the whole gamut of sexual escapades men can get up to in the wee hours of night.
However, one such tale inspired me. It inspired my mother to. I remembered it to a friend the other day,who is HIV positive and was depressed.
It was a mild autumn afternoon in London many years ago, long before I moved to the United States. We sat in the bay window of my parents Edwardian terrace apartment. My mother poured the tea and lit a cigarette.
"I met an amazing Australian man the other day. He came to give a talk at the Trust. I spoke with him after wards he told me of his life. He was, he said, everything gay men loved. He was tall, muscular blond, and rugged. He was the 'golden boy', everyone wanted him and everyone had him. Life was good he had said", she told me as she drank her tea.
I imagined him to be like the image I posted. This is not the guy am discussing, it is my impression.
"He told me he discovered he was HIV positive. He grew sick very quickly and the doctors saw no hope. He said he became very thin and he was ailing. He decided to return to Australia to die. He wanted to spend time with his family and say farewell in peace. It seemed sad, such a beautiful man, since he was so young at this moment in his life. He was very handsome, men and women would desire him I dare say", she said drawing on her cigarette and pausing to look out of the bay windows.
"So, he went home and reunited with his family. Then entered a hospice skeletal thin, waiting for death to take him from life. His beauty gone, and so too the men who adored him. Laying there one night a kind nurse in a neat blue uniform came into his room and chatted with him. He said the nurse put her hand on his shoulder and that brought him immense peace. She looked at him silently with the eye's of a mother to her child and said " Everything will be alright with you. You will be fine. Peace my son". And then, he said she left," my mother said. She paused and was thoughtful. She took a puff of her cigarette.
"He said he slept so peacefully that night and continued to do so. And each subsequent morning his health kept improving, until one day he he left the hospice and his beauty returned. He glowed. He glowed still, he even glowed on the day he came to the Trust," mother said.
"What did he say he thought happened ?", I asked.
"Well, that following morning he woke up and asked the day nurses who the lovely night nurse in the blue uniform was. He did not know her name. She never gave him one. He asked after her as he wanted to thank her. The nurses were perplexed and said there was no nurse like that in duty. But, more importantly, all uniforms were white. That the last time they were blue was 50 yars ago," mother said, sipping tea.
"No one knew who this nurse was. He said he felt she was his angel, that in her touch he was healed. That as he left the hospice he would devote his life, now restored, to spreading a message of hope, even when at deaths door. And so he traveled to London to share his story," mother said drawing a deep puff of her cigarette and sipped her tea.
We both looked out of the bay window onto the street below. The faded autumn leaves hung limp on the trees lining it.
I thought him the other day and spoke of him to my friend. As the tears filled his eyes and he said,
" I needed to hear that". I did not inquire further and gave him a hug saying, "well, am glad I shared it with you then".
So, I thought I would pass along this Australian mans story as I do not know who it will inspire or why. It is not my story, am just the narrator, and not important in this equation, but the message is.
Cheers to hope !..and to nurses in blue uniforms.
Peace,
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