11.08.08
I will never forget
I think about the events of that particular day often. The swell of emotions caused by witnessing the reality of the situation flooded my senses, leaving me speechless. My heart ached in disbelief, as if some desensitized old timer was trying to convince it, “that’s just the way it is, kid.” My stomach tied itself in knots, as if it wanted to retaliate against what was about to happen. As I looked at the four-year-old boy, clenched in his grandmother’s arms, I saw the look of confusion on his face. He grows teary eyed when he sees his mother get in the car; instincts and misunderstanding are telling him that the bond he shares with his mother is about to be severed. We slowly began to drive away from the home and my eyes began to mirror the boy’s. The difference, however, was that my eyes spoke words of uncertainty, not knowing when, or if, the boy would see his mother again. It would be a while until he will be able to fully comprehend what happened that day, that his mother is HIV positive and needed to leave home to get medical attention.
It was my first time picking up a new patient to be brought to the respite unit of the local Hillcrest AIDS Center, a place where those suffering from HIV/AIDS are provided with the medical, physical, and emotional support necessary to fight the virus and, hopefully, return to a normal life. The only thought that comforted me as I drove away from the grandmother and the son was in knowing that the woman was being taken to such a positive and uplifting environment, a place where skilled care-givers and nurses could assess her current condition, stabilize her, and get her on a life-sustaining course of treatment. It happens daily at the respite unit, and often with great success.
One such success story which I felt personally gifted to be apart of in a minute way was the recent release of another patient from the respite unit. Driving the patient home, up to the front door of her home, being greeted with the cheers and smiles of her sister and mother, I saw the power of family and the positive, healthy force that was being generated in the household and, on a bigger scale, in the community, with the return of this one woman. As I said my goodbyes and drove up the winding road out of the valley where she lived, I recalled the day only one week before, outside of a home only five minutes away, when a mother was separated from her infant son. When family bonds were crippled and the heartbeat of a close-knit community lost its steady rhythm by the destructive and malicious power of AIDS. I prayed that the son, aided by his grandmother, would sleep peacefully that night. I am hopeful of the mother’s return to her son; family bonds re-sewn, a community uplifted.
Michael Barry - South Africa 2008