Need a fresh perspective, climb on the roof and talk to an Angel!

On my visit to the North East three years ago, I met a girl who had three children including a babe in arms from three different husbands, all seven of them were living with HIV and all the adults were injecting drug users. This memory both singes my mind and haunts me each time I come back and I feel deeply privileged to come here and offer some part of me that is heartfelt and work-worthy and especially where the need screams at you.

I have just finished my session on “Advocacy to address stigma and discrimination in the context of HIV/AIDS” with a district network of people living with HIV in Manipur. My throat is dry, my voice, raspy and I am exhausted. This is no ordinary group of people. If you share my vocation, your heart keeps reminding you that every moment is to be received with respect and every word you speak has to point to a “promise of tomorrow”, whose seed has to be sown today. So it is not uncommon, that you find yourself fumbling for words yet striving to rise to the occasion, reaching high enough to draw yourself a silver lining that is bright enough for all to see against the dark cloud of HIV/AIDS that hangs in the room like a ghost. Sometimes when I my enthusiasm is waning, I try to picture myself in a place where I have to count all my “tomorrows”, and be conscious of the fact that they are somehow limited. This is enough to give my enthusiasm a fresh boost and remind me of the real reason I am here. Ironically enough, the truth is we all have to count our tomorrows and engage every moment with a passion that may be best described as kissing life back for joy, as well as for breath…hard.

In this room full of people, two boys get my attention. One with an easy smile who asks probing questions and the other is still-water silent but has both forearms covered with green tattooed ink. The tattoos mingle with faded marks of needle stabs, a sign of former injecting drug use and the most likely way my young friend would have been infected. The skin on his face is unlined and smooth and but his eyes are old. The largest tattoo on his left forearm and one that grabs my attention is a poorly etched cross with the figure of the tortured Saviour. While I am speaking animatedly, I pause for a millisecond and glance at it, and then look up. Our eyes meet and he smiles at me knowingly. They are both sitting right in front so it is hard to miss them. After the discussion, I strike up a conversation with the guy with the tattoos.

“Where did you get so many tattoos?” I ask casually.

“In jail.” He smiles. “I was drug pusher.” He moves along before I can think of something else to say.

I grab a glass of water and sit outside in the verandah trying to rest my aching throat. The water washes down the rawness and I turn my head slightly as I sense movement beside me. It is my young friend with the winsome smile. He plants himself in front of me with his forearms openly resting on either side of the railing. His forearms are bare… no puncture marks. Our conversation flows…

François: Hello. (Pause)

Hey…!

“I wish I had known earlier about ways to maintain a healthy life, instead of taking antiretroviral drugs (ART) so early in the stages of my infection.” …a tinge of regret colours his voice.

“It’s alright now,” I smile weakly. “The main thing is to continue taking it and once you begin, you have to take it for life.” (I am all too aware these drugs are government regulated and their regular supply depends on funds and logistics well beyond the control of the people whose life depends on it.)

“So! How come you are here?” My question is an earnest attempt to dialogue, to listen to his inner emotional rhythms, if I can.

That smile again. Warm, open, easy. “I am an Alcoholic.” he says simply. He looks straight at me, his eyes hold my gaze. What is it I see…. Acceptance? Maybe…

“You know that alcoholism like any addiction that one has to deal with daily. You take it “One Day at a Time” and you can’t tell yourself that you have been sober for a few months, so it’s okay to have a drink. Because that one drink can take you back to where you started.”

“I know, I have been sober for a year now.” Ever smiling.

“That’s…that’s good.”

“So you had unprotected sex.” I want to grab these next words and shove them back into my mouth. A health professional’s practiced observation – (If it is not this, it must be that. Who was I to tell him this?) And I was not judging him. Yet I feel foolish and callous.

“Love...” he says. He emphasizes its syllable slowly.

“I’m sorry?”

“I made love and not sex.” He says. I nod and not because I want to make up for my faux pas. (You can’t make love with someone you don’t love.)

“I used to drink a lot and did a lot of partying. And one day, I got very drunk and made love to my girl-friend without a condom. It was the one and only time that I had made love with her or any other girl for that matter.” He continued. “Later I got myself tested and I was found to be positive. As soon as I got my test results I went to her house to inform her but she refused to believe me. We have not met each other after that and she has recently gotten married.”

“It was good of you to go to her house and let her know about this.” I struggle with something more meaningful to say.

“So how did you make peace with it…about your life and your status?” My eyes are beginning to sting.

“I tried to kill myself…commit suicide. I drank continuously for 14 days, I wanted to drink myself to death… to sleep and never wake up…but I just couldn’t die.”

“What do you think about God’s presence in all of this?” I had to ask this question. The unraveling of a loving God’s hand and purpose in life as we know it, was a struggle I wrestled with in my own life.

“I have made my peace with God and my positive status. I was very angry with Him at first for allowing this to happen to me. I have even called Him bad names. But I have accepted my life as it is now and I still have my faith in God. He is my friend.” François began to smile that smile again.

“Oh yeah… I have had my angry moments when I have called God bad names too. But I am over that now.”

Pause. “You know, I too have experienced a loss followed by deep longing that is similar to your own. Like your life, there was a before and an after with a sudden defining moment that changed everything for me. I was once part of a long term committed relationship and I thrived on being a mutual halve of it, but one day she told me she wanted to end it. She had found someone else and wanted to move on. There comes a time when one must deal with what “is” and move on from the grieving over what cannot be. We find peace when we let go of the hunger to understand and embrace acceptance… only then the paralyzing restlessness disappears, no!?!

We are not that different… you and I.” The last sentence hangs between us as a friendly acknowledgement rather than a situation needing an answer. François smiles and shakes his head in agreement. I am smiling too. “So… what are your plans? Do you have someone in your life now?”

“I have a girl-friend I want to marry. She is positive too but she is not very healthy. She does not eat well.” François is grinning now.

“Does she need to take ART too?”

“No. Not yet. She used to be married but lost her husband and child to HIV, two years before.”

“Just encourage her to eat well and monitor her CD4 count levels. If she can manage without ART for the time being, then that is good too. Take good care of her.”

“What about you, have you met someone?” he asks

“Me…no, I have been on my own for four years now. But it’s a beautiful thing, you two found each other.”

“Yes it is…we plan to marry soon, next year, God-willing.”

These moments like all moments that leave a healing scar on your heart, pass all too soon. I have to leave to get back to Imphal before dark. François and I grasp each other’s hands firmly. “I will pray that you find love again and soon.” he says.

We walk to the car and as just before I get in. I turn to him and say. “Don’t forget…one day at a time… you stay sober and I’ll stay celibate…until its time. That way, we’ll remember to pray for each other. See you soon!” We smile in unison. I hug him this time.