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By BuckcuB
The communication will have a half-ashamed tone of personal devastation -- we are taught, after all, that asking for sympathy is wrong and selfish and unmanly. But the tragic heartbreak comes through all that camouflage. And worst of all is the unspoken, but obvious and heartbroken question: "How could he DO this to me?" (Sigh.) BuckcuB does not normally bare his soul as he is about to do. But too many have the mistaken belief that the new miracle-drug "cocktails" have solved the AIDS crisis. They have not. We are still dying, in spite of protease inhibitors and support groups and non-nucleoside blockers and meals-on-wheels and home nursing.
BuckcuB has AIDS. The sad legacy of a joyfully-misspent youth. And he is
crushed to hear the laments of those who lose a loved one to this damnable disease. So, here's
a response from the other side of the equation, from a fellow who's come uncomfortably close to
Death's bony embrace on a couple of occasions, and is well-aware that he can't escape forever.
Buck hopes it will comfort and help those who've faced, or are facing this loss.
We -- the men with AIDS -- we are not leaving you deliberately. We are as sad to leave you as you are to lose us. We don't want to desert you. But we haven't any choice in the matter.
It is not injured vanity when we view our naked bodies, ravaged and stripped to skeletal thinness by AIDS, and weep. It's the horror of seeing the shipwreck of a vessel we were proud of, once upon a time. And the worst of it is our sorrow that we're no longer the tautly-muscled hearty men you took into your bed and your heart. The men you loved, outside and inside. Do not fool yourself into thinking we don't see your distaste, even through your love. We do. And it hurts. We wanted to be beautiful for you forever. We are ashamed and chagrined that your life is now chained to our illness. That you need to make sure we took all our pills that day. That you must live on edge, waiting for that inevitable day when we don't come home from that trip to the hospital. That we gave ourselves to you, unknowingly, as "damaged goods." That we will be leaving you far too soon.
It is a time for indulgences. The same AIDS patient BuckcuB mentioned a few paragraphs ago demanded, two days before his death, a cocktail. He wanted a martini. In the hospital. If memory serves (and, sadly, it does) he wanted an Absolut martini straight-up with three olives. There was much furor with the nurses. Thankfully his lover and friends put their collective feet down, so to speak. Over the objections of the nurses and in total violation of hospital policy, the gentleman got his cocktail. Never mind that he spilled most of it into the bedclothes. It made him happy. Don't you want that for your loved one dying of AIDS? So screw "doctors' orders" and all that silliness when the time comes. Indulge him. Give him whatever few moments of respite and happiness you can, before he's gone. We're terribly sorry to leave you. We can't begin to explain how it hurts to go, and how desperately we'd like to stay with you. But this is just how it is. It's sad at best and ugly at worst. Don't imagine the AIDS crisis is over. Not, certainly, for those who live with AIDS, or live with someone who has AIDS.
BuckcuB asks that you remember this, if nothing else from his silly little column: we do not want or need deathbed pleas to stay with you, or frantic desperate measures to keep us alive, or abject weeping to terrify us further. Reach into your heart, where tenderness resides, and let us go kindly. Dying is the last thing we'll ever do. Help us do it well. |
It's a sad but familiar message -- we get a letter or a phone call or an
email, telling us that another gay man has died of AIDS. Someone we knew
and loved. Or someone that someone we know knew and loved.
One of the most heart-wrenching things BuckcuB ever witnessed was a friend's
lover kneeling by the man's bedside, begging him "Don't go, stay with me," as he lay dying of
AIDS. Of course one understands the fear and desperation of losing a partner. But dying is
enough, without dying guilty that we have helplessly abandoned a lover.
© 1997-2000 BEI