- Cleaning out the boxes and boxes of protest letters,
correspondence, notes-notes-notes; from those who vanished somewhere along
the way in this waste debacle here in NH; I looked up at the pictures of
others long dead from AIDS, neglect, indifference; frozen, burned or beaten
to death. Homeless folks. My garage walled pictures.
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- The first picture (below) shows an AIDS march. Dr.McBride,
our Health Director, was out in front. He'd come from Washington D.C.,
and I remembered the night the city council were meeting in their opulent
board room of the majestic glass towered city hall. I stayed out in the
hall half the night to speak on his behalf. Truth be known, these wasps
didn't want a Black man. But Andrew won the day. As the only homeless outreach
worker I naturally became a certified AIDS advocate through our health
department. This was one of the first things Dr.McBride started. AIDS
in this city of some 120,000 was quite prevalent amongst the homeless.
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- My life I thought, looking to the corner wall....hanging
here in a stupid garage. Martin Sheen is there. He'd sent me a long letter
(handwritten-imagine) and a photo of himself from some movie he'd done.
Mr.Sheen an activist, par excellence. We'd met in Washington D.C., when
we slept out on the streets to draw attention to the homeless. I'd taken
a picture of him holding up a clear plastic box of ashes from a woman who'd
been found frozen to death, on a bench in front of Housing Urban and Development
headquarters! I sent (the photo) it to the theater on Broadway, where Martin
was doing Julius Caesar and thus his letter, picture and gift. Mr.Sheen,
is also a great activist against incineration and war! Perhaps he might
come here?
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- The other pictures in the first photo are ones with my
old pal Henry---a 76yr. old Black man, who grew up in the deep South. I
have to laugh looking at the one of me hugging Henry in a perfectly appointed
nursing home I'd gotten him into. He ran away the next day and I never
tried to place him again. He died with his NIGHT TRAIN (cheap liquor) out
on the streets. The director of the shelter at that time was a heartless--mean
spirited Mary Williams type (older--but they could have been twins in mutated-never
developed or seared consciences).Area 51 mutations, is the only way to
describe such cold-icy-calculating persons. They're not regular people.
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- She wouldn't allow Henry (she called from home--she was
never on the streets) to stay in the shelter for some stupid infarction.
It was raining, and he was outside just out of the hospital with pneumonia.
He died and I made a special effort, when this bitch was leaving, to
present her with a gilded wrapped bottle of NIGHT TRAIN. Another picture,
shows Henry, myself and Billy in the park. Henry was helping me (so he
thought) bandage Billy's ulcerated club feet. That's another horror story....Billy
the Nowhere Boy (age 23). I found him one day in the park, while driving
my son to some activity. He'd been discharged from a New York hospital
in sweat pants and a johnny-coat (which is what caught my attention). Billy
was born with spina bifida, club feet and at age ten had to have a colostomy
(bag on abdomen for waste).
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- Billy was not allowed in the shelter, (per Barbie-director)
unless bathed every night, bag changed and lesions (on his buttocks) cleaned.
So this became an added chore...people really have no idea of the insensitivity
out there. They don't care. Billy's father, as I found out was a big, and
I mean big corporate honcho. After the mother died, he didn't want the
likes of Billy to care for, and so threw him away. Billy, like I said,
a long story but he's safe now. It took two years, but finally a placement,
for a multiple handicapped person with special needs. The plus side of
crisis like this, is that you meet special really good hearted people.
The pharmacist, who gave me the needed bags/tape etc, to change every day.
He paid half (personally) as he didn't want me to bear the entire cost,
plus he always threw in many extras and never said anything.
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- The second photo is of Debbie, dead. Debbie is a story
of AIDS throughout our nation. She'd been married, and unbeknownst to her,
contracted AIDS though her husband who'd never told her. He died, and Debbie
became ill, and ended up in the streets, homeless and dying.
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- There might be a lot of Debbies' (well not Black--no
minorities here in NH to speak of) here but you'd never know. I'll have
lived here five long years in Nov., and I've yet to hear the word AIDS
mentioned. Cross my heart. But then the poor, dispossessed and impoverished
are pretty much discriminated against, so AIDS would probably send some
locals over the edge. Cross my heart, the prejudice is palatable!
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- It took much doing, but the photo of Debbie, shows her
dying in a tenement that we'd finally secured. It was on the sixth floor
facing the thruway and trains. Housing for the poor, is always out of
sight, below the tracks, where important people NEVER go!! Cross my heart.
I sincerely think, I was one of the few whites who ever visited there.
Debbie was stuck. The elevator was broken for years. We got a visiting
nurse to stop in a couple days a week, but Debbie depended on the generosity
of others to keep her fed and all that goes with someone dying.
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- In enters Sir Galahad, Stanley, a young Black man/artist/poet.
I'd featured Stanley in my Homeless Art Show, where he'd met Debbie and
fell in love. Debbie in photo on left dressed in white at Art Show. He
never left her side. Once you've observed sacrificial love such as this,
you never forget and it, and it does give you hope that darkness has not
encapsulated all hearts.
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- Homeless people with AIDS die pretty quick; mercifully.
I've yet to see even one live past a year. They are not eligible for any
special medicines or treatments. Just throwaway people--like litter. Then
one night Debbie hemorrhaged terribly. The ambulance was called. They had
a terrible time maneuvering up the six flights in the dark with a stretcher
and down again. But stuff like this happened and happens, in the dark
outside the picnics, the golf courses, Yacht Club, and exquisite mansions
just five miles away (as the crow flies--or rather peacock). These elitists
not, "listeners" to the agony and suffering, that is not learned
in bank statement, stock dividend, nor Ivy League College. Very few hear
the silent scream, throughout our nation of a Debbie, the veteran, the
elderly the unemployed, the dying. Not their problem.
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- Stanley called me at home. Would I come to be with them?
Debbie was dying. They'd already put Debbie in a small private room at
the end of the hall. Stanley said, "Judy, Debbie said before she went
into her coma that she had to make it to morning, she had to." I looked
at the clock, 10:30pm.
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- And so the long night began. Stanley wanted a minister
to bless her. Now, you might think this an easy feat. Nothing is easy when
dealing with the refuse of society--nothing! I naturally called, first,
the Black churches--no go. Each had a different excuse. On to the whites
and on and on and on. So much, I thought to myself of the Beatitudes, "I
WAS SICK--I WAS A STRANGER etc,........" Finally I called the hospital
where I'd trained and got in touch with a young monk that resided there.
He came. Brother Jonathan Christopher.
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- While waiting for him, I'd also called Debbie's relatives
in town. They arrived, all six of them, women dressed from head to foot
in black. They sat in chairs against the side wall like crows on a clothesline.
I stood there listening to their haranguing against unconscious-dying Debbie.
She shouldn't have married so and so, they'd told her he was a no good
bum, how could she come down with such a disgusting, sinful disease--on
and on. They went nowhere near the bed.
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- I noted that every time one of them started frothing,
the heart monitor would speed up, and Debbie would make garbled noises.
When they stopped, she stopped. Brother Jonathan arrived with anointing
oil, and proceeded to anoint and pray over Debbie. I watched the crows;
I knew this was causing them heart palpitations! A white monk in robes;
doing some hocus pocus of anointing Debbie's forehead and wrists! They
sat there, mouths pursed like constipated chickens, shaking their heads
in disbelief. Now, Brother Jonathan, meantime, was oblivious to all this
seething anger and animosity of theirs. He finished and turned with a flourish
praying over each of the crows, hugging them and giving kind words.Then
he left.
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- He no sooner got out the door, then they demanded why
Pastor Leroy hadn't been called, or Pastor Thaddeus Roosevelt etc? I said,
"They were called and refused to come." They started in on AIDS
again--the monk touching Debbie and then touching them how could he? Debbie's
heart monitor beeped erratically--she tossed and moaned. I hesitated a
moment, being the only white in this mix, but finally told them they'd
have to leave. I went on to say, "Debbie may be in a coma but she
hears everything being said here, and since obviously your anger supercedes
any compassion you are not needed. We (Stanley and I) will keep watch with
Debbie, you have to leave." They didn't argue they flew off on one
accord. We were alone.
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- The time 2:30am. Debbie's breath was labored and consistent.
I found myself matching my breathing with hers. Stanley talked with her,
soothed her, and kept calling her his beautiful "Oakey Doakey Girl".
He explained to me that it was a saying from his past growing up in the
south. His endearing term for her.
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- At 4:00am I drove Stanley downtown to an all night diner
for coffee. He was weary and just needed to talk. We drove back, it was
getting on towards dawn. This wasn't hoping or wishing that Debbie would
live. No, this was waiting for the dawn. Please God, let Debbie have her
wish that she live until the morning sun.
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- There was a narrow vertical window in the corner of the
room, the sky was getting light. Stanley had dozed off in a nearby chair.
All of a sudden the breathing altered, I knew this was it. Debbie was gasping,
her breaths coming in gulps. I shook Stanley, "Wake up it's time
Debbie is leaving." He jumped to her side, holding her hand and started
singing to her.
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- And then it happened. One of the most awesome moments
of my life...way beyond a wedding ceremony, the birth of a child, and all
the holidays in the world. None could match the majesty of this supernatural
moment of golden peace and love that surpasses any earth language! The
dawn came through the thin shaft of window in a blazing burst of shimmering
gold that filled the room, a holy moment---no words. At that very moment,
Debbie opened her eyes (the first time) turned to Stanley her face bathed
in golden light, and mouthed goodbye with her last breath.
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- I had rung the buzzer during the last moments, and when
I turned,the nurses and doctors were all standing there crying. All were
silent as Stanley asked, "Does anybody have a comb?" Several
of the doctors held theirs out. He took one, and then proceeded to comb
Debbie's hair, as he sang a song that he had written of his Oakey Doakey
Girl. Listen? Nah! We know nothing of the real gift of listening. Nothing.
Listening takes a heart's attitude, humility and compassion. Sadly, today's
"tsk tsk" which is nothing pity, is a poor disguise. Note: I
looked over to the other photos and there was the last picture I'd taken
of Stanley a week later boarding a bus for Georgia. We'd talked after Debbie's
death and he decided that big city life wasn't for him. I met Debbie's
father George after Stanley departed.
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- We sat in the diner where Stanley and I had had coffee
a few nights before. George was crying and apologizing to me that he just
couldn't, just couldn't come to the hospital or to Debbie's funeral. He
explained that as a little girl Debbie led all the parades as the lead
majorette. And now, and now George said, "Judy I can't go to parades,
I cry at parades." I told George that Debbie would be pleased to be
remembered marching and she was okay with us. I then gave him Debbie's
watch, her Bible and a photo that she'd had framed of her and George at
a parade. The end. AIDS...you don't even know.
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- Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2003 14:43:15 -0700 (PDT)
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