the only true truth is everything changes

[em]

the only true truth is everything changes

near the end but not forgotten

just an old man rambling about life and wasting some time before there is no more time to waste?

I may have written parts of this in other places here but thought the experience worth sharing again with more information. please pardon my repetitiveness.

at this meeting there was sandwiches offered up by one of the woman hosting the group she said to me as I was sitting there alone before the meeting began. if you are hungry please have something to eat. they were egg salad sandwiches crunchy egg salad made with the shells still on the eggs? I ate to be polite and  thought I am never eating these again. then the parade began of the nearly dead barely alive poor souls who I feel should not be forgotten

at this meeting made possible by who  I do not recall. but around christmas every year for a few years.  a small group would meet in the local city.  over twenty five years ago or so  I would get a call for the  meeting to be at the VA hospital and there would be about a dozen men there all on there last days of life. some in wheelchairs some who looked like it had taken all the had to get to this meeting. what do you say to them how do you relate thinking that you yourself would soon in all likelihood be joining them.

on my last invitation I must have angered the staff who called the group together.
the two women there were sitting on their hands with stares on their faces like passengers on a rollercoaster get just before turning the top of the hill starting the ride knowing there is nothing you can do at that point to stop the ride.

I looked around and did not recognize anyone just saw death and despair  and lost hope and pain in abundance  and suffering was all around . like I had seen at the homeless shelter I found myself in a few years earlier. that mostly went unnoticed by most living near and around  it  and I am sorry to say I could not face the thought of so much suffering in the world and thinking there was nothing I could do to change it.

 so while everyone was looking down at this group meeting at a VA hospital full of old sick and dying men and women there was a group of with burdened with a higher level of suffering through AIDS they each had taken turns saying hello my name is like so many other groups I had attended then someone says to me what about you do you have anything to add. (what would you say ) I felt like what would cheer them up and give some hope. I said quickly without much thought, like the two medical professionals here sitting on their hands why don't the healthcare industry  do something other than twiddling their thumbs and find a cure for this illness so we can have lives again.

they all cheered, had a good chuckle, even a belly laugh or two

one guy in a wheelchair put his head back and said why do we get some HIV positive girls and have a party with a large great laugh.

one of the guys with round growths all over his face surrounding his bony face . said leave to you and said my name to say something to cheer us up.  I had recognized his voice I had met him a few years earlier at a another group. he had told me in the other group  a few years earlier than that his lover a man a few years older than him had passed away from AIDS and well I may have mentioned his story in my ramblings. if not maybe another time so his life is not forgotten along with so many others who had died from this illness

My ID doc after that meeting every time I had appointment would twiddle his thumbs. I would think without saying anything. what would you say to a bunch of people standing on the edge of a presipuss called AIDS waiting to fall of the edge.

sure I blamed someone else for their predicament they found themselves in  and tried to give them something to think about maybe help would come.  might give them hope  and thought maybe if they helped instead of just watching, leaving them up there waiting to fall off the edge of life into death and knowing I would someday soon  be on the same edge. what would I want someone to say to me ?

That ID doc told me one day about a drug trial. so now the better part of three decades later. that is the time between twenty and thirty years just about a bit more than  twenty five.  or a quarter of a century. I am still alive and a witness to the the lives of those who passed before me.


before the virus gets forgotten like so many lost lives. well at least it is in check and can be prevented from spreading if people get tested. just because legally what you don't know you can not be held responsible for. it can still hurt you and others. do you want to live with that knowing it can be prevented

if the virus I had was passed on to another who passed onto another and a child was born as result with the virus. that would be living hell I would not want to think about. but it is what happend children were born with this virus the same virus  I carry and just by living a bit longer each day and surviving the loss can be replaced by thought of  a gain of time alive so others living with this virus and others illnesses that things do change for the better . over a quarter of a century of life lived day by day maybe not the best life but still living.

sorry to have taken up so much of your time. life. someone once told me not to take on the weight of the world it will crush you

  more medical advances will come and the final end of life will be extended and the to hope and love and forgiveness and happiness,  pain and joy.  many days yet to come.



thank you for letting me share this story