by Roy Exum
posted December 3, 2008
 Roy Exum |
This has been 10 or 15 years ago, before we had the new drugs and knew what we do today. This was also when families would ostracize the infected worse than if they had leprosy because the AIDS virus preys most especially on those who are homosexuals.
So I am talking to this “holy man,” asking about his son and the malady that would shatter most families, and he told me that every evening after prayers, he and his wife would sandwich their son in their bed, hugging and holding him through each and every night. “We loved him,” the man explained.
When the shivering would be real bad, they would sing to their grown child and, when the sweats would follow, they would have cool cloths and – far better - soothing Psalms. Don’t you see; “We loved him,” the man said.
But, in time, the young man died one night, as he slept right between his mom and dad. I told the pastor I was sorry the prayers didn’t work and he gently smiled. “That’s not what I said. Our son died, but prayers always work. We just don’t know how yet.”
I thought about my friend Monday when I read where some experts have now decreed the AIDS virus is overblown and that it now may be time to divert huge sums for research and the like away from this disease. It wasn’t lost on me the expert who spoke is alive while other experts in the disease, those who have actually become our greatest heroes in the fight, are now dead.
Further, I didn’t see where any former family members like the pastor were quoted as saying the efforts to fight the disease were keeping us from looking elsewhere at human suffering. Nobody who went to Grace Episcopal Church for the wonderful service on Monday night was on TV saying, “Yeah, we are probably doing too much.”
One of my favorite quotes is one that implores us, “Never compare one pain with another,” so anyone who tells me the fight against AIDS is no longer important follows a far-different God than my pastor friend, the heroic crowd at “Chattanooga Cares,” or those who fervently pray for those in Third World countries who have no way of getting so much as one pill.
Understand, I do not have the AIDS virus, I am not gay and I haven’t have any blood transfusions like the one that gave the horrible disease to perhaps my favorite professional athlete of all time, the great tennis champion and humanitarian Arthur Ashe.
I also believe that if we need to temporarily use AIDS research money to feed the starving in hurricane-ravaged Haiti that the Lord will understand. But I also believe that only a moron would halt the world-wide fight before it is finished. Have those expert wackos ever heard or read the “whole story” of how polio was finally whipped? AIDS is still a crisis; to lessen the attack on it in even the slightest way is blatantly wrong.
No, it will never be a popular struggle. I know of a couple, right here in our home town, whose friends would no longer sit with them when they found out one of their children had the virus. And this was on a church pew.
I also know of a grown woman, right here in our home town, whose philandering husband gave her AIDS. Her daddy was a wonderful judge and I sat in his chambers one afternoon and watched him cry, talking about how tough it was to forgive that guy the day he buried his “little girl.” But he did … so help me, he did.
I’ll admit I’ve been reading my Bible a lot more than I have in the past and, as I have looked at all the Bibles I have been given by my grandmother, various churches, people who have worried about my soul and won in perfect-attendance contests, they all have one thing in common I have never noticed before – there are no asterisks in any of those in the stack.
Think about that. When God says, “Come unto me all ye who are weary and heavy-laden” there ain’t no little star – nothing with a footnote that says “unless you are gay, are from Haiti, have a gimp arm, drive a pick-up truck or have the AIDS virus.”
We’ve made great strides in the AIDS effort. Just the thought of diminishing our onslaught in any way gives further credence to the fact that all an expert is “is some guy with a briefcase who is more than 50 miles from home.”
People like that, no matter how tightly they wear their neck tie, should be ashamed of themselves right now. We are talking about God’s children and, brother, only a fool messes with His kids.
royexum@aol.com
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