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June 4, 2006
Resurrection
I just got home from my ten year college reunion. I learned a lot, had a great time, and have many blog entries stored in my head as I reflect upon the experience. But one of the experiences that stands out most was being on the "Life Changes" panel discussion -- a discussion about ways our lives had changed in the ten years since we left Yale. I spoke about CR to a receptive audience. But the classmate who followed me was far more profound in his reflections.
He had graduated and headed off to pursue a career in acting, but had eventually realized that it wasn't going to work out financially, and in between needing to care for sick family members at home, he had to move back in with his parents at the age of 28. He was depressed, despairing of realizing his dream of acting professionally, and feeling like a failure. Just when he though that things couldn't get worse, they got worse. He found out he was HIV positive.
This beautiful, talented, Yale-educated young man found out that he had this deadly virus. And he had to figure out how to live. He said that his faith in God -- the faith that he had learned growing up as the son of a minister (we PKs have to stick together!) was profoundly tested. He felt healthy, but he felt like a ticking time-bomb -- at any minute he could become very sick and die. Some people live for many years with HIV, while others are dead within a year. There's no predicting who will fall into what category. He said he felt like he had let down his family, his friends.
Coming immediately after my story of finding CR and hoping to extend my life through CR as a bridge to radical life-extending biotechnology, his story was a stark reminder that we can all die anytime. But instead of being ploughed under by the virus and allowing it force him to withdraw from life, he made a brave decision. He told us that he talked to the "little bugs" in his bloodstream and informed them that they weren't going to get him. Maybe it would be Bus #65 turning the corner too fast that would take his life, but he wasn't going to let the bugs do it. "You go ahead and do what you need to do," he told the virus, "But I'm going to live my life."
And on he went. Back to the doctor every six months -- still healthy. He is what is called a "non-progressor" -- something you don't want to be in grade school but that is very good if you have HIV. He's not getting sick. He doesn't know how long that will last, but for now, he's in great health. He takes care of himself, eats well (I offered to do his nutrition on my software to see if any tweaks might help!) and runs six miles several times a week.
He said that when he tells people that he is HIV positive, they say "I'm sorry," but he says, "I'm not." Whereas he used to fear very little, he now fears nothing. "What can any man do to me now?" he asked us. He has embraced the freedom of living every day as though it might be one of your last. Of course, he tells us, he would have preferred to learn this lesson in some other way.
His entire life, he had felt called to help people live more fully through his acting and performance. He is a storyteller, and through his stories he always wanted to call people to live life and live it more abundantly. Now, he says, it is his ministry to use this story that he has been given to jolt people into life more powerfully than ever.
In many ways, he and I are very different. He is black -- I am white. He is male, I am female. He has really gorgeous arm muscles -- I do not. I strongly suspect that he can dance - I can, but should not unless I wish to humiliate myself. But in so many funny ways, we have a lot in common. We both have the mark of freakishness and priviledge that a Yale education confers upon one. We are both Southerners, and Southern children of Southern Christian ministers. Just like him, in times of extreme trial, I have gone back to the faith I grew up in and called on Jesus Christ to help me scatter the demons and stand up tall to fight whatever is attacking me.
People are often surprised that I am a Christian because they think of Christians as stupid, dogmatic, narrow-minded, socially conservative, and prone to wear white shoes before Memorial Day (which I would never, ever do.) My faith is a big fleecy blanket that can embrace many belief systems without becoming too upset about any one's particular problems. I see in Jesus Christ the movement leader who defied the class and cultural prejudices of his time to build a community based on equality and love. I see in Jesus Christ a manifestation of the life force that slithers through history, showing up in people and events and in the daily regeneration of our own bodies as our cells keep turning over even as we attempt to kill them with gak food. In my big electic faith, the life force that burned brightly in the person of Jesus Christ is the same one that gave strength to the great leaders of the labor movement who made it possible for my nurses to organize without getting shot. The same life force that glowed in the writings of a skinny guy from Canada and pulled me out of my pre-CR path of destroying my own body through food and drink. The same life force that after that rather trying experience in Februrary that made it hard for me to write for so long reached across the world in the form of my dear sister Zeynep, who yanked me out of my paralysis and wouldn't stop bugging me until I wrote again because she knew that writing would help make me whole. Call me a Gnostic (it's been done before) but I believe that the divine spark jumps about in every person.
This weekend, my classmate with the incredible courage to share his story of being HIV positive glowed with the light of the life force, and he brought it to all of us who heard him speak. He called us to live life more fully, to put aside the fears that hold us back and keep us locked in a prison of our own making. The virus that may eventually kill him has made him an even more powerful vehicle for transmitting the life force to everyone he meets.
I pray for the cure for the virus. I pray that he will continue to be a non-progressor, and that the little bugs will sit quietly in his bloodstream without disturbing his ministry or his six mile runs. I pray urgently that he will touch more and more people, transmitting the light of freedom from fear that he has gained to as many people as have ears to hear. And I thank God, Goddess, and all of the above that I was blessed to be in his presence this weekend.
"Life is too short to do something that grinds down your soul," said one of my fellow Life Changes panelists who had quit graduate school when she realized that the glittering prize she had always pursued wasn't what would make her happy. I started my presentation on CR by saying "Life is just too short, period." My classmate who shared his story with us agreed that life is too short, and called us to live every minute without fear and in freedom that can only be a product of the decision to be free, no matter what challenges outside circumstances impose. He set an example that I want to follow. Thanks be to God.
Posted by april at June 4, 2006 5:09 PM
Comments
This is a really inspiring post, April. It echos some of the things that have been whirling around in my head lately. I'd actually been thinking about writing about it in an effort to develop my thoughts on the matter. It's wonderful to have read your post this morning - it'll give me a shot of motivation and clarity for the week.
Posted by: Amy Wright at June 5, 2006 7:01 AM