Hello My Dear One,
In honor of World AIDS Day, 2021 I'd like to share a eulogy I wrote about a month ago. It was an assignment for a class, but I knew after it was done that I would share it today. In the time of the COVID pandemic, the AIDS pandemic sometimes feels like it was lifetimes ago. That's probably because it is, an entire generation of lifetimes was lost in those early years. Here in North America, we lost uncountable LGBTQIA+ people, IV drug users, sex workers, recipients of donated blood, and folks who simply got sick.
Remembering Bobby
I met Bobby in the Fall of 1994 when I was a freshman at a private college and he was a patient at Lemuel Shattuck Hospital in Jamaica Plain, Boston. I was young, inexperienced, and inherently nervous to be with my first hospice patient as a volunteer chaplain. I had made the basic rounds of the floor - 7 South, the infamous End-Stage AIDS Floor - and then sat down with Bobby to start learning the ropes of one-to-one chaplaincy. I introduced myself, and Bobby did the same. He was open and honest about how he looked, how sick he was, how awful it felt, and how he hoped no one would have to suffer like this. He told me his story, about the heroin, the homelessness, the horrors of being in the positions he’d found himself in. He was unflinching about the truth of it all and as a “well-fed” and “well-bred” 19-year-old kid I probably looked like the exact opposite of Bobby. I probably thought that not only were we opposites but that I was a better version than he was. I was starting my life with every advantage in the world, and unsurprisingly I didn’t have a clue about that either. Looking back now though I can see how truly similar we were, and he probably knew that himself. It would take me another 25+ years to figure it out though.
So, I stayed there and listened, either because I was too shocked to really say anything, or because I’d heard so many intimate stories of people’s lives that it was just how I did things. The shock wouldn’t have been about his confessions, but about his physical appearance. It’s true, Bobby didn’t look so hot that day, or any other day really, at least his body didn’t. His skin was yellowish, covered with lesions, scarred from a lifetime of use and abuse, and punctured by needles, tubes, and wires. Ironically, these needles were providing pain medicine that was prescribed, rather than the self-medicating kind he’d used before. He seemed immeasurably small and shrunken as if all that was left was the body of the child he’d once been. That earthly body was really nothing more than a broken shell. Like the old steamer shells that came out of the Bay, crusted and cracked, that was no longer meant to hold what it once had. He knew this. He knew that it was a matter of time before the shell would break apart completely and return its contents to the sea that it had come from. I believe he drew comfort from that at the end of the day.
And yet, there was something luminescent in the pale blue orbs in his skull that were sunken so deeply into the greying flesh that surrounded them. There was something radiant that transcended the physical reality of his body, revealing a soul that was now inhabiting a broken vessel. There was something that was inherently divine and beautiful in the man I was looking at.
I say all these things in the way I have because it’s how Bobby would’ve said them. Pulling no punches, hiding nothing about the truth, and revealing the mental, spiritual, emotional, and agonizingly physical pain he had lived through and now lived with. He emphasized how much he never wanted anyone to suffer as he had. He may have regretted his choices, but he still wanted people to know that he was a human being. And he wanted them, ok, he wanted me, to hear his story.
In what could’ve been the most pastoral moment of my life, it was Bobby who asked me if I’d like to read the poem he’d written. Of course, I said yes. The paper was creased and wrinkled, the handwriting a little messy and the ink and the paper were fusing into each other. I lifted it off of his bed where he kept it next to him and read.
Handwritten in blue ballpoint ink on a piece of college ruled lined paper were the words of a poet. In just a few short stanzas, Bobby had composed a testament to the strength and dignity of the human experience. His life had meaning. His life was important. He had loved and been loved. He was facing death head-on, knowing what was to come. He chose to tell his own story so that in the end no one would demonize his choices. They, ok, I would know that Bobby had lived his life the way he had, and he had been grateful for the opportunity.
Back then it would’ve never occurred to me that 27 years later I would still know Bobby’s story, or that it would be a cornerstone of my spiritual and professional life. I couldn’t have known that an IV drug user, dying alone of AIDS in Boston, would be the reason I’m here today sharing this time with you. I doubt that Bobby would’ve known that either, but I like to imagine that his spirit, his Divine Spark somehow knows now.
So, with all of that said I want to share Bobby’s own words, his poem. But I can’t. Bobby died during winter break that year, and those written words were lost along the way. But his message to remember our humanity and therefore our divinity won’t be lost when we remember him.
Thank you for being with me and Bobby on this journey.
Be well, love your neighbor as you love yourself, and remember to actually love yourself.
- Ari
