Ralf Hiller

By Gerardo (Jerry) Martinez

I'm 46 years old and a father of two. I take this time to make mention of a very special person- Ralf Hiller of Berlin W. Germany. I found out, from his brother, that Ralf died of AIDS in 1992 at the young age of 32. I was so impacted by his death that I needed counseling for several months since I went into a deep state of depression . I was so hurt and devastated that Ralf never had the courage or desire to tell me he was HIV positive or that he had AIDS. Although Ralf and I where only friends (no intimate contact ever occurred), and I considered him a true friend, after finding out that I could never call or write to him made me realize how much I loved him.

I take this time to honor Ralf's memory and to urge all who read this to let those around you know. Not only to protect the ones you love and make love with, but also to let them in the innermost aspect of your life. The loss of a loved one, in it's self is devastating. To lose someone and then find out you couldn't be there to support hat person in times of need, makes it 10, no, 100 times worse.

Please, share with those who love you and those you love, the fact that you may be or are HIV positive or have AIDS. You'd be surprised at the amount of love and support that remains in this world. Besides, letting the "cat" out of the bag can also make one realize who really cares about us. I know, some of those I thought would be supportive abandoned me while the ones I thought would abandon me are the most supportive in my life. YES, I too am HIV positive, Living with AIDS since 1993. Been there, done that... Remember, love the one your with and share, the life you save may be your own.

I am a Certified Court Interpreter, working as a freelance interpreter and within the jdicial system of the State of California as a court interpreter. I am an advocate and activist of the issues related to the HIV/AIDS and LGBT communities, recently received the Volunteer of the Year Award by a local HIV service organization. Since I work with several HIV organizations, it would be unfair not to mention them all.

Jimmy, The Most Recent

By Don Kilhefner, Ph. D.

A palpable soul-heaviness comes into the room as I sit down to write this remembrance. Like many of you, during the past 25 years there have been scores of friends who have died of AIDS and in whose deathwatch I have been involved-lovers and boyfriends, comrades in the gay liberation movement, patients, casual acquaintances, neighbors. The most recent died just a few weeks ago-his name was Jimmy.

His physician at the USC School of Medicine called and asked if I would take him under my wing. There were no more treatment options available to him. "He just has a few more months to live," I was told. It turned out to be nine months. When we first met I had difficulty connecting with him. He was very different than me-a gym bunny, White Party aficionado, friend of Tina, steroid junkie, extremely self-absorbed, 34-years-old. We meet weekly for an hour-and-a-half or so at my home in West Hollywood, drank green tea, and dialogued. Slowly I grew to like Jimmy very much, then to admire and respect him. I looked forward to his visits. Jimmy was highly responsible medically, kept all his appointments with his physician, and followed his instructions carefully. Four months before his death he had 2 T-cells and a viral load of 3 million. Sometimes it felt as if his physician and I were participating with Jimmy in some kind of grand Kabuki theater whose purpose and meaning we only dimly glimpsed from time to time. Jimmy often exclaimed, giggling-"Where am I? What language am I speaking?"-as the truthfulness in our conversations and our mutual caring for each other deepened.

I learned a lot from Jimmy about growing up poor and Latino and gay in southern Arizona near the border. It was different but similar to growing up poor and gringo and gay close to a border in Pennsylvania as I had. "If I had a dollar for every time they called me puto I wouldn't need the state to buy my medications!," he quipped one day. Then our eyes silently met and held each other for a moment. We both knew he was no longer taking any medication because he would either vomit it out or shit it out with his daily, unrelenting diarrhea. He was also having difficulty keeping food down and was getting dangerously thin. Then he accidentally discovered his last medication-an antibiotic designed for bees. It turned out that a friend of Jimmy's was in a doctor's office reading some magazines as he awaited his appointment. He was reading about bee keeping and that there was a certain fungus that bees got whereby they had to be fed a certain bee antibiotic to control its outbreak. He recognized that the name of the fungus was the same as the fungus causing Jimmy's constant diarrhea. He called Jimmy immediately. There was only one company that sold the bee antibiotic, it was located in Canada, and they told Jimmy it was not for human consumption. Jimmy ordered some for his "bees" and his physician mixed it up in the right proportions for human use. Eureka! It worked for several months, the diarrhea stopped, and Jimmy started to put on weight. Then it stopped working and we began talking about how the end was near.

Jimmy's life ended quickly. It brought back bitter memories of the 1980's and early 1990's-here today, gone tomorrow. He began to lose weight quickly, no longer had the stamina to climb by himself the two steps to my front door; and finally he could no longer drive his car to my home due to the lack of strength needed to turn the steering wheel. Our weekly visits shifted to his home in East Hollywood. On one visit I guided him to one chair on his patio rather than another. "You see her, don't you?" "See who?" "The woman sitting in the chair." "No, I didn't actually see her but I sensed her presence. That's why I didn't want you to sit in that chair. Why don't you introduce us?" "She comes every day now. She's here to help me cross over when I die. She makes me feel safe and taken care of.Her presence soothes me. My grandmother comes to visit me sometimes too, but she doesn't stay long." "I get a very good feeling about the woman. What's her name?" "Marcia."

On another visit he smelled to high heaven of body odor. "Have you been getting a bath? You stink," I thoughtlessly overreacted. "They're only sending over women attendants and I won't let them give me a bath. It's a Latino thing," he replied sheepishly." "Will you allow me to give you a bath? "Only if you promise not to look." "I promise." Jimmy was bathed, I didn't look, and from then on only male caregivers were sent to Jimmy's house.

At the end I had to go out of the city for a week but I stayed in contact with Jimmy by phone. Every day his voice seemed to sound weaker and weaker. When I next visited him in person it had been 10 days since I last saw him. I was told he was sleeping. And when I quietly went to his bedroom door to look in on him it was as if someone had punched me in the gut with all the force they had. In my absence Jimmy had become the concentration camp survivor. You probably know the look. Jimmy was literally just bone with skin laid over it. There no longer was any flesh anywhere on his body. I just stood there sobbing. I quietly left. I cried all day long-for Jimmy and all the others.

The next day-a Friday-I went to visit Jimmy again. He was awake and he told me he heard me crying the day before. With a grin on his face, he played with me: "Well, I see you have a heart that can be broken." I had once read him a Native American prayer that ended with the line "Great Spirit, give me a heart that can be broken." We used to have pointless debates on whether it was better to have a heart that could be broken or not be broken. Then he told me he thought the end was very near and he was ready to go. He took my hand and asked me if I would stay with him until the end. Of course I will.

Jimmy had four siblings but only his eldest brother in his mid-40's had come to be with him. He was a born-again Christian and as we did the deathwatch that Friday night sitting around the kitchen table talking I got to like him. I like born again anything. The second time around generally makes them better people. He told me in a moment of 1 a. m. candor that his other two brothers openly and contemptuously refer to Jimmy as "the faggot"-even in front of Jimmy-and he thought that was wrong. That's why he told them to stay home.

Jimmy took his last breath around 5:30 a. m. Saturday morning.

There are seven things, at a minimum, that I learned or relearned by knowing Jimmy:

1. Never judge a person by your first meeting.

2. Gay men are dying of AIDS more isolated and alone and largely abandoned now than at any other time in the past 25 years.

3. AIDS organizations that formerly provided critically needed service are now merely a shell of their former selves. Many AIDS services have been privatized. 4. If you have money you get the service.

5. Most born-again Christians are basically good people, particularly at 1 a.m.

6. After 25 years of these AIDS deathwatches it has not become one iota easier.

7. I have a heart that can be broken.

Don Kilhefner, Ph.D., a pioneer of the gay liberation movement, is also a founder of Los Angeles' Gay and Lesbian Center, the Van Ness Recovery House, Gay Men's Medicine Circle and various other seminal organizations in the community, including (with Harry Hay) the Radical Faeries. He is a Jungian psychologist and shamanic practitioner.