Dear Friends,
If you scroll down in my blog, you’ll find two men, Gery and Keith.
They were spokespersons for SHANTI, as people with HIV/AIDS and they, especially Keith, gave me a crash course in gay life in the streets of San Francisco. Little did I know, about sex and drugs!
Keith and Gery met and fell in love in the middle of chaos and managed to break their addictions, and when I met them they lived a very calm life with their cats and dogs, apart from being sick.
Please scroll down, and you’ll meet them.
I was introduced to Gery’s SHANTI counselor, Sarah Finnegan.
She happened to come for a visit when I was making interviews with both Gery (to the left) and Keith– and we got to talk. We sat in their kitchen.
Sarah was the first Shanti counselor I talked to. And Gery was ok with that.
- He was my first client. We were matched together in July of -85. I met Keith the second or third time Gery and I were together, and right away, there was just a real… We had just the right chemistry the three of us. We like each other, we enjoy each others company, so we spend a lot of time together, not just Shanti counselor time, but social time.
They watched television together, and Gery and Keith would come over for dinner with her children, and Sarah felt like they were family, and had gotten to know each other pretty well.
- It’s a very close relationship. Sometimes it’s a little complicated, because there is the work I do as a SHANTI – counselor, and I try to very clear that I wanna be there for him, in an unconditional way, in a non judgemental way, and just … be there as a witness. Just be available to him in whatever way he needs, without telling him what I think, or telling him what to do, but just be there. And then there is also the part of me that is his friend, that kids around with him, and we joke and laugh and tease each other – and sometimes I have to remember that I am his counselor, and other times that I’m just his friend.
- Are you prepared to lose him?
- People ask me that, and I don’t even know how to answer that, cause I… I think I deliberately don’t think about that very much. I thought about it ”What’s it gonna be like when Gery isn’t here?” And there’s this wall that comes down for me, and I think… Well, I don’t have to think about it. It will be ok.
Sarah talked about the possibility of suicide.
- I mean, it will be ok, in the sense that… I love Gery, and I want what’s right for him, so… If he chooses to end his own life, which is something he and Keith have talked about… I kind of feel that I… I went through this once with someone, and it was very painful, but that’s what that person chose and that’s what that person needed to do.
Whatever they do, however it ends… I wouldn’t have had Gery in my life if I hadn’t volunteered, and so… To have had this relationship with Keith and Gery has been such a treasure, it’s something very special…
Sarah talked about grief, what she would feel if Gery died, and she mentioned the selfish part of her not being able to be together with him and Keith, but she would not grieve for Gery.
- Because he will be in a place that feels good for him… When we talked about it… For Gery, death is a release, it’s a way of going on, it’s a way of going beyond what is here.
Sarah said that she tried to focus on what’s going on today and whatever it is that’s real for Gery right now.
- It feels to me as though he’s in a pretty good place right now.
- He has this tremendous sadness in his eyes.
- He is in a lot of pain, he has a great deal of emotional pain.
Sarah talked the pain Gery had had in his life, but that the other side of that was that he now loved someone, and was loved back, that it made his life complete.
- And we’ve talked about that, and I think that there are some great pleasures for him, just the day to day life with Keith, that’s pleasure for him. Taking care of the plants, and loving their dogs, and we have dinner together and we’re silly, I mean – that’s life!
And for me… sometimes it’s joyful, sometimes it’s sad, but it’s like looking at two sides of a coin, or looking at an object all the way around. You can’t have one without the other, you know, you can’t know joy without knowing grief, and you can’t experience great grief, without having had great joy, and so… And to be gifted with the SHANTI experience… it’s a very special… I read an article where a man said it’s really a privilege, and I feel that way.
I mean, I do feel that you couldn’t pay me enough money to do this work, I mean no matter how much you paid me, it would seem like it was a privilege to do it, and so to do it for free, and to be able to do it from the heart…
Suddenly a beeper sounded, and she called on Gery. I thought it was a watch, but it was a signal for Gery to take his AZT.
I was late, so we said goodbye, and Sarah took me to my next interview. She told me how she came to Shanti – it was as part of a grief process. She said I could interview her, and that she would ask her other client, Larry, if I could talk to him too.
I had this talk with Sarah in 1987 when I first visited San Francisco. This was in the time when one thought everybody with AIDS would die. There were these enormous amounts of obituaries in Bay Area Reporter.
I met many people with HIV in San Francisco and Oakland, and out of the people with HIV that I interviewed, only two are still alive; Cleve Jones – and Gery.