Dealing with AIDS
1. Dealing with AIDS strengthens the bond of friendship, encourages emotional and mature growth. Before the sixteenth of October 1995, I was the most carefree person in the world. I had no worries and was just living life up. I never thought that anything could happen to me or my friends. We were invincible. That is, until the word AIDS came into my life.
2. For 10 years David and I were the best of friends. Then we got to high school
and things started to change. We were in different classes, so we didn’t hang out as much. It bothered me but I thought that we were both just growing up, and there were more friends where he came from. Then I began to notice that he wasn’t in school a lot, and was sick more than usual. So I called him and he hung up on me. I didn’t know what to do, so once again I blew it off. Then one day I saw David in the mall and I confronted him as to why we were not friends any more. He pulled me aside and broke down in tears and said that he was dying. I didn’t believe him. Sure, I had heard about AIDS, but hat it was a homosexual disease and it didn’t affect young people, so I said that it was a sick joke and left.
3. When I got home things started to make sense. I ran to my room and cried.
David was only 17; he couldn’t die. Then I felt so bad that we had grown so far apart. I called David, asking him to come over so we could talk. When he came over I saw a seriousness in him that I had never seen before. He looked so old, too old for his age. I asked how it happened. David had had unprotected sex once and now had to pay with his life. I was so angry. I have never felt so powerless in my whole life. When things had gone wrong before this, I could always rely on my parents to make things better. There was nothing that they could do this time. I had to handle it all on my own.
4. David and I became very close again, and it seemed that I was the only one
there for him. David made the decision to tell people about his disease. There was no use in hiding it; sooner or later people would find out. People looked at him as if he had a plague, and our friends from school wanted nothing to do with him. Soon after that they wanted nothing to do with me. All of a sudden I felt that I had the disease. I didn’t know what to do. My whole life was changing so fast that I couldn’t keep up. Once again I was growing up and realized that our friendship meant everything to me. Also, I couldn’t turn my back on him when he needed me the most. So I stuck it out and lost most of my friends. The ones that still talked with me didn’t come too close in fear that they would catch the disease. The thing was, I didn’t even have AIDS, so why did my friends treat me like this? I was being treated this way because teenagers are not used to dealing with situations like this, and don’t know how to react. So how could I blame them since I would have done the same thing?
5. As time went on, David became very ill. There was nothing that I could do
but watch him die. David found out that he had full-blown AIDS. This to me meant death was sure to come and all too quickly. I wasn’t ready to let him die, not
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yet anyway. There were so many things that I wanted to do and say, but couldn’t find the words. I went to doctor after doctor with him, and saw him
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go through so much. Everyone said that I must keep a positive attitude for his sake, because attitude means everything. So, in times of stress I was the one that had to keep things together. I pushed all my emotions aside and was strong for him.
6. My mom had had a trip planned for the whole family for some time now, and
still wanted to go. She thought that the trip would do me good; she said that I was not the one that was dying. I couldn’t believe that she said that to me, but to make her happy I went. We were gone for about two weeks, and when I came back the first thing I did was go to see David. That was when I saw AIDS for the first time. I didn’t even recognize him. David had lost weight, had purple lesions all over his body, and was very pale. He couldn’t even get up when he saw me. He was bedridden. I still had to be the strong one and keep everything in. I had brought him stuff from the ocean, his favorite place. We talked about my trip and anything else we could think of. Then he fell asleep because he could no longer stay awake for long periods of time.
7. On the second of May 1996, David was put in hospital. This gave him the
feeling that there was no more hope left, and that he was going to die. I still had to maintain my positive outlook for him. He needed that in me. One day he looked at me and said, “Faye, I am dying; let’s accept that and deal with it. I know what I did was wrong and now I have to deal with it. All I want you to do is to remember me, enjoy life and be careful.” For the first time in front of him, I cried. I knew that it wouldn’t be long before he was gone forever. He shouldn’t have to deal with this at such a young age. Towards the end of May he became so sick that the hospital staff had a bubble around him, so he wouldn’t catch our bad germs. I hated to see him like that, and every day it became worse. I had come to realize that any day now he would die. At night I would wonder if he would make it through. School was over now, so I spent every hour I could in the hospital. He was everything to me. I felt bad for the time that we had lost and how I wasn’t even going to fight for our friendship. 8. The fifth of June, 1996 marked the end of my best friend David’s life. He
went peacefully. That was a comfort all in its own. In a way I was glad that it was over, for he was no longer in pain. All the emotions that I had held in came rushing out as I realized that I would never see David again. His mother said that I had kept him alive and that she was grateful that I was her son’s last friend. It hasn’t been a year yet, but I have done so much since then that I am no longer that carefree teenager. I now educate people about AIDS, which to me is keeping David’s memory alive. Even though David is gone, he is still with me and always will be in mind and spirit.
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Words and Expressions
1. strengthen: vt. to make something stronger or more effective, or to become stronger or more effective
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新编英语教程(大一第一学期)unit4语法点
