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- Xref: sparky soc.motss:48804 soc.bi:15431
- Newsgroups: soc.motss,soc.bi
- Path: sparky!uunet!noc.near.net!mv!world!jmckee
- From: jmckee@world.std.com (Jim McKee)
- Subject: Re: Messages from a Cherokee
- Message-ID: <By42Jt.Kq9@world.std.com>
- Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
- References: <1992Nov21.140659.666@sun0.urz.uni-heidelberg.de>
- Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 09:33:28 GMT
- Lines: 52
-
- In article <1992Nov21.140659.666@sun0.urz.uni-heidelberg.de> gsmith@lauren.iwr.uni-heidelberg.de (Gene W. Smith) writes:
- >
- >Since some people will have missed these, I thought I would repost
- >them:
- >
- >Newsgroups: alt.homosexual
- >From: cherokee@cscns.com (Kangi Taku Wakan)
- >Subject: Today I Mourn
- >Message-ID: <By056J.ECy@cscns.com>
- >Organization: Community_News_Service
- >
- >
- >By the standards of the people for whom this group is named, I guess I am
- >just a "het-boy", though (at least I think) not a stupid one. Today I mourn.
- >
- >A friend of mine, whom I have grown very fond of in the past few weeks,
- >told me today that he is HIV-positive. My friend happens to be gay, a
- >fact that I was not entirely sure of until today. This fact does not
- >change the fact that he is one of my best friends; but the fact that he
- >has been HIV+ for 7 years makes me think that my friend will not walk
- >among the living much longer. He is very frail but in decent health, I
- >suppose, considering his situation. He says he has been kept alive by the
- >herbal potions of the holy men of his tribe, the Karuk of California. All
- >AZT did was make him violently ill.
- >
- >Perhaps he has become accustomed to the idea of living with HIV, but I,
- >who have never to my knowledge known anyone with this affliction, feel as
- >if someone who is my friend may soon leave the earth before it is his
- >time. This saddens me so deeply I have sought out this newsgroup, to ask
- >anyone out there who been through the loss of a friend or a loved one to
- >AIDS: How does one prepare one's self for the loss of one so valued?
- >
- >If anyone out there can give me an answer, please do. I feel lost.
- >
- >Kangi Taku Wakan
- >(Medicine Crow)
- >cherokee@cscns.com
-
- This may not be much consolation, but besides continuing to love him as
- you always have, try to learn the lessons that his dying is teaching
- you about yourself and your own life. I have learned so much about how
- to live by walking through my friends' deaths. This, among so much
- they gave me in health, was their final gifts to me.
-
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Jim McKee \ "The reward is in the journey."
- jmckee@world.std.com / On the Red Road with my brothers and all my
- jmckee@silver.lcs.mit.edu \ relations. Ho! Mitakuye Oyasin
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