Doorways of Support and Inspiration:
Healing Your Mind/Body/Spirit

We've Got to Start Numbering the Living  Jerry Terranova
 
I went to a candlelight demonstration at London's Trafalgar Square before the conference. At dusk. A somber demonstration. Like many we've all attended before. Familiar faces-grief, loss, anger. The m.c.on stage, flanked by a group of other participants, was particularly angry, though behind his fiery face I saw a helplessness. The presentation consisted of a lengthy recitation of the names of those who had died of aids. All done with great dignity and respect. Naming and numbering the dead: a solemn ritual. A moment of silence. Then we all lit our candles. As I lit mine, the first thought that entered my mind was, "We've got to start numbering the living."

I'm not denying our loss, god knows! We've all had more than our fair share of it. And I'm certainly not negating the need to remember those who have passed on. Most of the progress we've made in the aids movement has been through illness and death. Those who have departed have made a way for those who are remaining.

But lately I've been seeing sadness as a way to hold onto those we've lost, a way to keep them alive, to keep loving them. And our grief and anger as a way for us to stay connected to all that we've lost through their passing--our youth, our gay life before aids, our innocence. But the loss is something we are only passing through. We can't get stuck there. I question whether we can continue to build a movement on anger, grief and loss. Or will it just consume us in the end?

I feel obliged to ask these questions: How many among us are well? Have had breakthroughs? Have been treated successfully? How many people are healthier than they were before hiv? How many with hiv have already outlived the infamous "latency period?" How many with aids have already defied their fatal prognosis?

Why are our demonstrations usually of illness, death and dying?

My guess is that we all know at least three--and perhaps more--individuals who fit into the above categories and are living proof that there is a whole other side to aids that we are not acknowledging and building upon. Where are those numbers? As long as each of these cases can be all-too-easily dismissed with the word "anecdotal," then the good health and power operating in our midst is being invalidated. There's a strength in these numbers that we are not tapping.

I look forward to an event in which we name the names of those who are living well. Where we gather to demonstrate health--and defiance of medical prognoses. Not at dusk, but at dawn. Not with candles, but with sparklers. Where we assemble to celebrate the well-being in our midst and demonstrate its power. Where we affirm what we're learning about health, power and freedom--the awakening that's happening through the suffering. We can build on that.

A perception--a movement of force--needs to be created around these numbers. I believe it's all there--real--but not accounted for. We've got to start claiming it.
 

Jerry Terranova is a long-term aids survivor, writer and teacher, who died in June 1998. We remember and honor you, Jerry, for your love, wisdom, courage, generosity, and deep, passionate caring.
 
From Praxis, Volume 2, Fall 1992 (c) Jerry Terranova 1992. Reprinted by permission of Jerry Terranova.

Copyright © 1999 Life Challenges