Through the Negativity

I couldn't say i was surprised. It's just that i was hoping that i was wrong. I suspected it when my cousin was diagnosed with shingles. He was fit and healthy, he was not in any undue amount of stress. There has to be a reason why he became immunocompromised. So i forced him to undergo some tests, just to rule out certain possibilities. When the results came out, i was right.

So yeah. He's HIV positive. And he also has hepatitis B. At first he was just laughing about it as he told me on the phone. He kept making jokes, injecting humor in a very serious situation. So i went along with him. But the next day i received a call from his sister, and she told me that when she visited him he was laughing at first, but the wall that he surrounded himself with suddenly fell down, and all his tears came rushing out all at once. He told her he wanted to kill himself. Maybe he would ask for my help so he can get his hands on a lot of prohibited meds, swallow all those pills in an instant and let it all be over and done with. I didn't know what to say. I would say that we're pretty close, but i never saw that side of him. I've always known him to be that happy go lucky guy, that guy you can always count on if you want to have a great time. He's the guy you can count on if you want to leave your problems behind... albeit temporarily. Come to think of it, that was how we became close. He always gave me some sort of escape whenever i needed to.

I've had several misadventures with him. During my carefree days, back when i didn't give a fuck, he showed me all the perfect spots, where to pick up the hottest girls for the cheapest price, where i can really have a good time. He taught me all there is to know about the trade. You could say that he was my mentor. Maybe it was inevitable, that he would catch something serious. Two years ago he got infected with gonorrhea and we were laughing about it as i was treating him. He got laid very often. There was a time that he got laid almost every night, and each night it's with a different girl. And he never practiced safe sex. Whether it's with prostitutes, with some girl he knew from work, or some random chick he met at a bar, he never wore condoms. I always tell him to wear condoms, but he would just give me that cynical and smug look of his whenever i told him that. The fact that he knew for a fact that i don't always practice what i preach makes me sound like some sort of a hypocrite i guess. He even got laid two weeks before the results came out. And he still had shingles back then. I didn't know what surprised me more. The fact that he could still have sex even when his arm was painful as hell... or the fact that some chick could get horny as fuck that they would screw someone who had a lot of lesions in his arm.

I saw him the other day. I made a medical certificate for him, diagnosing him with some bullshit sickness, the most plausible illness that i could think of just so he can get transferred to the morning shift. Morning shift = less stress. That was how i justified my recommendation without going through the specifics. He wasn't ready to tell people yet, and i understood him. No matter how much people say that they understand HIV and AIDS, discrimination still exists, especially in the workplace. People will avoid him, like that asshole brother of his, who left their apartment the very minute he found out because he believed he will get infected. He could even lose his job if his boss makes up some silly excuse just to get him fired. Stuff like that happens. And he cant afford to lose his job, especially with his many future expenses. If they ever found out that i made some bogus diagnosis, i could get reprimanded... heck, i could get suspended but i didn't really care. All I wanted to at that time was to help him, and i was willing to do everything i could.

When he entered the clinic, i no longer saw that smile that he always wore. now he doesn't even make any attempt to hide his true feelings. As I was explaining to him the results of all the exams, as i was discussing his illness and his prognosis, he became teary eyed. And then he started to cry. There was nothing i could do or say to make him feel better. Any word would just seem like horse shit coming out of my mouth. So i just let him cry. After a while i told him that i knew what he was thinking. His sister told me that he was contemplating suicide. It's not the end of the world. He could still live a normal life. He still had so many years ahead of him, he can still do all the things he wanted to do. There's no need to let go of his dreams and ambitions. But we both knew that wasn't exactly true. We both knew that i was just trying to make him feel better. His condition may not change everything, but it changes a lot of things. On many drunken nights he had told me his goals in life. How he wanted to start his own business. How he wanted to earn a lot of money so that his mom no longer had to work. How he wanted to send her niece to school and finance her education until she finishes college... because his good for nothing brother didn't want to have anything to do with his own kid. And how he wanted to have a family of his own someday, once his family didn't depend on him as much as they do now. For someone who seems so frivolous on the outside, this man has such noble goals. His dreams in life prioritizes the needs of other rather than focusing on his. There are so many things that he can no longer do. Several of his dreams can no longer be turned into reality. And i guess that's what hurts the most--- to have your dreams crushed in front of you, just like that. As i look into his eyes, i see myself in him. I knew exactly how he was feeling. We both wear this facade, we want to show the world that we are carefree, that we have no worries, that there's always something to be happy about. We always wear this smile, we try to project this aura of happiness just so we can hide the mess that we are inside. I know what it's like to be filled with dreams, and just like that, because of some bizarre twist of fate, everything is taken away from you.... leaving you with no hope, leaving you with no purpose and no sense of direction, leaving you in such a state of disarray. After our long talk, i've managed to cheer him up a bit. He told me that somehow I've managed to give him a little bit of hope. He's probably lying, i know. He's just trying to make me feel better, as much as i was trying to cheer him up. It would talk more than several inspirational words to lift me out of a state of misery. If nothing can pull me out of this present state i'm in, i doubt if anything can pull him out of his either. I may not be able to make things better for him, but i wanted him to know that i'm here for him. And unlike the many people surrounding him, i understand exactly how he's feeling. I'm pretty sure he's not aware of it, i've never taken off my mask in front of him... but I am a kindred soul. As we continue walking through this joke that we call life, we can't really do much. It's either we give up now, or we keep moving as we laugh along with it. And as long as i'm able to, i would be laughing along with him if he chooses to.