Sunday night I watched a commercial that reminded me of how I use to be. The commercial was about HIV/AIDS. In the commercial the lady said she wasn’t affected by HIV/AIDS because she didn’t have it or know anyone who did. It didn’t exist in her community, so it really didn’t faze her. Then we see her traveling overseas to Africa. She meets all these children with the disease and she realized just because she doesn’t see it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
Why do we think this way?
HIV/AIDS didn’t affect my life either. The closest to my community was hearing about Majic Johnson contracting HIV. We were all shocked, how naive an uneducated I was back then.
HIV/AIDS stepped on my doorstep about twenty five years ago with a family friend. Her husband gave her HIV and later died. Again I was shocked, mainly due to miseducation. I had never heard of a husband giving the disease to his wife. However after learning more about the disease I found many women contract the disease from their husbands.
My friend is still living, praise God. She has good medicine and she changed her way of living. She’s probably healthier than some of us who think we are.
She’s one of the happiest people I know. She knows her purpose in life. She’s a caretaker of cats. She takes in sick cats and nurses them back to health. It’s amazing to me because I believe the stray cats communicate to others about her, because they show up on her doorstep. She makes them well and a lucky family adopts them.
Today is national HIV/AIDS day. My prayers of strength and courage go up for those who have this disease.
I say to those who think as I did, open your eyes and see this disease affects you and your community. Just because you don’t personally know someone who has it doesn’t mean it doesn’t affect you. Learn about HIV/AIDS, talk about it in your communities, in your churches. It does exist and I pray one day with the help from God it won’t.
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