What do you say to a friend after she finds out that she is HIV positive?It seems that I have always known what to say to comfort a friend after a death in the family, a failed relationship, or even after bombing a major exam; but for some reason I could not find the right words to console my friend* after being informed of her results. Matter of fact, I honestly wanted to take off running in the opposite direction screaming, “I knew I should not have come here with you,” but instead I grabbed her by the hand and said, “everything will be OK.”
Wrong response. She looked coldly at me repeating what I had just said in a tone I had never heard escape her lips, “Everything will be OK.Nneka I’m going to die, I’m 23 years old and I am the walking mother [expletive] dead.”
Then she started to cry and I started to cry, because never in a million years would I have ever predicted that moment in that room with “her.” The reason I put emphasis on “her” is because frankly she is not the kind of person that pops in my head when I imagine an HIV positive individual. She is smart and beautiful and committed to a monogamous relationship that she has been in since high school. How could she contract “the virus?”
It was at that moment, for the first time, after all the infomercials and health classes that HIV/AIDS became real to me.
Oddly enough, during the process of writing this column, while walking through University College I overheard a conversation among four young ladies that peaked my interest:
“It seems like everybody’s pregnant now,” one of the girls giggled.
“Yeah,” the others said in unison.
“So how far along are you?” one of the girls asked another.
“Three months,” she smiled.
“Me too,” laughed the other one.
I was in shock, and not because they were pregnant, because the gift of life is a beautiful thing. I was in shock because those young ladies undoubtedly were/are having unprotected sex. No amount of pleasure or desperation, no man or woman, and any promises or guarantees is worth the risk. Sex is like a box of chocolates, without protection, you never know what you are going to get.
*Girl in story is not a PV student