For those you've lost, those who've fought and especially those who are losing the battle

In April 2007 HIV walked into our house. It parked in the garage, walked through the TV room, past the lounge and called me out from my room. Curious what it looked like and unaware what awaited me I absentmindedly yelled- “coming”- abandoned what I was doing and stepped out to meet it. There, at the opposite end of our long passage, there it stood. Eyes easily bulging out of their sockets, knees well near buckling under the “heavy weight” of the nothing that the body was reduced to and a faint smile that lasted a second but took what could equal a whole hour of effort at a high intensity training session; there it stood. At the other end of the passage there I was; barely able to speak, numb and my curiosity instantly replaced by a fury that shook me to my core. Something, I am yet to fully understand or easily explain to this day.

In the time it took to drop what I was doing, yell out “coming” and take the five odd steps out of my room into the passage connecting the front of the house to the back end of the house, minutes where reduced to seconds and seconds were reduced to a painfully deliberate crawl until time stood deadly still. HIV smiled, looked at me, attempted to raise its arms motioning for an embrace and said “Hello.”

Time did not budge an inch, not when I eventually managed to fight the numb that had enveloped me and started walking forward or when [especially when] I stood face to face with HIV and took it in my arms. My now seemingly elongated limbs managed to embrace HIV and wrap all the way around to my own back. I stood arm in arm with HIV, my heart pounding abnormally hard I could feel the rhythm of its beat though my arms now touching the back of HIV.

Eventually, after what seemed like an eternity on that passage, the knees buckled, and we led HIV to a room to rest. Nothing was said between the twelve people now seated in the lounge but in our silence and stolen glances we all understood (at least we thought we did) that whatever was to unfold in the coming hours, days or if we were lucky; months that followed, HIV stormed into our lives and - ready or not - was here to stay.

The first few days were like a recurring dream and not the nice kind everyone wishes wouldn’t end. No, in this dream we are woken by deafening screams of agonising pain at least five times during the night. The moments between the screams are occupied by spells of hallucinations in which the locks on the head would take the form and feel of lizards, bouts of hurling that could last anywhere between ten to thirty minutes or even an hour on other nights and changing sweat soaked linen every few hours.

The days were no better. Just when it seemed that calm was restored the sun would rear its now ‘ugly’ head. Drunk with sleep we’d take turns making food in preparation for administering the pills, all sixteen of them. Getting the food down and before tackling the drugs, made the nightly activities seem like a picnic in the park. Once all that was out of the way, still fighting the sleep while clearing the plates another battle ensued with more hurling. But this was unlike anything we’d ever seen or experienced. This type came with a distinct sound, a cross between a goat stuck in mud and shivering in fear after many hours of struggle and a faint bark of a small dog. All this, for what eventually came out looking like water pouring into the bucket.

HIV had stormed into our house and picked a fight. Three months later, we, sleep deprived, mentally, physically and emotionally deplete; we made a final stand against HIV. Helped pack its bags and sent it on its way, a “shadow” of its former self. With eyes perfectly fitted into the sockets, a smile ever so effortless and knees which by now could not only hold up the upper body but also carry bags of groceries from the store or even stand at the stove to prepare a meal.

HIV picked a fight and unprepared as we were, we stood firm and sent it packing. All the way down the N1 South.

A few days before Easter Friday of 2008, a phone rang. A ten hour round trip later, the garage doors slid up, and after the engine was turned off footsteps were heard coming through the TV room past the lounge towards the passage. And there, standing in front of me now was AIDS. Unlike before there was no numb, or shock, not even curiosity. I leapt forward, took AIDS in my arms just as the knees began to shake, looked into its eyes and said: “we were told you are on your way, have been waiting and your room is ready.”

A short while later, after I had returned to school, I heard that AIDS; realising that it picked the wrong fight, packed up and left. I haven’t stood face to face with AIDS since that day, but not a day passes that I leave home without my gloves ready for a fight. Nor does one pass without my thinking of those who lost their fight. This is for those you've lost, those who've fought and especially those who are losing the battle; and it is also for you who is still to meet HIV.