Don Jolliff, cont'd

Don & Ed visit a friend

I joined a support group in July 1993. Dana Landers at Church of the Valley decided it was time to have a support group for people that were affected by HIV and AIDS. We knew we needed a support group because of the fear that was out there and rejection by most people and most churches against people with AIDS. We knew we needed something - a kind of way to come together - to lend support to each other. More or less telling the other person, "It's okay, you've got AIDS, but we're going to be there for you anyhow."

In the beginning, it was a very big step for the Church of the Valley to allow us to start an AIDS support group and to have people show up that were going to say, "We're going to be there to support you." Which we did very much so in the beginning by being there for each other, supporting each other emotionally, praying for each other, going to the person's house, fixing food for the person, cleaning up any messes or whatever had to be cleaned up in the beginning. Taking people to doctor's visits that didn't have the strength to make it there by themselves.

We were very much a very supportive group and we still are to a great extent. The only thing is the medicines are stronger and people are healthier now. We have a brighter outlook. It's mainly been because of the support group and the emotional support that we have been given there. In turn, by us growing stronger through that support, we've been able to go out and be caregivers to others while we ourselves are still sick be able to give emotional support to people even outside the AIDS support group.

It's a little bit like a bank, isn't it?

You know, it's like, you can't imagine at first because all that you can think of first is that you need the help, but after you've received so much love and help from the people in the group then you feel built up, you feel more confident. You feel like, "Hey, I'm okay, I'm going to make it. Then you're able to go out and use that strength that you found in the group to help other people, as we did today at the hospital. It's really gratifying to know that you're not where you once were, and that you're now thinking of other people and what they're going through more than what you're going through.

I think that just about everybody comes into the group as a receiver. They're there usually because they've just been diagnosed with AIDS/HIV, and they're frightened, they're scared. The first inclinations, the first thoughts are, "I've got a terminal disease. I've probably only got six months to a year to live and I'm panicked." By being there and being in the group, we're able to show them, because we've got people there that have been diagnosed in the mid and early eighties, "Yes, you've got a disease. Yes, it may be terminal at some point, but you've got a long ways to go. It's not the death sentence within a short time that it was six years ago. So, like I said, it's a joke in a way but, "Yeah, you can buy the eight hour tapes, you're going to be around for a while. Or when I was growing up it was the LP's - the thirty-three and a thirds.

How many people in this support group have passed on?

Ed & Don in their garden

Since the Protease Inhibitors came out and the cocktail, we have had one, two three. Prior to that there was probably, between 1993 and end of 1995, there were probably five or six altogether.

Interviewer: You've been at their memorial services. What's going through your mind when you're there?

I think part of it is guilt. Why are they gone and not me? That's part of it. And part of it is that you feel glad that you survived. It is again an emotional… the things that you're going through. A lot of sorrow because you know that that person was a part of the group and they're never going to be there again.

How can a community support people with HIV?

People with AIDS just want to be accepted. We don't want to be pitied or anything of that nature. We just want to be accepted that we have an illness… that we're human beings too and we want to be treated as such … not second class citizens.

Next: Ed's story