Victoria Noe's Blog, page 30

Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS

I’ve been fortunate to meet a few of my heroes recently, founders of ACT UP. While there were times when I disagreed with their tactics, I never questioned their passion or results.

They’ve been there since the beginning, as caregivers and advocates. They’ve been through the wars and now face something just as dangerous as AIDS itself: complacency.
AIDS is simply not on the radar for a lot of people anymore. It’s no big deal. So what if you get infected? There are drugs to take. You’ll be fine. If only it were that simple.
When the epidemic first began, the arts community suffered a disproportionate number of losses. That was certainly because many gay men were involved in theatre, design, music, dance and film. But even when the demographics shifted, one organization rooted in the Broadway theatre continued its wildly successful efforts.
In May 1992, two already established groups merged to become Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, one of the most important AIDS fundraising entities in the country. Since 1987, they have distributed over $134 million to Equity professionals, national and international AIDS organizations and special initiatives.
I’m pleased to announce that I’m partnering with BC/EFA during the month of June, which is Gay Pride Month.
From now until June 30, the ebook price of Friend Grief and AIDS: Thirty Years of Burying Our Friends has been lowered to 99 cents. If you order it during June, using one of the links below, 25 cents of your purchase will go to BC/EFA.
    I know, it’s not much, but the old fundraiser in me knows that every little bit counts. So when you click on one of those links, you’ll not only be buying my book, you’ll be supporting an organization that continues to fight the good fight. Thanks in advance!
 
Kobo
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
 

Death Ends a Life, Not a Friendship

Delle's was grey & mine was blackIt’s no secret to anyone who reads this blog that I have “heard” from my friend, Delle, many times since she died in 2006.

The time that has passed since she died is actually longer than the time we knew each other. But I still find myself talking about her in the present tense.
I’m not the only person who feels that way. It’s going on seven years since she died, and I still hear her friends say “I think about her every day.” She had that kind of effect on people.
Maybe you have a friend who changed your life, and maybe they’re dead. Does that mean your friendship is over? I’ve learned in many ways that the answer is “no.”
As I struggled with writing the book I promised her I’d write, I could hear her voice when I first told her my idea, “Just do it.”
When I worry about money I can hear her sigh, “If you’d write the damn book, you wouldn’t have to worry about that.”
On my desk is a postcard that Delle sent me from Paris. It shows the Eiffel Tower at three different times of day. It’s propped up, but now and then it flops over for no apparent reason. That’s when I know she’s making her presence known.
Other times have been more dramatic: light shining through a stained glass window in church at an important moment; a candle flame shooting up without warning. A couple times a gun-metal grey PT Cruiser (like Delle’s) has pulled up next to me, and when I look over, it’s a beautiful African-American woman who looks like her in the driver’s seat.
Not long ago, I was in our favorite coffee house, Metropolis. My first book was out and the second was close to being released. I was talking about them to two women who are also regulars there. Suddenly a woman said “excuse me” and slipped past where I was standing. When I looked up, she smiled at me: she looked just like Delle. I hope I didn’t look like the deer in the headlights. A few minutes later I checked, but she was nowhere to be seen. I knew it wasn’t her, but still…
I realize that in a different time, say, the Middle Ages, I might be burned at the stake for admitting any of this. But as I’ve talked to people around the country – around the world, actually – about their friends, I’ve learned that these kinds of things are very common.
Many people admit to talking to friends who have died, feeling their presence, hearing their voices. They talk about the impact that person had on them, often, inspiring them to change their lives for the better.
So, if you’ve had experiences similar to these, you can breathe easier now. You’re not crazy and you’re definitely not alone. There are a lot of us out here, keeping the friendship going, long after our friend has died.

“Now You’re a Soldier”

The moment came near the end of Which Way is the Front Line From Here? The Life and Times of Tim Hetherington. The HBO documentary, produced by his friend and fellow war correspondent Sebastian Junger, is a fascinating look into the world of embedded journalists. It’s all too obvious why dozens are killed every year.
After Hetherington’s death in April, 2011, Junger hears from one of the soldiers they lived with for 13 months in Afghanistan. The soldier tells him that he and Hetherington were accepted by the platoon, thought of (almost) as one of them. But, hoping he didn’t sound callous, the soldier told Junger that because he’d lost his friend, “now you’re a soldier.”
The next book in the Friend Grief series is about the military. Friend Grief and Community: Band of Friends. If community sounds like an odd word to describe war, it’s not.
The bond between soldiers on the front lines creates a world separate from that outside of the war zone. It creates an alternate universe, so different because of the inherent dangers. But it also creates a real community, where battle buddies eat, sleep, fight, laugh, cry and sometimes die together. It’s why they refer to each other as “brothers”. Calling each other “friend” doesn’t seem strong enough.
They share an experience that can’t really be explained to anyone not there, though I’ll do my best in the book. I expect to include military women as well, though their experience – being technically not “combat” – is different. Their grief is every bit as profound, although most do not watch their friends die.
Complicating this kind of grief is the reality of their situation. In the midst of battle, in a war zone, they have little if any opportunity to grieve their friends. Those feelings must be pushed aside for self-preservation and the good of the unit.
But eventually, often with tragic results, that grief will rise up again. Grief and guilt can fuel depression, addictions and even suicide.
Junger himself was searching for answers, to make sense of his friend’s death. He began interviewing people who were with Hetherington when he died. From those interviews grew this amazing documentary. If you haven’t seen it yet, I recommend it.
You’ll have a new appreciation of the people who put their lives on the line every day to protect us, and the journalists who tell their stories.
Learn more here.
 

Watching Your Best Friend Die

npr.orgI wasn’t going to write about Hadiya Pendleton.

I live in Chicago and frankly, there are too damn many Hadiya Pendletons: young people murdered for no other reason than being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Sunday’s Chicago Tribune carried a front page article about Hadiya’s closest girlfriends. They’re typical kids, teenagers, whose lives will never be the same: both for their close friendships with Hadiya and the horrible death they witnessed.
The shots detonate like firecrackers – boom boom boom boom boom – and the friends, a dozen of them altogether, run.
The girl named Danetria does not run well. She is out of breath, struggling to keep up, when, ahead of her, she sees one of her friends fall, and she thinks about how slowly her friend collapsed, and how gracefully, and how strange this all is, like a dream.
The girl named Kyra is still running. From behind her she hears someone shout "Hadiya’s been shot!”
The causes of the violence plaguing Chicago are many and complex: easy availability of guns from Indiana, poverty, high unemployment, drugs, gangs, lack of parental support, under-performing schools, blah, blah, blah. They’re all connected. But Hadiya’s murder is proof that even when parents do everything right, they can’t protect their children from the world around them.
In the Tribune’sexamination of the effects of Hadiya’s death on her friends, one paragraph stood out for me. It was the initial police statement, made a few hours after the shooting:
“Preliminary information indicates that most of the members of the group were gang members. None of the group stuck around and rendered aid or waited for the police. By all indications the female victim was an unintended target.”
Only the last sentence was true.
The police officer making the statement didn’t know that Klyn squeezed Hadiya’s hand or Danetria held her head in her lap until the police and ambulance arrived; didn’t know that Kyra had run to borrow a cellphone to call 911. Now we know, but the damage is done.
No one – at 15 – should watch their best friend die.
No one – at 15 – should feel guilty for not being able to save their friend’s life.
No one – at 15 – should struggle just to get through the day, consumed with “what if’s”.
No one – at 15 – should have nightmares about seeing their best friend lying in a casket.
No one – at 15 – should avoid going to the park, because that’s where their best friend was murdered.
No one – at 15 – should wish they’d had the chance to say “I’m sorry.”
But they do.
Today is – by my calculations – the 14thTuesday since Hadiya was gunned down. The perpetrators are in jail. Her friends are trying to move on, knowing only one thing for sure: their lives will be forever changed because of Hadiya. Life goes on, whether you want it to or not.
I encourage you to read the story below. Whatever your beliefs are on violence, guns, gangs or teenagers, I guarantee this will give you something to think about.
As it should.
 
Hadiya's Friends

AIDS: Everything Old is New Again

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – George Santayana

 There is perhaps no more perfect quote to describe the current state of the AIDS epidemic. A close second would be “out of sight, out of mind.”
Last week I found myself at a fundraiser for the West Hollywood Public Library Foundation and the proposed AIDS memorial. It was a benefit screening of How to Survive A Plague, the Academy-Award nominated and much-honored 2012 documentary about ACT UP New York and the AIDS epidemic.
I spent time with Jim Eigo, a founder of ACT UP NY, who I’d met at their meeting in New York earlier in the month. He participated in a panel discussion that followed the film.
What made me sad – and angry – was that the second book in my series (Friend Grief and AIDS: Thirty Years of Burying Our Friends) is so relevant today. When I started writing it, I thought it would be more of a reflection of my time working in the AIDS community in Chicago in the late 80’s and early 90’s. Boy, was I wrong.
Between the ACT UP meeting and the panel discussion, I felt like I was in a time warp. What year is this, really, when we’re talking about the rising number of infections in young gay men? What year is this, really, when we’re talking about the critical need to lobby our legislators, at all levels of government? What year is this, really, when we’re talking about the threat of AIDS at all?
That time warp is why I’m angry all over again. There are differences, big differences between the early 1980’s and now. We didn’t know what AIDS was (or what to call it), how it was transmitted, how to treat it. Now we know, but it’s still here, still a serious threat, no matter what you’ve been told.
Thanks to medical advances, people really do believe an AIDS diagnosis is no big deal – maybe even an advantage in certain situations. You still think only gay men are at risk? How about women over 50: “I can’t get pregnant, I don’t need a condom.” The truth is still what it was 30 years ago: everyone is at risk.
So while I’m gratified by the early positive reactions to my book, I’m also distressed by the fact that AIDS is still here, still without a cure, still without a vaccine. I’ve lost too many to this equal-opportunity virus; maybe you have, too.
I now find myself part of a second wave of activism, one which is sadly necessary. I hope you’ll join me, so you don’t find yourself grieving for a friend (or two or ten or a hundred) who died from AIDS.

Running - or Walking - to Remember Your Friend

On Sunday I participated in the Our House“Run for Hope”. I didn’t actually run; I walked 2.7 miles.

Our House is a terrific grief support center in West Los Angeles. Their work with adults and children is important and life-changing. I was glad to support their event, and my friend, Fredda Wasserman, who works for them.
Everyone who walked or ran got a t-shirt. When you registered, you had the option of personalizing your shirt so everyone would know who you were honoring. I opted not to: I couldn’t decide on only one person.
As I walked the route, I made note of why people were there. “I’m running for…” the backs of their t-shirts read, with a name, relationship and photo.
There were lots of families and groups, babies in strollers and one woman in a wheelchair, creating an unusually festive mood for what could’ve been a very somber occasion.
People ran in memory of parents and children, siblings and grandparents (even a couple great-grandparents), aunts and uncles, spouses (and one ex-husband). I didn’t expect to see so many people running for their friends.
  I noticed one group in particular. A sign on the route mentioned Ro, and there were maybe a dozen or so who wore her picture on their backs, listed as ‘friend’ or ‘neighbor’. I asked one woman if she worked with Ro. No, she said, a neighbor. But her whole face lit up at the mention of her friend’s name. We are two weeks from the first anniversary of Ro’s death, and I’m sure the timing of the Run for Hope was important to them.
  Me? I walked for my friend, Delle, and I walked for my father. I walked for my friends who have died this year, and those who are long gone. Too many to fit on the back of a t-shirt.
Maybe you’re struggling with a way to honor a friend who died. A walk/run on a beautiful Sunday morning is a nice way to remember them. You don’t need a big group with you: your friend will be right at your side.
 

Friend Grief and AIDS

I always knew that one of the books in the Friend Grief series would address the AIDS epidemic. Like many who lived through those early years, it was something that shaped my life. It was, I believe, close to the experience of being in in a war. At least, that’s how it felt.

I wasn’t sure what my focus would be for the book. There are already many incredible books about AIDS and ACT UP and the Names Project and other aspects of that time. But I quickly realized that the role friends played, especially in the early years, was critical.
We knew we were needed, that we were depended upon to take up the slack for disapproving families and an indifferent government. But writing this book revealed the stark truth that friends were – and still are – responsible for turning the tide. Friends were caregivers, advocates and much, much more. Some famous, most anonymous, all were people whose dedication meant the difference between life and death.
Friend Grief and AIDS: Thirty Years of Burying Our Friends is now available as an ebook. Like the first book in the series, it’s not long. If you’re of a certain age, you’ll find yourself nodding in remembrance. If you’re younger, you may be shocked by what you read, but I guarantee, it’s all true.
AIDS is not over, not by a long shot. The numbers and attitudes may shock you, but don’t let them cause you to turn away. Instead, let them serve as a wake-up call: to renew your efforts to educate and advocate so that a real cure can someday be found. And let it also remind you to keep your friends close.

Here’s an excerpt:

We are a very judgmental society, at least here in the US, and that mindset often permeates even our own families. It wasn’t just the disease itself that led families to turn their backs. It was the added stigma of homosexuality (or prostitution or drug abuse). The diagnosis was considered a reflection on the family, a bad one. So many felt justified in abandoning one of their own.
We are quicker to blame victims of disease than the disease itself. We believe ourselves superior in some way to people who are sick because we judge them to be stupid, weak or morally deficient. We feel especially good about ourselves when we can quote Bible verses or local laws to support our position.
Different diseases carry their own stigma. Diagnosed with lung cancer? Well, you shouldn’t have smoked. Diagnosed with diabetes or heart disease? Well, you should’ve lost weight. Diagnosed with AIDS? Oh, where to begin with the criticism?
As Elinor Burkett put it so eloquently in The Gravest Show on Earth: America in the Age of AIDS, “AIDS never got a chance to be simply a disease.”
This was different, from the start. This was something new and mysterious and terrifying.
And friends made all the difference.
 Available now on Kobo, Amazon, IndieBound and Barnes & Noble

Friends in Boston or Elsewhere

www.espn.go.comLike many people, my plans were derailed Monday by the horrific news coming from the finish line of the Boston Marathon.

I don’t know about you, but when a tragedy like this unfolds, I’m glued to the TV. It’s not that I enjoy seeing the shocking images replayed every few minutes. I just want to understand: what’s going on and why. I can’t ignore it, at least not yet.
Three are dead and well over 100 injured. So far, at least, I don’t know anyone directly affected. But that’s not a lot of consolation. Most people aren’t directly affected. Except they are.
When something unexpected happens, something so jarring, we scramble to explain it. But sometimes answers are slow to come, if at all, and we have to accept that we’ll never know.
Events such as the explosions in Boston – or Oklahoma City or Mumbai or London or on 9/11 – are perpetrated not just for political reasons but to disrupt the calm of our daily lives. The people responsible want to instill fear. And often they succeed.
You may now be hyper-vigilant about your children, or your personal safety. You may update your will. You may make a sudden life change that you’d only been contemplating before, reasoning that life is too short to not do it.
But as many have pointed out – sadly, yet again – human beings tend to carry on. We don’t ignore what happened, but we don’t get stuck in it. We go back to work, back to school, back to our sometimes boring daily routines.
How we remember days like Monday varies. Some people block it out altogether. Others insist it doesn’t affect them, won’t affect them. They won’t make any changes to how they live their lives. “Don’t let the terrorists win.” How many times did we hear that after 9/11?
Honestly, I don’t think the terrorists give a shit.
But I do think a tragedy like Boston may compel you to live your life differently. It probably has already.
Did you call friends in Boston to check on their safety, maybe even people you hadn’t talked to in a long time? Did you log onto Facebook or Twitter to get messages to those you care about?
Did anyone get a good night’s sleep Monday night? How about last night, when news broke about the firefight that killed one suspect and a police officer? I doubt it. But use your exhaustion today. Use it to reach out to your friends. You’ll both be glad you did.
 

My Writing Group

markdivincenzowriter.com
 In the fall of 2006, a flyer from Swedish Covenant Hospital arrived in the mail. Among the events listed was a class in life story writing. It was just over a year after my father died, and coupled with my being the family genealogist, I decided it was time to start writing down the stories I’d heard all my life.

We were a group of about a dozen or so, mostly women, mostly older. The leader was a retired creative writing teacher from Northwestern University.
Each week we read something we’d written, and the group critiqued it. I’d not had any of my writing critiqued since college, so it was a little unsettling. And at the time, the idea of writing as a career was not a consideration.
I’d already told my friend Delle, whose cancer had recently returned, that I wanted to write a book about people grieving their friends. She thought it was a great idea, but at that point, I put it aside for more pressing issues. She died right after the class ended.
A core group of us decided we wanted to keep meeting. Jo (the instructor), Helene, Birgitta, Alice, Penny and I began a schedule that lasted until last summer: twice a year (during good weather) we’d meet at Penny’s apartment six times over the course of a couple months. Penny was on dialysis three times a week, so we worked around that.
The stories – initially dismissed by the writers as “not important” were fascinating: Birgitta moving to America with her mother, and embarking on a career in the Salvation Army; Alice’s childhood near my old neighborhood in St. Louis, and her life in Chicago; Helen’s participation in a choral group many years ago, and her devotion to animals. Penny’s writing grew the most, as she began writing stories for her family: about her move from the Pacific Northwest to Chicago with her jazz musician husband, and life in a big Greek family.
Over the years, Birgitta moved away and others joined for brief periods of time. But the rest of us stayed together. I missed a few sessions after my concussion, and other sessions were rearranged because of volunteer or travel commitments by various members. Health issues interrupted us, too, not surprising, since they are all at least 20 years older than me.
I’d heard from Alice that Penny’s health was deteriorating. When she called me a couple weeks ago, I knew there was something that couldn’t wait. I sent her a printout of my first book, and the final draft of the second one. And I told her how much her friendship meant to me.
In the first book’s acknowledgements I mention the writing group by name. They, more than any class or conference, influenced and improved my writing. They were supportive, critical, encouraging, when I moved from writing stories about my Dad to what would become the first book in my series. After Delle’s inspiration, I owe them the most.
Last Friday – Good Friday – Alice called to say that Penny died that morning. I was grateful that I hadn’t procrastinated for once. And pleased to hear that Penny was touched to receive the books.
I suspect that this is the end of my writing group. Jo’s health has been shaky. We’d have to find another location, one that (unlike my house) doesn’t require climbing stairs. It could be done, but right now seems unlikely.
Will I seek out another group? I don’t know. It’s too early to tell. I’ll still keep in touch with Jo, Alice and Helene, but it won’t be the same without Penny. In the meantime I’ll have to content myself with the memories of dozens of mornings spent with four remarkable women. They’ve taught me a lot, not just about writing, and they’ll always be in my heart.

Friend Grief and Anger is Finally Here

After a number of fits and starts – too many to list, but including Mercury in retrograde – I’ve finally released the ebook version of the first book in my Friend Grief series (paperback version coming soon).

Friend Grief and Anger: When Your Friend Dies and No One Gives A Damngrew from a conversation I had with my friend, Delle Chatman, in 2006. We were sitting in Metropolis, the coffee house we frequented, and she was in remission from ovarian cancer. An idea had been bouncing around my head, and though I was nervous, I told her I had an idea for a book to write. She was enthusiastic as always, and I promised her I’d do it.
I guess it was writers block that I suffered from for a long time after she died that November. I would interview someone and try to write their story, but couldn’t. I despaired of being able to keep my promise and put the project away.
It wasn’t until August, 2009, that I broke through that block. Suddenly it became clear – format, tone, topics – and two months later I was on my first research trip. This blog started in February, 2011, coinciding with my first writers’ conference. The rest, as they say, is history.
So today I sit at Metropolis once again, still glancing occasionally at the door, half-expecting Delle to walk in. I’ll do a book signing here, because there’s no more appropriate location. I owe this all to her: for not being offended by my idea, for encouraging me to embark on a career that deep-down I’d wanted to do all my life, for believing in me when I didn’t believe in myself. I hope she’s pleased.
 
Here’s an excerpt:
I’ve had friends who died from enemy gunfire and cancer, car accidents and suicide, AIDS and the 9/11 attacks. Not one of those deaths made sense to me. Not one of those friends deserved to suffer - sometimes for years, sometimes for seconds. Not one of those deaths could be justified in my mind as being necessary.
But all forced me to admit that I could not change what had happened, and for a control freak, that’s a tough lesson.
We’re all control freaks when it comes to death. We have no control over the circumstances of our birth and very little over the circumstances of our death. And since we tend to be adults when the second one happens, we believe we should have a say: not only about our own deaths, but about those of the people we love.
If possible, all of us would do whatever was in our power to spare our friend’s suffering and death. Love does that: it makes you want to protect the ones you love. The hardest lesson of all is that, ultimately, you can’t.
But instead of throwing a much-deserved tantrum because we have no power, we have to sit back and say, “I hate that this happened to my friend. I hate it with every breath I take. But I can’t change it, and that kills me, a little, too.”

 
Ordering information is available on the Books page.