The Miami Herald, Inc.; Friday, May 9, 1997
Ana Veciana-Suarez; Herald Columnist

Perhaps that is why people listen with rapt attention to Alvia Palmer-Michel. Hers is a poignant story that is best told by a mother, for other mothers.

A Miami native, Palmer-Michel met husband Richard when she was 25. They married in 1986, had an adorable baby girl the following year. Life was sweet, the future promising. But in 1988, after months with what the family believed was a cold, Richard found out he had AIDS, contracted several years before when he was a bachelor. Two months later, she and the baby tested positive. Suddenly the fairy tale was over.

"We didn't have a clue what this meant," recalls Palmer-Michel, 37. "I thought it was a gay disease. I didn't think people like me could get it. I even figured that if you were HIV-positive, you could tell just by looking at somebody."

Richard died in December of '89. Little Riccardia died in March 1992, a month shy of her fifth birthday. Three days after her daughter's funeral, a grief-stricken Palmer-Michel ended up in the hospital, in a diabetic coma. She stayed in the hospital for four months. She surrendered hope.

"I remember thinking I had killed this baby, this little girl who was my life and was so beautiful. How could I go on?" Even now her voice is tremulous with tears.

Inspired by dream

But one night in a dream, Riccardia appeared to her. The little girl was pulling her along, calling out: "Hurry, Mommy, hurry." In that fog of darkness, Palmer-Michel realized her daughter was dragging her to a place she had never seen, a place where other children were suffering, too, where babies were dying of AIDS -- where Mommies were needed.

The dream changed her life. "I felt I had a new reason to live," she says.

Palmer-Michel helped found the Health Crisis Network's Riccardia Program to serve the needs of children who are infected with the HIV virus. Though she has lived with full-blown AIDS for the past six years, Palmer-Michel crisscrosses South Florida recounting her story to anyone who'll listen. A tireless advocate and educator, she hopes to prevent another mother's grief.

Honored at luncheon

Along with three other South Floridians, she will be honored Tuesday for the heroic fight against the deadly disease during a luncheon by the South Florida chapter of Mothers' Voices, a national group that fights AIDS. The union between Palmer-Michel and Mothers' Voices seems to be a match orchestrated by little Riccardia.

Mothers' Voices is dedicated to mobilizing mothers as advocates, lobbyists and principal educators to their children about HIV prevention. The group also promotes public policies that push for AIDS education, research, treatment and ultimately a cure.

The original group was started in New York in 1991, when five mothers who had been touched by the epidemic realized that everyone listens to mothers. Their authority reaches into the deepest recesses of our memory. That first year the small group began what later became an annual event: sending Mother's Day cards to organizations and asking them to forward them along to Washington.

The South Florida group, the first chapter outside of New York, has followed this tradition. Last year, it also sponsored a fund-raising luncheon.

`We can make a difference'

Mothers from all walks of life join the group, including those who have been spared the grief of losing a child or other family member to AIDS. Susie Becker is one of them. An event planner/consultant and mom to three grown children, she became interested in the group after watching how people avoided a friend during the harrowing months before her son's death of AIDS. She recently returned from Washington, where she attended AIDS Watch, and plans to lobby PTAs, churches and synagogues, school boards and youth groups for better sex education of children.

"I believe we can make a difference. If we can teach our kids about, first, no sex, then safe sex, we may be able to not worry as much," she says.

Her house in South Dade is filled with family photos. She points at a framed snapshot of a grand-niece and grand-nephews smiling at the camera. They are her inspiration, and it is only fitting that a mother should stand up for them.

"I am doing this for the future," she explains. "I am doing this because I'm a mother, and mothers get heard."

IF YOU GO

* WHAT:

SECOND ANNUAL EXTRAORDINARY VOICES AWARDS LUNCHEON, HELD BY THE SOUTH FLORIDA CHAPTER OF MOTHERS' VOICES, A NATIONAL GROUP THAT MOBILIZES MOTHERS IN THE FIGHT AGAINST AIDS. THE GROUP WILL HONOR DR. MARGARET A. FISCHL, AIDS RESEARCHER; MARCY LEFTON, VOLUNTEER FUND-RAISER; ALVIA PALMER-MICHEL, WHO HELPED FOUND HEALTH CRISIS NETWORK'S CHILDREN'S PROGRAM; JOSE VALDES-FAULI, CEO OF EASTERN NATIONAL BANK AND ONE OF THE FOUNDERS OF HEALTH CRISIS NETWORK; AND BELLSOUTH, WHICH HELPS SUPPORT AIDS GROUPS.

* When: Tuesday at 11:30 a.m.

* Where: Hotel Inter-Continental, 100 Chopin Plaza, Miami.

* Cost: $60 and $100 per person. Tables for $600 and $1,000.

* Information: (305) 579-0021.

CAPTION: color photo: Riccardia Palmer-Michel (a), Alvia Palmer-Michel (a)

CHUCK FADELY / Herald Staff MOM TO BE HONORED: Alvia Palmer-Michel founded a program for children with AIDS.

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