Sunday Times (Johannesburg) - September 24, 2006
Zanele Mphikwa

I MET her at a party on the 15th of December 1998. She was beautiful but I did not like her at all.

She was introduced to me by a cousin. I thought she was too full of herself, so I avoided her. I did not know that she would become my partner at a later stage.

I knew her status already and it was not a big deal for me.

It took me a month to get her to go out with me, but it was worth it. A month afterwards, I asked her to move in with me. She was hesitant but eventually agreed. I knew that she was the one I was going to spend the rest of my life with.

I loved her, not the disease.

Three years together were total bliss. We had our fights, but we always found a way to each other's hearts.

She was going out with a woman and was HIV-positive - but her family did not know of her status or her sexual orientation. Only her mom knew her HIV status. I wanted her to tell them, but at the same time I felt it was too much to deal with and she had no idea what to start with.

I knew and she knew that she got infected through a relationship with a man who has now passed on. If it was not for him I would still have the love of my life.

There were times when I actually forgot that she was HIV-positive. We just lived our lives as any couple would - until 2004, when she started to get sick.

At first we did not take it seriously. I guess we did not want to admit that it could be related to her status.

I had always wanted to test, but she never allowed me to. She always said: "I would not be able to handle it if you were to be positive, for I would not know whether I gave it to you or not."

So I decided not to test.

She would get sick, then get better. But when she was sick, my days would feel like I had lost all there was in life. Our place would feel so cold and lonely. She was there, yet she was not.

There was a time when she was hospitalised for over two months, and I went to see her on a daily basis. When I come back home, the house was empty, cold and lonely, and I would always break down and cry.

I missed her a great deal. At times I would sit on my own and pray, cry, pray, cry. I just wanted a second chance with her, I don't know how many times I prayed to God to give me a second chance.

It killed me inside to see such a beautiful, vibrant and full-of-life woman wasting away in front of me when there was nothing I could do about it.

I know this might be wrong of me to say, but I vowed that I would never again go out with a person who was HIV-positive - it drains you emotionally and physically. But deep down I know that I would do it if I loved the person.

Although I feel I handled the situation well because she knew she could count on me, in some ways I feel I failed her, and that will always haunt me.

My "Babyla", as we used to call each other, passed away in 2005, a month before our sixth anniversary, which would have been on April 19.

The last time I saw her was on a Friday afternoon, hours before she passed away. She was not able to talk properly, but there was one thing she kept on saying over and over again: "Babyla, I love you."

That was all she said, and in that way she gave me one last chance to tell her that I loved her. In the early hours of the morning she lost the battle and peacefully rested forever.

In some ways I am grateful that we spoke a lot about death because when she passed away I knew what she wanted her funeral proceedings to be like; she went as far as choosing what I should wear at her funeral.

Her funeral was exactly the way she wanted it; I must thank her family for allowing me to take part in the arrangements. By the time of her passing they knew that she was HIV-positive and that I was her lover, not her friend. But still they allowed me to be part of every detail of the planning as if we were legally married. Few families do that. I will forever be grateful to them.

When she died, a part of me died, and I know that there will never be a woman I will love the way I loved her. She was and still is the only woman in whom I could totally lose myself.

It was our talks about death that prepared me for her passing. It is difficult, I miss her a lot but I am coping and have now met someone who is very different from her, but she makes me happy.

We promised each other that whoever leaves first will come back to give a sign that, "I am looking after you, I am with you and that there is life after death." Babyla, I am still waiting.

And, by the way, I went to test after she passed on and found that I am HIV-negative. Testing for me has now became an obsession; I do it frequently and it is still negative.

Her passing was so painful to me as she passed on two weeks before she was due to go on antiretrovirals, which for me felt like a premature death.

I promised myself that I would do all I could to prevent such deaths, and at the moment I work for an organisation called Broad- Reach, which offers ARVs. In some way I am able to live my personal dream and wish: preventing people from dying prematurely.

It was never about the disease, but it was about the love I felt and still feel for her. I will forever love her.

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