End Points: Journal of an AIDS Wife
An electronic book published by Christine Halvorson, 4 Parent St., Jaffrey, NH 03452. 108p. $11.00. available only online. Contact author at chrish@yankeepub.com.
Christine Halvorson. 1999.
Her account of learning the truth will touch the hearts of many other wives who, also, learned that their husbands were gay after raising a family. Society has played a cruel game on the closeted gay who so wants to look normal, get married, have children, and then come out to the world. In the age of AIDS this has taken on a very frightening turn where the virus is so easily transmitted to an unsuspecting , faithful wife. Many point fingers at troubled childhoods but the straight world has made it so difficult for gays to be open about themselves. End Points has done a beautiful job of trying to explain the feelings of a wife who, at one time, wanted her husband dead, but now is glad he is fighting to live.
In the last chapter, the feelings of the wife are so vividly revealed: "I never described his keeping the HIV secret from me as evil. I came to believe it had just been standard denial. His attempt at protecting me. Now I know he was only protecting himself, taking the intervening year to construct a story he could live with I would buy. He had been the one back then to describe this as evil, and I never accepted his word for it. How could I?" "How can there be evil in a man who would spend Sunday afternoon baking a blueberry and peach pie, with crust made from scratch, and offer to let me eat the whole thing if I wanted?" "How can there be evil in a man who cries when his children leave him or when they achieve some award in school?" "How can there be evil in a man who still preaches God's word and dedicated his public life to saving the world in tiny ways every day? A man who wants written on his tombstone, 'Do Justice. Serve the poor. Walk humbly with God'?" "How can there be evil in a man who never failed to hold and touch and say, 'I love you.' even when the years had made this unnecessary? A man who calls his mother and worries over her? A man who can sing Handel's Messiah a cappella with such clarity you can believe the orchestra is in the room?" "Can evil live in the mouth of a man who sings perfect harmony? Yes. The answer is yes."
This is a must read book that will make you realize that life can be very cruel, that AIDS is even more cruel, but deep down there is always love waiting to smooth over the rough edges.
Copyright (c) 1999 - Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. Reviews may be reprinted or redistributed for the noncommercial purpose of scientific or educational advancement granted by Sections 107 and 108 of the Copyright Revision Act of 1976. For other reprinting, redistribution, or translation, address requests to H. Robert Malinowsky, University of Illinois at Chicago Library, PO Box 8198, Chicago, IL 60680 or electronically to hrm@uic.edu.
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Copyright © 1999 - The University of Illinois at Chicago. All materials in the journal are subject to copyright by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois and may be reprinted or redistributed for the noncommercial purpose of scientific or educational advancement granted by Sections 107 and 108 of the Copyright Revision Act of 1976. For other reprinting, redistribution, or translation, address requests to H. Robert Malinowsky, University of Illinois at Chicago Library, PO Box 8198, Chicago, IL 60680 or electronically to hrm@uic.edu.
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