Lessons from the Deceased
(Narration based on true story, late 90s, Ethiopia)
Tilahun K.
The death of my friend and classmate Aron, a high school first generation college student, was a devastating experience on one hand and a life-changing lesson on the other. Sharing this experience to the young generation could duplicate the lesson and the benefits thereof. Aron passed away due to AIDS. His neglect to safe-sex costed him his life. It was a moment I deeply learned to change my way of sex-life so as to keep my flesh and soul together. As to me, it was the best lesson from the worst moment everyone could learn. Thus, my life changed for the better. It is therefore my conviction that sharing my experience about a friend who had died of AIDS, the lessons I learned from his death and my ultimate attainment thereof will exemplify and illustrate how unprotected sex risks life on one hand, and what it takes to avoid the risk specifically at college level on the other.
To begin with, my friend Aron was sick for almost three months. Thursday morning, however, was the worst. He had a grave trouble of breathing and was snoring intermittently. His mother Almaz was staring at him with desperate eyes and her tears began running down her face. She was trying to comfort him with a motherly touch, but her fingers were trembling. She could not utter a word, but the magnitude of fear and confusion on her face was overwhelming. I shared her desperation, but I had to do something to save his life. I called an ambulance and rushed him into the hospital. Just think for a minute placing yourself in Aron’s condition and imagine what it would feel to your parents and above all to yourself since that could happen to every one of you if you indulge in unprotected sex.
With troubled feelings and an hour or so interval, we were in an “emergency room”. I looked around the room. It had two rows of beds, ten in each row. All beds were occupied except one. The patients included all age groups and both sexes. I knew most of the patients. There were professionals, businessmen, farmers, prostitutes and students. Oxygen and food supplying tubes are hanging in all beds. There were attendants seating or standing by the patients. The attendants were mothers, fathers, siblings, or friends. All were with desperate eyes in an agonizing environment. It was awful not only for the patients but also for the attendants. Most of the patient’s were with one-leg-in-grave since AIDS is merciless. It is merciless to you too if you let it into your life through a reckless sex.
In the meantime, Aron was placed on the last bed near to the door. We hoped someone would immediately come and help Aron. To our dismay, the nurses were unsympathetic. They had known him for sometime as a visiting patient. They had also observed the gradual deterioration of his health. He was scrawny, coughing and lost hair. One of the nurses came reluctantly. She piped oxygen to a mask on his mouth. She doubled the glove on her hands and begun looking for veins on his left arm above the wrist. Locating the veins was far-from-easy. This coupled with the nurse’s fear for blood spill on to her hands delayed the food supply. After a while, liquid food was poured down a tube into his veins. To add pain to the wound, a doctor did not see Aron until 11:00 am although he was in an emergency room. Imagine for one second how it would feel if you were in my place.
After a long wait, the doctor and his aids came in to check with Aron. Aron looked unconscious. His mouth was opened with a seemingly staring-eyes. The doctor checked on the pulse rate and wrote some notes on the patient’s history page. I read a sense of desolation from his face. He gave the document to the nurse and left the room. By chance, the doctor was someone I knew very well. I followed him and asked him if there was something we had to do next. With a dying smile and a low tone, he asked me about my relationship with the patient. I told him he was my close friend. After some silence, he said, “I hope you are getting a useful lesson from your friend and the patients in the emergency room”. I was not quite sure what he meant. “What do you mean?” I asked. He wanted to be frank with me although it was unethical. He said, “Most of the patients you see in the room are AIDS victims”. I was shocked. My body was trembling. I remained in a standstill for few minutes and pushed myself towards the visitors' seat near by. I calmed myself down. I realized some of the patients in that room would die sooner or later since there was no cure for AIDS. The only possible “cure” was the preventive way, i.e. safe sex. Unfortunately, it was too late for the victims, but remember not for you.
In about twenty minutes, there was a new development in Aron’s condition. The flesh and the soul seemed to wrestle. Life was on the edge. Within seconds, the flesh failed to keep the soul. The physical response by the flesh silenced. The mother knew from experience that it was a signal when the soul was isolated from the flesh. She threw herself onto the ground. She begun snatching her braided hair, and glaringly cried. Two of the attendants in the room carried her by the arms and took her outside the room. The conscious patients were terrified. Some of them knew they were on the death row. A mixture of regret and hopelessness were apparent. There was no a second chance to be given to rectify the reckless sexual behavior.
Finally, the nurse verified Aron’s death. She unlocked all the tubes and ordered the patient escort to take the corpse to another room. AIDS won the game. I felt I was in the middle of a graveyard. I swiftly went out of the room and sat back on the visitors’ bench. With my palms on my chick, my recollection took me back to Aron’s sex life. He was a womanizer and he disliked using condoms. One of the senior high school students he used to frequently date had died a year before. Both shared a lot of symptoms: heavy loss of weight, coughing, and loss of hair. Both lives were taken by the merciless killer AIDS. Would you pay your life for an imprudent sex? No, say no, no way; never and ever.
To be precise, I realized the same could happen to me if I had to keep giving deaf-ears and blind-eyes to the facts I witnessed about AIDS. I recalled the words of the doctor. My way of life changed for the better from that moment onwards. I wished I could abstain from sex. But nature had its own ways. I had no power to antagonize its rules. I, however, have been stricter than ever on one-to-one relationship and practiced a protected sex for some years. I have proved such is doable. I have lived to tell you the tale because of the change of my sex behavior. My survival would have been at question if I had not changed my sexual behavior. This reminds me of one proverb “Nothing is impossible if you try the possible way to make the impossible possible”.