Dr. Stephen Gill contributed this poem “Mother of an Aids-Ridden Son” on World Aids Day.

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December 1 is the World Aids Day to generate greater public awareness to this horrific epidemic that kills millions of children or their parents every year. Here is a poem by Stephen Gill to participate in the awareness:

MOTHER OF AN AIDS-RIDDEN SON

He developed thrush in his mouth

and a lesion in one ear

that seriously damaged his hearing.

He got pneumonia in both lungs.

His every breath became a battle.

The disease slowly

destroyed the body,

attacking his spinal cord

and central nervous system.

Cataracts filming

his eyes,

made every movement more difficult.

He was beginning to hunch

as the disease ate him.

His shaving kit bulged

with containers of pills:

he took thirty-six a day.



He was a throw-away person--

pale, week and lonely;

for his mother,

the rotting disease

was taking away her dreams.



Both knew time was short

but hung on hopes

for a cure.

During the first three months

it was hard for them to deal with

the death sentence--

Doctors gave him six months.



She constantly comforted him

as they discussed

flowers for funeral

with tears in their eyes--

carrying a pain

that tore her insides.



In such days

of anger and despair

she was still bonded with her son.

She quit working

as resources dwindled.



She is not wonderful

as some letters suggest--

only a mother.

She gave him months of her love

as she watched

the horror of his dying.



She wants to hold him

in her arms once more.

She has now

sorrows and memories to own.



She did not cry

rather was deeply mad

because of how he became infected

and mad at the lifestyle

he was forced to live

and mad because every minute

a haemophiliac in the world dies.



© Stephen Gill

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