[USA] "From Caskets to Cradles: Miracles for Gay Men That Would Have Been Insane a Few Years Ago" by Stuart Bell

Many years ago a guy called Stuart Bell (and many others) from Growing Generations helped create our family.  Today, I read a really interesting piece in the Huffington Post, called "From Caskets to Cradles: Miracles for Gay Men That Would Have Been Insane a Few Years Ago".

""Would you blow dry my hair?"

Charley asked this as if it were perfectly normal for one man to blow dry another man's hair.

No, Charley was not my lover, and I was not a hairdresser. Charley was my patient, and he was so weak from AIDS that he could no longer lift the blow dryer. He knew the end was near, but he wanted one more night on the town before he died.

So I picked up the blow dryer, and, while we watched each other in the mirror, I carefully brushed his hair while drying it. It was perhaps the most intimate act I had ever experienced in my 25 years of living.

Of course, Charley was not completely thrilled with my attempt. "It's too poofy," he said. We both laughed and tried to get his hair to flatten out a bit.

The year was 1991. I had graduated from college a few months prior and had taken a job at Nashville CARES, an AIDS nonprofit serving all of middle Tennessee. I went from the carefree life of a closeted fraternity boy to being an openly gay man fighting a war against AIDS where death always won."

Read More at HuffPost.