This Positive Life

In 1999, Bernard Jackson's wife passed away in the hospital weeks after being given an AIDS diagnosis. That's how Bernard learned he was HIV positive -- but he was so consumed with shock, loss and caring for his young daughter that years went by before he was able to process his own diagnosis. "[Sharing my story] was how I started building myself back up ... and seeing that what I thought was the end for me was actually a beginning," he reports today.

In 1986, when Oliver W. Martin III was diagnosed with HIV, then called GRID, he wasn't alone. His younger brother, who was also same-gender-loving, was diagnosed at the same time. But for a decade, the two of them told almost no one. Only when effective HIV treatment became available did they share their diagnoses with their large, tightly-knit family. Since that time, Oliver's dedicated himself to furthering HIV prevention and sexuality education in faith communities.

In 1993, as a 21-year old new mom, Shana Cozad could not have been less worried about HIV. "It was commonly referred to as a drug user's disease. It was commonly associated as a gay disease," she remembers; "The stigmas and the discrimination and the unsupportiveness attitudes all around the globe around this disease were peaked at an all-time crisis high." Shana herself didn't do drugs, and she had not had many sexual experiences, but she was not a fan of condoms. "I remember getting an HIV test when I was 20, pregnant with my son, and thinking, 'I don't understand why you guys are doing this to me. ... It's those other people out there who are at risk. It's in those other communities.'" Shana, a full-blooded Native American, had been adopted at birth into a highly educated family; and because giving birth had had such a profound effect on her, she planned on becoming an obstetrician/gynecologist. She went to a university with many other young mothers in the student body, and thus unknowingly began her journey with HIV/AIDS.

After being hospitalized and close to death, Marvelyn Brown found out that she was HIV positive. She was 19 at the time. But she made a choice early on to speak out and educate her community about HIV instead of being silent. Since her diagnosis, Marvelyn has written a book, won an Emmy and been featured in countless magazines and television programs, including The Oprah Winfrey Show.

"The secret to my survival is that I want to live," says HIV/AIDS advocate, mother and long-term HIV survivor Michelle Lopez. Back in 1991, Michelle left behind a partner who beat her and, she would soon learn, knowingly put her at risk for HIV. With nothing but her infant daughter, Michelle set out to find help -- and help did come, in the form of a subway ad for community health services. She sought out the agency, got her HIV diagnosis (and her daughter's) and got right into care and services. For the past 17 years she's been on staff at that very same agency, helping immigrants and women facing similar challenges to the ones she once faced. Michelle is a strong voice for her communities in the fight against HIV/AIDS -- and she's raised her daughter, Raven, to be an advocate just like her. "I love Michelle today, and I can teach other people that," Michelle says in this edition of This Positive Life. "We have got to start loving us, no matter what: HIV, gay, black, lesbian, Latino. You know, we are somebody."

"[HIV] was just something added on the plate that I had to learn how to deal with," says Jose Ramirez. Jose survived sexual abuse, a stint at a sadistic boarding school, visits to war-torn El Salvador and being kicked out of his father's house because he was gay -- all before his 17th birthday. At 17, he found out a much-older boyfriend had passed HIV to him.

Esmeralda, 37, forges a successful new path for herself and her children, and manages to find love along the way.

Esmeralda was 25 when her husband died of AIDS, leaving her HIV positive, with one baby and another on the way.

"I never expected to be this alive at this point," Gary said to himself on his 60th birthday last year. Diagnosed with HIV in 1992, Gary has survived the tragic loss of his partner, a bout with prostate cancer and a heart condition. In this edition of This Positive Life, Gary talks candidly about his health, his family, the challenges of dating, and how he went from denial of his HIV diagnosis to being a knowledgeable HIV/AIDS advocate.

When indigenous New Zealander Marama Pala was diagnosed with HIV, she didn't have the option of telling her loved ones on her own terms. "Because we are such a tight-knit community ... news of my diagnosis spread like wildfire," she explains. In this interview, Marama talks about being an HIV/AIDS activist in her indigenous community -- as well as finding love and having children with her husband, who's also HIV-positive.