Blog # 1---Introduction and learning experience

Hello fellow bloggers,

My name is Claudia. I am a single mom attempting this "going back to school" thing. So far its very challenging! I try to divide my time but realize there isn't anymore time to divide. My son Ashton is eight years old. His older brother passed shortly after birth from prematurity. Austin would have been ten this year. My father passed away a month before so 1999 wasn't a great year for me. In 1996, I had brain surgery to remove an AVM. Later that same year, one of my older half brothers passed away from an infection when he had a car accident. Most people would have lived from it, however, he had AIDS and his immune system was already severly compromised. I have four sisters and a brother left of all seven of my siblings. My other brother died of septicism a few years ago. My mother still lives in GA in the house where my dad once lived.

Enough of introductions, I don't want to create a cloud of gloom or pity on my story because I'm sure there are some out there alot more challenging than mine.

I am new to blogging, never really considered it to be an outlet of emotions and thoughts but it reality unless my professors hadn't made this an assignment, I probably wouldn't be writing at this very moment. I tend to keep things bottled up and every once in a blue moon I have to have a cry day in my shower or on the beach near my home. You see I love the water and even though I live about 30 minutes from it, the gulf speaks to me in ways no one can.

I am learning, so much in this class. Not only technical stuff but about the disease that ultimately played a huge role in taking my brothers life. As kids we weren't very close. The three older ones were from a previous marriage of my dad's. When he met and married my mom I was already in the picture. I called him dad because he was the only father I ever knew. Dad was 25 years my mom's senior so the next four children came after me. I like to call us the second set of Phillips'. Steve, the baby boy of his first kids was very flamboyant. He was the "homosexual one" as everyone referrred to him, they one who strayed. That is until I came out around 26. I always knew I was a lesbian, since I was eight, but after he passed it took years for me to accept my orientation. I grew up in the 80's when AIDS wasn't researched enough and it was called the "gay cancer". That in itself scared me into keeping my secret hidden for years.

Recently, I read a book (of course an assignment) called What looks like crazy on an ordinary day by Pearle Cleage. Now I'm not a reader by any stretch of the imagination. I enjoy anything that grabs me by the turn of the first page. This one did just that. I wanted to personally introduce myself to Ava Johnson, the main character and give her a huge hug for portraying a real persons view of life with AIDS. She is so angry at people and their careless decisions and how I remember when my brother was so ill hospice came in and took over care and within a few weeks he lost his battle. I've seen movies since then like Philadelphia with Tom Hanks and realized that AIDS affects everyone! Straight, gay, black, white, male, female and it also has no age discrepency. This club accepts everyone!

My how far we've come in almost 30 years. There is a huge stigma to this disease but hopefully from this class I can learn to protect myself and teach others around me that its not a disease that confines one to their own devices. Everyone still needs touch, love and something to live for!

Talk to you guys soon. Its a pleasure meeting you. I hope I get to meet you in person someday.

I hate saying good bye because it seems so final. I say laterz

so until next time, laterz!

CEP