My Father Died of AIDS

In honor of World AIDS Day this is my story:

            During my senior year of high school my father died of AIDS.  He was a heroin addict my whole life. Sometime during my early adolescence my father began a relationship with a woman and had a daughter.  Shortly after my baby sister was born I learned that my father had AIDS.  He was hospitalized several times and continued to use heroin after being diagnosed.   During one of his hospital stays, he told me to leave the room. When I returned I could tell that he and his girlfriend had been using drugs.  My high school was near my father’s house, sometimes I would see him going to the nearby housing project to buy drugs.  I believe that he continued to use drugs until he was physically unable to do so.

            My father lived with his sister who also lived in the same housing project as my family.  I usually only saw my father when I went to my aunt’s house.  I remember watching WWF wrestling with him when I was young.  I also remember him frequently giving himself a pedicure.  When my father lived with his sister he had his own room.  I remember him overdosing frequently and people slapping and pouring water on him because he was unconscious.  My father always had orange syringe cap around his room, because of this I was always afraid when I saw one; they always reminded me of my father’s heroin use.  My father’s sister was also on drugs at this time.

            At one point my father was no longer living with his sister and I did not see him for some time; one day he came to visit my aunt and sober.  My father was living in a half way house for addicts and this was the first time that I saw him sober and he was no longer rail thin.  Everyone was telling him how good he looked.  A few times after this my sister and I stayed with him overnight at the halfway house.  His sobriety was short lived.   I realized that my father was not only back on drugs but, he would visit his sister (possible when he came to get high) and not visit me in the next building; my heart was broken and I truly felt unloved by anyone.