Description: Dating advice columnist gone rogue.
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Sylvia and I met in the nineties—just a few months after my mom died of cancer. I had watched in anger as my mom’s friends, and even some family members, abandoned her, putting off hospital visits until it was too late, and letting calls go unreturned. Whatever their reasons, it pissed me off, and made me think about how people with AIDS probably faced even more isolation, since that disease was far more stigmatized than cancer was. So after she died, I signed up to be an AIDS buddy with the Jewish Board of
After going through a brief training, the social worker told me that they had a volunteer who needed help with her patient—he was too big a job for one person. I didn't really understand what that meant, but Sylvia was that volunteer and I quickly found out that she needed help because she had been assigned the world’s worst human. At the risk of making us sound bitchy, Jay—not his real name—was possibly the worst person I’ve ever met.
Jay was cruel, ignorant, racist, and despite being gay—homophobic; openly bragging, with glee, about all the men he had potentially— hopefully —infected. He started fights with other patients from his stretcher, and found our suiting up in gloves, gowns, and masks, a grievous insult, even though his doctors asked us to do so, because they were afraid we’d infect him with something from the outside world. We leaned on each other throughout the rest of his brief life and bonded over guiltily complaining to ea