| Details | | Publication Date: | 1997-06-01 |
| Size | | Height: | 8.8 in | | Width: | 5.8 in | | Thickness: | 0.5 in | | Weight: | 8.0 oz |
Publisher's Note
Through a series of notes to her children, an African-American mother tells the story of how she learned she was HIV-positive and what that would eventually mean to her children, her marriage, her spiritual development and her work. Refusing to be a victim, Catherine Morley presents a story of how life goes on after AIDS and all the debilitating physical, psychological, and social pains that accompany this dreaded but often misunderstood disease. It separates HIV/AIDS fact from fiction and provides the reader with a glimpse into a world that we must all learn to understand.
Industry Reviews
This powerful memoir by an average mom turned AIDS activist ranges from humorous (comments about a haircut from hell) to sobering (her account of the progression of her disease and the demise of her marriage). Wyatt-Morley is middle-class, middle-aged, educated, religious, and HIV-positive. Her journal entries document her transformation from a typical, healthy mother of three to a single parent fighting both HIV and the system. And there is a lot to fight. Being a woman of color, Wyatt-Morley found that most AIDS resources do not address her needs, concerns, or fears. However, she helped create her own networks and support groups and took charge of her health. Running through the text are poems by Wyatt-Morley and others. One in particular, Sherry McMillan's "I Am AIDS," is alone worth the price of the text. Recommended for AIDS and African American health collections. Lee Arnold, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
Stefanatos
After a hysterectomy in 1994, Wyatt-Morley was told that she had tested positive for HIV. A faithful wife of more than 10 years, and not a drug user, she had never before considered having herself tested. Her husband also tested positive; it was likely an affair of his that provided the opening for the "invasion of the enemy" of HIV into their lives. Reeling from the shock, Wyatt-Morley began negotiating the long, hard road of coping with insensitive and undereducated doctors, the double discrimination of being a black woman with HIV, fear of family disgrace, her husband's alcoholism, their rapidly deteriorating marriage and a variety of physical ailments. Told in diary format, this riveting story of one woman's journey through HIV infection is a roller-coaster ride of anger and faith, despair and hope, fear and, above all, love a mother's love for the children whom she knows she will leave before they are grown, and the love of women who came together to help one another through the shared ordeal of living with HIV and AIDS. Since her diagnosis, Wyatt-Morley has founded a support and education group for women, spoken to health-care professionals and the public about HIV and AIDS and has made a video documenting women's experiences with the disease. Her diary offers a great deal of medical and political information about HIV and AIDS with which, she says, "all humankind is either infected or affected." (July)
Lopate
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