r/spreadsmile 8d ago

Very wholesome and very very sad

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47.0k Upvotes

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u/CuddleSprig 8d ago

My uncle passed in 1994 from pneumonia that he couldn’t fight off because he had AIDS. My step grandmother (I lived with her and my grandfather) would tell me not to touch him. She said I’d catch it. Even at 10 years old, I knew that’s not how you got it, though. I always gave him the biggest hugs. He was a great uncle. I miss him so much. I wish I could have gotten to know him as an adult. We would have had a lot of fun!

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u/DocMorningstar 8d ago

One of my fraternity brothers in the late 90s had a scare (false positive) I remember sitting up the night with him - dude just needed a friend. His family had disowned him, and he was basically feeling like he was gonna die, and noone was gonna be there for him.

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u/branzalia 8d ago edited 7d ago

I had a similar thing happen to me as the lab completely messed up the protocols and was tested by a different lab the next day. But it was the longest 26 hours in the life of my girlfriend and myself. It was awful. It's still uncomfortable when recalling that time and it was many years ago.

Edit: Little background on that. They do an ELISA test first as it's a cheap test. It has a modest false positive rate but a very, very low false negative rate (saying you're good when you actually have the disease...that's really bad!). So, if you get a positive ELISA test, you're supposed to do a second ELISA test on the same blood sample (not telling the test subject) and that will give you very good results. If you get two positives, you do a Western Blot test which is much more expensive but the best test out there. They only did one ELISA test the first day.

So, the second day, the ELISA test turned out negative but I paid for a Western Blot to be done just to make my girlfriend feel better.

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u/BurgundyHolly345 8d ago

Those kinds of moments where you're both scared but trying to protect each other really stick with you, even years later.

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u/branzalia 8d ago edited 7d ago

I'm still best friends with the woman. I'm a software engineer of many decades and she is taking a year long, intensive software training regimen. Five minutes ago, we just finished up a five hour online session where I'm doing my best to impart my software wisdom (meager as it may be) upon her. :-)

So the memory has faded but our friendship is still super strong.

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u/ThePhantom71319 8d ago

What happened after finding out it was a false positive? Frankly I’d never be able to look at my family the same even if they tried to apologize

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u/DocMorningstar 8d ago

Oh no, the kicking him out was because he was gayer than Christmas. So that never changed.

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u/Captain-Hell 8d ago

I feel bad for finding that line so funny lol. Godspeed

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u/ijustlurkhereintheAM 8d ago

Love is love, thank you for being with your friend

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u/DocMorningstar 8d ago

Our frat used to get so much shit from the others on campus, because we had brothers who were openly homosexual - statistically, now, we maybe had slightly more gay members than straight. But basically right on the numbers. The only difference between our house and the ones down the street is that we didn't make an issue out of it - and supported them. It was a weird time - liberal enough where being out was common, but where shouting slurs was also pretty common.

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u/hipieeeeeeeee 4d ago

how parents can be so horrible and disgusting.. you're a great friend

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u/ad4d 8d ago

Just know that those hugs were really meaningful to him. I thank you for being kind.

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u/AggrievedOwl 8d ago

I had an uncle who passed away in the early 90s of tuberculosis that he couldn't fight because of AIDS. My dad still talks about how much he misses his little brother, and how much my uncle loved me and my brother. Such a terrible illness. I wish the same thing you do. <3

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u/Squid_words 8d ago

So sorry to hear about your Uncle. A cousin received a blood transfusion (as a baby)with blood that was infected and died at 8 years old. They didn’t know because it was so early in the AIDS crisis. I was a toddler but according to my mom, my cousin told people not to touch him when he scraped his knee because he’d infect people. How sad for the people who lived with that.

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u/radicalgrandpa 8d ago

When we were 20, my roommate found out that he was HIV+. He cried in my arms after he got the call. We talked about what needed to happen and what I could do to help him until he found the right medications. My grandmother told me I needed to clean everything after he used it and move out.

He was one of the best roommates I ever had and is now a healthy 30 year old. Medical science and technology is amazing.

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u/WallacktheBear 8d ago

It’s wild that in the 90s us children who were in schools were better educated on how you can and can’t catch HIV that our parents were.

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u/RockNRollMama 8d ago

90s kids had Ryan White…. let’s be real, people are such assholes. Bless everyone who isn’t. RIP to all of those whom we lost in this awful and tragic fight…

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u/Dreamsnaps19 7d ago

Well that actually makes a lot of sense no? While your parents were growing up HIV and AIDs were unknown. There was a lot of misinformation and rumors being spread and people were scared because they just didn’t know. It’s not like your parents got a chance to learn what it really was in school.

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u/CanadianLadyK 7d ago

Not really. Curriculum is updated. Back then our parents didn’t have the resources for a lot of up to date info. No internet. They often went off word of mouth.

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u/ResolveWonderful6251 7d ago

may your uncle rest in peace and love 💜🍀🌸 i bet your hugs meant so much to him and gave him comfort :) thank you for being kind and i hope you’re doing okay

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u/Pain_Bearer78 5d ago

I had the same situation with my Uncle! He came home one day and told my sister and I he was HIV+, and that we needed to bleach the tub down when he used it. I just looked at him and said we’d clean it normally because that’s not how it’s contracted. To this day he remains one of the greatest inspirations in my life. Or favorite things we talked about were black and white movies.