Talking About Angels

As I continue to go through things that patients have given me over the years, I was reading again The Angel Book that was given to me by a patient around 1990.

Both he and his brother were patients of ours. Both died of AIDS. Their sister was the angel because she helped take care of her brothers during their dying days.

I visited her couple of weeks ago because I wanted some other photos that she may have so that we could send them to the AIDS archive being developed at the University of Rochester.

I brought the book with me and we reminisced. She talked a little bit about her experiences with her brothers, Max and Jack.

I remember when Jack gave me the book. I sat next to him, away from the doctor desk. This book was beautifully wrapped with a ribbon. And he said to me, “Maybe this will help you with your work.” He said, “I don't know how you do what you do.”

I thought to myself, you and your brother and your family are doing the hard work.

A patient, Jack, gave me The Angel Book, and inscribed it simply “Just Thanks, Bill.” Provided by Dr. Bill Valenti

He had inscribed the book “Just Thanks, Bill” and signed it with both their names.

I haven't opened it every day, but I know exactly where I put it and I could see it as I was passing in and out of one room or another.

I've always valued it because it came from two very sweet guys who helped each other through their illness.

Max had gone to New York to be a model and he didn't make it in the modeling business. So he became a computer guy

Jack was an actor, and he spent some time with the avant-garde Shipping Dock Theatre and I ran into him a number of times.

One of the photos that their sister had was of the brothers’ squares on an AIDS Quilt when the brothers died.

And it is so appropriate for Jack, the theater guy, his square was in sequins. It's beautifully done. Sparkly, just like Jack. And it's a line from Hamlet.

When Hamlet dies, his best friend, Horatio, takes Hamlet's head in his hands and pulls it to his chest, looks at him and says,

“Good night, sweet Prince.

May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.”

That is what’s on Jack’s quilt square.

The sequined message on Jack’s quilt square. Provided by Dr. Bill Valenti

It's beautiful and it speaks to the energy of Jack, his passion for theater and what a decent guy he was.

Jack and Max’s sister wrote to me after their passing. The letter is in the Heartline art installation at Trillium on South Union Street. Provided by Dr. Bill Valenti

It also speaks, especially in the early days of the epidemic, of the trauma that is inflicted on families.

The sister has been an inspiration, a long-time friend of Community Health Network and now Trillium Health.

She wrote me a letter after her brothers died, and it’s part of an LGBTQ art installation at the Trillium building on South Union Street.

So her family is a permanent part of our legacy and speaks to the power of family and community in dealing with the AIDS epidemic.