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Before, During and After AIDS A Mother's Love and Memories by Joan Thomas Nelson is necessary read for everyone. I usually write objective reviews, but it is hard to do when something touches you deeply, brings you to tears, and provokes anger toward society.
Joan Thomas Nelson educates through the life of a mother, caregiver, son, family and friends. She shares the heart wrenching experience of the disease AIDS/HIV, thought patterns of a society with preconceived notions that this is a homosexual disease. I never have realized how ignorant people where during the 80's and 90's about the disease.
She writes a Mother's recollection so vividly from his birth until his spirit wisps toward the heavens. A caregiver’s guide to surviving AIDS because that is what this book is, coping, loving and living through HIV and its horrendous affects on the human body.
King was an extraordinary man full of vigor accepting people without judgment, prejudice, or umbrage. He had every right to become ill tempered, but never showed this toward his friends or family. His live and let live attitude should be a blessing toward anyone who reads this engrossing account of his life.
Nelson gives her entire soul to this project of preservation of what a family endures; a patient endures from beginning until the end. She allows you to travel through her grieving process, anger toward God, and numbness during her son's death.
You will cry, laugh and be educated through her information from Congress to the layperson. She offers places that will help you to cope with your loss, help the fight against AIDS and most of all let you know that without proper precautions ANYONE is susceptible to AIDS/HIV. Her love toward humanity is obvious, her Faith is evident, and her spirit is strong.
I would recommend this book to everyone. In my own life, I will buy this book and use it as a tool to promote abstinence in my young adult children, a precautionary tool for people in my age group who are rapidly on the incline of contracting the disease from lack of proper awareness and education.
My hat is off to Joan for allowing us to walk in her shoes if only from afar.
© 2005 CB Meador
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