Performance at an AIDS Hospice - Personal Statement Example

"The Patient" I used to be a part of a performing arts group called "Ashe" that trained young people in singing, dancing and acting. It was very hectic because I had up to four hours of rehearsals two nights a week, and a full half-day on Saturdays. It was challenging, because we were in the Academy (the junior group) and wanted to excel to the level of the Ensemble (the senior professional group) of twelve magnificent performers who could pull off plis, rlevs, jets and pirouettes like a flamingo, sing like larks and take on any roles like true Thespians. For the year that I was in Ashe, we had three chances to perform for the public: once at the state penitentiary (a thrilling yet scary experience), next at the two-week Christmas season at the Ashe Theater, and then, the one that changed my life forever: a visit and performance at an AIDS hospice. It was a Wednesday afternoon in June, and I almost didn't go to rehearsals because I had a lot of assignments to do and a class from 5-6, but things were getting really exciting at Ashe and I hated missing a single day. We were in the middle of a cruel dance workout with our director and choreographer "Joe-Joe", when our music teacher, Conrad, came over and whispered in his ear. "O.K. guys, you leave in ten minutes!" We were at a loss to know what "Joe-Joe" meant, until Conrad brought us some tie-and-died t-shirts and urged us to don them quickly while explaining that we were going to sing "Friends" (Dionne Warwick), a song that we had been rehearsing, at a special occasion. He gave no further details. He crammed us into the bus, ran a quick warm up and role-check (I was singing the female lead) and took us away under the cover of night like Ali Baba and the Forty (in our case, Four) Thieves! We arrived at a suburban house in an unfamiliar part of town. Under a majestic tree with protective far-spreading branches sat about a hundred people in clusters of threes and fours. It wasn't what I had expected. I thought we were going to perform on a real stage, but a house Little did I know that due to the stigma on AIDS at the time, the hospices were kept secret, to avoid the scorn of local residents. Conrad hustled us "backstage", which was only inside the house, as we were to perform in under ten minutes. At first we stood in a confused huddle in a semi-lighted corner of the entrance hall, but little by little, events started to pull our uncomprehending attention to our unbelievable surroundings. The first shock to my system was when a man - medium height, with muscles and a firm build that he showed off with a black muscle-shirt and a tight-fitting jeans - sauntered by us and hugged and kissed Conrad on the cheek (Conrad was tall and skinny with knock-knees). I imagined my jaws dropped open (but I really didn't react just then), as I registered the similarity in the two men: the bald head, the earrings in both ears. I exchanged a glance with my then-best-friend Stephanie, and I saw her eyes growing round like an 'O'. Our eyes said everything. Now I awoke to the half-closed doors that lined one side of the hall. Through one I could just make out beds on which were hanging sore-dotted feet. Then as I watched, a women started going in and out of the rooms, bearing food, medication, towels, and a long-suffering expression on her face. Steph and I sidled to a more advantageous point for snooping, and lived to regret it. Inside one room were three beds and three painfully meager, pot-bellied, half-naked children, who looked as if they were living just to die. One of them was a boy with an everlasting head and a tiny body. The little that he had was either covered in bandages or running sores that the "nurse" had to keep bathing in a pungent liquid and threaten him not to touch. In the second room a fairly young man was staring in melancholy at his amputated leg, while on the bed beside his, a male "nurse" was having a hard time trying to feed an emaciated man who would yell for food as soon as the nurse was gone, but would turn from it in revulsion as soon as it was brought to him. And then there was a stirring of tension in the house. Something terrible was in the air - no one had as yet said anything, nor was there any change in the movements or sounds that I could perceive, but I had this sick feeling in my gut that something beyond awful was about to happen or had happened. A "nurse" flew out of the room that had remained closed, scurried across the hall, and returned with the other two "nurses" and a long white cot. On their faces were a strained look of tortured composure. One of them whispered to Conrad, who came over to us as the "nurses" went into the room and closed the door behind them. Conrad came over to us. "We have to go in the living room," he said. "We can't stay here right now." "Why What's the matter" I asked. Before he could explain or shuttle us out of the hall, the door re-opened and the two male nurses emerged, carrying between them a sight of absolute terror, such as I never hope to see again: what appeared to be a body, wrapped in a white cloth from head to toe, but what was merely two 5-foot long bones on the cot. A shiver of horror ran through my body and reverberated in shock waves through my four fellow performers who were trying to decide between turning their faces away as Conrad feebly urged, or to stare in horror at the receding spectacle. It was then that Conrad found his voice - which came out like a little girl's squeak: "She was only eighteen." As if on cue, they came to announce our performance just then, and robot-like I walked out to the patio - our stage - with Conrad's last words in my ear: "Use what you just saw and sing from that place." "Oh, what a wonderful world it would be, if we all opened up our eyes to see" The words of the song suddenly meant something to me, and tears were in my eyes as I sang, "Oh, on my honor, I see every man as my brother" No, not just my brother. I saw myself in that girl, who was my age, who died in my presence of a terrible disease that none of us is immune from. I left Ashe not long after but I've never forgotten that night. The image of that girl - a girl like me, reduced to nothing but bones - will always remain in my mind to remind me of how frail we are, how close to death we all are. Read More