Jim: A Life with AIDS

 

I landed here in Tkaronto in the spring of 1995, having hopped onto a Japan Airline flight with a one-way ticket, along with my papa and two siblings.  We reunited with my mom who was already here working as a live-in caregiver.  Through the sacrifice of my parents, we found ourselves living together in a one-bedroom apartment on Eastdale Ave, in the East York neighbourhood of Toronto, crowded, but happy to be reunited.

It was difficult for me as a 14-year old teenager trying to integrate into a new culture.  My mom's employer gifted my brother a bike, which I used to ride around the Main and Danforth Street neighbourhood, exploring the different scenes.  I was also learning more about my own sexuality.  For this, the Toronto Public Library branches became both my refuge and source of knowledge.  I would spend hours and hours of my free time hanging out in the different branches that I could get to around the city.  The TPL especially became very important sites of resource when I first heard of the Holocaust.  But that's a topic for another post.

In learning about my queerness, and what it meant to be gay, I would search the TPL archives using keywords such as "gay" or "homosexual".  Through this, I read the biography of Boy George, The Front Runner by Warren, and a book called Jim: A Life With AIDS, written by the legend June Callwood (RIP), among other books that I could get my hands to and able to muster the courage to go up to the library clerk to borrow with my card.

Jim is the true story of a gay man living in Toronto who was, at the time, the longest living person with AIDS in Canada.  Jim, a pseudonym, was an actor, and grew up being a Jehovah's Witness.  The book not only told the story of his activism benefitting PWA's, it also told the story of his painful struggle in reconciling his sexuality with his faith.

To say that Jim affected me as a queer teenager is an understatement.  At 16 or 17 years old, I sobbed and cried as I read through the pages where he prayed to God to help him with his sexuality.  He couldn't understand how God could create him as a gay man.  It was hard for him to reconcile.  Jim's story had a profound effect on me.  I loved the book so much that, as a teenager, I stole a copy from TPL, and I still have that copy in my library to this day (sorry TPL!  I paid it back in donations, years after).

There is an AIDS memorial near the 519 where it lists the names of those who died of AIDS locally.  My ex's name, Martin Zabaleta's name is engraved in it.  However, I've always wondered if Jim's real name is there.  Since reading the book, I always had this idea of wanting to reach out to June, the author, to see if I can ask her more about Jim.  Sadly, June has since passed.  But I'd still like to reach out to her estate to see if they can tell me more about Jim.  It's certainly a good project idea to work on, in the future.