Belinda, Our Tremendous Gift

Belinda, Our Tremendous Gift by Artie Ann Bates When Belinda Ann Mason is introduced as a member of the prestigious National Commission on AIDS it goes something like this: "Mother of two children who contracted AIDS through a blood transfusion during childbirth." Belinda thinks that is not very telling and would prefer to rewrite it, since there seems to be a subliminal message that anyone who contracted AIDS by other means did so by choice. Her rewriting would say that she is from a rural area and that she loves Conway Twitty. Also it would say that more than anything she loves sitting at her Granny's house watching All My Children with her. Being fellow Letcher Countians and college buddies at the University of Kentucky ten years ago, I have rediscovered my old friend through her writings . Because we live six hours apart 3 and because we are both extremely swamped with work and family, we have had to visit by telephone. Yet I now know her better than when we were in college because her work is so expressive and clear. After reviewing a large amount of Belinda's creative writing and work with AIDS, my conclusion is that she is a genius, and strikingly similar to Harriette Arnow. She is a master storyteller and playwright, an eloquent speech writer and orator. She is a thinker who takes command of an audience and holds them in the strong web of her words. A large part of Belinda's writing is present in her hometown of Whitesburg, Kentucky. At APPALSHOP, the wellknown media center, her plays are under contract with Roadside Theater. A video tape in progress consisting of a speech to Southern Baptist Ministers, an informal interview at her home, and a speech to a group of doctors and medical students at the University of Kentucky was recorded by Herb E. Smith and Anne Johnson. This will be shown as part of the Headwaters series on Kentucky Educational Television (KET). Another large segment of Belinda's work is being archived in the Special Collections of the M.I. King Library at the University of Kentucky in Lexington . This includes numerous short stories and poems as well as a novel in progress about a young boy, Merle, who contracts AIDS through a blood transfusion . As I plug in the VCR tape entitled "Belinda Excerpts" I feel a quiet excitement as if my friend will jump out of the television. How I wish it were posible. Though we have talked by phone, I have not seen Belinda since early 1987, three months after she was infected with HIV. Belinda comes onto the screen penetrating my eyes, ears, and chest with her presence and her words. She has changed a bit, I think, as she talks with her same mountain drawl. She is more beautiful than I remembered, perhaps because she is dressed for a crowd. Her heart-shaped face and soft lisp deliver words of great weight. Belinda is speaking to a group of Southern Baptist Ministers in the first part of this tape. Her message is clear and precise, her mission as a spokesperson for AIDS is unmistakable. "AIDS is a test, not for the people who are infected but for the rest of society. Will we extend the hand of compassion and touch of Christ to others? . . . We must put away the label of victim of AIDS, there are no innocent or guilty victims, nobody planned to get it ... . AIDS can be less about dying than about choosing how to live .... Nothing can ever separate us from the love of God. Nourish and cherish the people in your life, they are lessons for you." Her voice in this speech is unrelenting. Because she is a person with AIDS quite different from the norm, she is easier to accept. Because of her race, financial status, private pay insurance, family and church support, she is one of the privileged. Belinda delivers the serious message that we have lost more people to AIDS that to the Vietnam War. Blacks, Hispanics , homosexuals, and drug users suffer a social prejudice that numbs us from the seriousness of AIDS. Yet "we are all God...