Disease Reunites Some Families : AIDS Shatters Some Lives, Heals Others

AIDS, the deadly disease that has shattered so many lives, is also mending others by bringing about peace in some families once torn apart by the discovery of homosexuality.

“There are a lot of mothers out there who are worried and making contact with their (gay) children,” said Susan Habif, a counselor with AIDS Project L.A. in Los Angeles. “People are being required on both sides to examine their relationships, out of absolute desperate necessity.”

David Carlat, a counselor for L.A. Cares, an AIDS educational program, agrees. “It’s a naturally occuring event. A friend of mine said the other day his brother called--he hadn’t heard from him in a long time--to say his family is worried and is he all right?”

Habif recalls one mother who, after discovering her estranged homosexual son had AIDS, moved in with him and his lover. “She took care of him until he died.”

But counselors in the gay community point out that such attempts at peace making are sometimes fleeting and, by no means, universal.

Gay men still talk of families who refuse to see them because they fear catching the disease, or who view AIDS as God’s punishment for their homosexuality.

Those actually diagnosed as having AIDS often still report being deserted by family or being treated “like lepers.”

“They say, ‘You got into this, now you get out of it,’ ” Habif said.

11,000 Victims

More than 11,000 people nationwide now suffer from acquired immune deficiency syndrome, a disease that destroys the immune system and leaves the body vulnerable to a wide variety of dangerous ailments.

The disease has stricken mostly homosexual males, but is now spreading into the general population as well.

By the end of 1986, federal investigators expect the number of AIDS victims to soar to 100,000 nationwide. Experts believe that as many as 1 million people may have been infected with the AIDS virus.

The mortality rate is believed to be nearly 100%. There is no proven cure.

Los Angeles County health officials currently report the number of confirmed cases to be 993--510 of them fatalities. Los Angeles has the third-largest number of victims in the nation, trailing New York, which has 3,757, and San Francisco, which has 1,308.

Greater Public Awareness

Counselors say there are several ingredients creating the new atmosphere of reconciliation. For instance, the rising number of AIDS cases discovered in the heterosexual population has helped the general pubic become more aware of the disease.

The news of movie star Rock Hudson’s battle against AIDS also has focused intense attention on it.

Such factors emphasize the “vulnerability of everyone” to the disease, said one AIDS counselor. Most fear that fact, he added, and some resent homosexuals because of it.

But the fear prompts others to heal--or at least attempt to heal--old wounds. “Some families become closer, that’s true. There is a real movement back toward family,” said Hal Carter, a clinical psychiatrist active in the gay community. “Whether that is an honest reconciliation of their relationship is hard to say.” Peacemaking is strongest, he said, in families in which a member is diagnosed as suffering from AIDS.

Bringing families back together sometimes also “demystifies” homosexuality and makes it easier to understand or accept, even if families continue to disapprove, Habif said.

The mother who moved in with her son and his gay lover learned, she said, “in the end, they were just two people living together. Just two people not much different from other people.”