Instead of the End, AIDS Proved to Be Their Beginning

There was a time when Herb Hall thought Valentine’s Day never would mean anything to him again. It was 1989, and it wasn’t as though he wanted to come out of the closet and tell everyone his past included a promiscuous life, but the jolting AIDS diagnosis he just received left him little choice. For the next year, he wallowed in depression and thoughts of dying.

There was a time when Janice Barrett thought Valentine’s Day never would mean anything to her again, either. It was 1993 when, 2 1/2 years into a heterosexual relationship, she found out she had AIDS.

Two people with AIDS. Two people who, for a time, gave up on love.

So, it’s nice to report that Barrett and Hall are planning to share a quiet romantic dinner tonight and celebrate their mutual good fortune, including their impending marriage.

We’re not conditioned to think of people with AIDS as having good fortune, but Barrett and Hall turn a lot of notions on their heads.

“You know how I felt when I first found out I had AIDS?” Barrett says. “I was only 40 years old and I thought, ‘I’m too young never to have sex the rest of my life, I’m too young not to ever have another relationship, but who in their right mind would ever want to get involved with me?’ ”

Full of trepidation, she went to a support group for AIDS patients at Fountain Valley Regional Hospital and of the 10 or so others at the meeting, one was Herb Hall.

By then, he had lived four years with his AIDS diagnosis. Doctors told him he probably had been infected as far back as 1979. Hall says he lived a “pretty promiscuous” life with lots of male partners but had not had gay sex for five years before being diagnosed. A lifelong devout Baptist, Hall had wrestled with the beliefs that taught him homosexuality was a sin, and he finally abandoned sex with other men.

In fact, he was dating a woman when, realizing his past put him at risk, he took an HIV test. The full-blown AIDS diagnosis ended the relationship. For the first time in his life, Hall’s faith wavered. “I said, ‘God, this isn’t fair. I changed my life and I’m serving you. It isn’t fair that I’ve got AIDS.’ So, in the beginning I was angry with God. Then I realized he loved me just as much then as he does now, so I put my faith back in God and since then it has not wavered. Then I met Janice.”

With strong religious faith and their AIDS-awareness work bonding them, Hall and Barrett became friends shortly after their meeting in 1993.

But it wasn’t until last November, when Barrett’s narcolepsy led her to fall asleep in church with her head on Hall’s shoulder, that they moved to the next phase. Touched, Hall told Barrett that night he wanted a serious dating relationship. She had turned down his date requests on other occasions, but that night she said yes. “I don’t know why I said yes,” Barrett says, laughing. “I believe God is putting us together.”

They went out the next night and again the next week. The night after that, he proposed, telling her he had loved her almost from the day they met three years ago. “I thought I could never get married, never have a relationship,” Hall says. “Yet, I always knew if I did, it would have to be someone who already had the virus. I just figured it never would happen. When I met Janice, I thought no one could ever love me, knowing of my past and what I’d done.”

Both still devote most of their time to AIDS-related efforts, Barrett through the AIDS Services Foundation and Red Cross and Hall through a local ministry called He Intends Victory (HIV), begun at the Village Church of Irvine by pastor Bruce Sonnenberg.

Barrett, now 44, and the 40-year-old Hall know that AIDS will affect their lives together. Barrett worries about which one may get seriously ill before the other. On the other hand, they’ve also talked about not letting their AIDS work dominate their married life.

For now, for this Valentine’s Day, life looks good. What seemed impossible now seems possible. “I kept thinking, she couldn’t love me,” Hall says.

Turns out she could. The two haven’t set a wedding date, and, in a nice touch, neither feels rushed.

“I’m enjoying every day of my life,” Hall says. “We live with AIDS and permanent illness, and our lives might be over tomorrow, but how many people out there might be in a car accident or have a heart attack and be gone? The question is, are they living their lives? I can truthfully say I have lived my life. When we get married, that’s going to be the final chapter of my life. That will fulfill my life.”

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.