Gardening in Clay : : Reflections on AIDS / / Ronald O. Valdiserri.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Cornell University Press Archive Pre-2000
• VerfasserIn: Valdiserri, Ronald O.,
• Place / Publishing House: Ithaca, NY : : Cornell University Press, , [2019]; ©1994
• Year of Publication: 2019
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (128 p.)

Writing both as a physician fighting the spread of AIDS and as a brother living with the loss of his twin to the disease, Ronald O. Valdiserri faces the epidemic with clarity and compassion. Gardening in Clay is the testimony of a doctor who saw AIDS emerge from the remote pages of medical journals to become the killer of his own brother. In a sequence of brief essays reflecting on personal loss with unprecedented insight into the social circumstances of the AIDS epidemic, the author illuminates a path from private anguish to public urgency.Valdiserri's observations about the blindness offear and prejudice surrounding AIDS in the United States need to be heard everywhere. Deeply aware of the worth of each life sacrificed, he writes with conviction about the emptiness of viewing illness as a failure of individual responsibility, about the necessity that AIDS be perceived as "our" disease rather than "theirs," and about the validity—and the power—of rage.Against the suffering caused by AIDS and the added cruelty of widespread victim-blaming, Valdiserri weighs the promise of natural renewal. He writes of his dying brother's last garden, a place where strength and courage could be rewarded with life and beauty. And against the temptation to lose hope in the fate of the enormity of the problem, Valdiserri raises a vision of healing. He likens the battle against AIDS to the struggle of gardening in soil filled with clay. If we continue to learn from each bitter loss, he believes, with every season there will be new growth.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- Weeds -- Garden Memories -- About My Brother -- Organic Chemistry of the Spirit -- The Epidemiology of Anger -- Changing for the Better -- Pieces of the Puzzle -- Studying Disease -- Social Mythology -- Suffering -- Horror Movies -- Science Fiction -- Patience -- Icebergs -- Seeing Things as They Are -- Down There -- Memento Mori -- Afterlife -- Potsherds and Dinner Plates -- Touch and Comfort -- Second Chances -- Remembrance -- Family Values -- My Father s Bakery -- The Language of Flowers -- Gardening in Clay