My Father Gave My Mother AIDS

It was a love affair to remember.

Eventually we all left home...going out into the world at the time of free love and flower power, seeking to create in our lives that same bond we witnessed between Russell and Angelina.

By Citizen Correspondent Christina Anonymous

Date Posted: 11/07/08

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Hollywood's 1952 film The Gift of the Magi retells O'Henry's 1906 story of love and self-sacrifice. With no money for their first Christmas, Jim, played by Farley Granger, sets out to sell his gold watch passed down to him by his father to purchase tortoise shell hair combs for beloved wife Della, played by Jeanne Crain, who is out selling her hair for the purchase of a gold chain for Jim's watch. When I saw this movie as a young girl, I knew I was watching the life of my father and mother, filled with the same depth of love, so connected to each other.

Theirs was a love that no one could else could share in, not even the five children they produced.

My father, Russell, was a tall, handsome blonde with piercing hazel eyes, a Marine Corp officer and gentleman, putting God and country first. He was a faithful and devoted husband to my mother, Angelina, a petite Italian with soulful, adoring eyes.

In her younger days he would lovingly sit and comb her long, beautiful black hair, whenever he was home on military leave, just long enough to father another mouth to feed. Dad was stern and impatient with his "little brood," which interrupted his love affair with his beloved.

Eventually all us kids left home, one by one, going out into the world at the time of free love and flower power, seeking to create in our lives that same bond we witnessed between Russell and Angelina. We found our own spouses to fill in the gap created by the exclusion from their world.

March 1990

Mom had a headache that wasn't going away. In fact, it was getting worse. Mom never complained about anything, ever. Maybe that's why my parents got along so well. But now she began to cry about her head hurting and aspirins not helping. Dad took mom to the doctor, who said, "Just a headache. Go home and ride it out."

They were obedient patients that trusted doctors... until mom's headache got so bad she couldn't talk or walk. Rushing mother to the emergency room, dad demanded some test that revealed a brain tumor known as a glioblastoma. Two weeks after the surgery dad told all of us to pray for mom.