Permanent Ink

I talked with a fellow today who had a very interesting tattoo. As someone with more than a handful of tattoos, I’m always interested in the artwork that other people choose as their own. This one was particularly interesting.

It was on his forearm, not more than 1 1/2” wide and maybe that tall. It was very simple: HIV+. Four characters, quite identifiable in just about every corner of the world.

Why, I asked him, would he wear his HIV status on his arm for all the world to see. This is where the story got interesting.

Seems the guy lost his wife to AIDS several years ago. He’s an American who was working in London when he fell in love with a woman from Guyana. He knew she was HIV positive when they met, but he couldn’t deny his love for her. Not long after they met, the couple wed in a simple ceremony and moved to Bermuda. His wife had been shunned by her community and his job allowed him the opportunity to work from many locations, so Bermuda seemed an ideal place for them to begin their life as a couple.

After less than six months of marriage, the woman became quite ill. She was in and out of the hospital for several months. The last time he took her to the hospital—for Kaposi’s sarcoma—she developed a lung condition that would claim her life.

The man soon moved back to London, trying to put his life back together. One night while wandering the streets alone he stopped into a rough-looking tattoo parlor. He’d never had a tattoo, nor had he ever considered getting one. But that night, sober as a board, he sat down in front of a tattoo artist and told him what he wanted. In less than 20 minutes the man walked out of the tattoo parlor branded for life: HIV+

The fascinating part of this story is that the man is actually HIV-negative. He had been tested regularly before his wedding, he and his bride had practiced protected sex, and he’d been tested even after her death. Each time the result was the same: HIV-negative.

Why, then, would a healthy young man have such a tattoo? He explained that, at the moment of the inking, he wanted to experience the same stigma his wife faced every day of her life in her community. But it has actually turned out to be much more than that. In fact, he uses that tattoo every day as an educational tool.

“We all have choices,” he told me. “We can be negative or positive when it comes to people living with HIV or AIDS. I choose to be positive for those living with HIV and and I want to share this with the world.”

So today this man—an international journalist—rolls up his sleeves and goes to work. When people ask him about the tattoo, he talks with compelling confidence about the need to support people living with HIV or AIDS. It is, for him, a personal ministry to reduce the stigma surrounding HIV.

Had it been even a couple of years later, he know that his wife could have received treatment that would have allowed her to live a full, productive life. He also knows that many people who are doing so with HIV are still stigmatized in their communities.

His simple act of getting a small tattoo, just so he could feel his wife’s pain, has turned into a true education opportunity for lots of other people. I have to admit that I have a very good idea for my next tattoo.