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The 2022 HIV Drug Chart and POZ Poll: Have You Ever Taken Anti-Depressants?

It’s been about three weeks since my mother passed to spirit. In my tribute, I wrote about how I suspected she’d sent me a nudge just after she passed. I’ve certainly heard her voice in my mind since... 

But before I get to the supernatural portion of this blog post, I need to fill in some gaps. At the end of June I was one of seven judges for Miss Virginia 2022. This of course deserves it’s own blog post, which hopefully will happen. One of my goals for the remainder of this year is to share a little bit more here. Writing, like music, is a pretty important part of my life and how I express the emotions that this world conjures. I put my music on hold for now, which makes writing even more of priority. I’m wildly inconsistent with follow through, so we shall see how that goes.

Anyhoo, after my last Synthetic Division show I tested negative for COVID-19, and was pleasantly surprised. After Miss Virginia, I wasn’t so lucky. Two days before my mom passed, I tested positive. She didn’t want a service or anything like that, so me testing positive didn’t heap too much added pain onto the pyre. The morning we got the news, Gwenn (who’d tested positive as well) and I masked up and saw my dad and brother briefly, then returned home to rest and recover.

Which we did, thankfully.

As far as COVID-19 goes, it was somewhat similar to when I had it in July of 2021, only this time I knew I actually had it. Last summer I found out a couple of months after the fact, when I tested positive for antibodies. Both times with COVID-19 I had a superficial cough, runny nose, a fever for a couple of days and fatigue. I tested positive for about twelve days, and kept in touch with my family on the phone.

After testing negative, Gwenn and I met the fam at mom’s gravesite, where we shared some words and laughs. It was just Mom’s hubby, her boys and their better halves, granddaughters and future grandson-in-law. As I got started I said: “Mom- this isn’t a memorial... we just all happened to show up here at the same time, right everyone? Right?”

In the days after she passed, I was sleeping in longer than I have due to COVID. Two days in a row, when I finally felt rested enough to start the day, I looked at the clock, which read “1:23”. I was born at 1:23 A.M.! In a smoke-filled room because doctors could smoke willy nilly in the mid 70s. Well, mom always said he was puffing away. (“Don’t ever doubt your mother!”)

Okay, okay Mom... but there was comfort in seeing that number and feeling her presence. A much better way of starting those days dismissing it as a mere coincidence. Actually, the first day I did. Completely forgot about it until the same time stared at me the next my-morning your afternoon. That’s when I wisened up and realized she was checking in just to make sure I got through yet another round of viral adventures...

I’m feeling much better now, Mom, so don’t worry.

Last Saturday I turned 47. Some years I take a “birthday week”. It’s obnoxious, but with my birthday falling on a weekend it felt like a must. And all week I just did little things to celebrate the joy of being alive. It was a nice week, and I felt my mother’s presence throughout. The most vivid example was on my birthday, I met my dad at the bowling alley and he gave me some pointers, helped me knock a little rust off of my game. On the way home, a drive over the mountain, the sky looked beautiful... the kind of cloud formations that

can take your breath away. I thought about pulling off on the Scenic View, then ruled it out.

“Pull over, Son...”

I gotta pee, Mom. 

“Oh good grief, you were able to make it home at age 8 you can make it home fine. Just pull over and take a damn picture for your mother, okay?”

With my parking orders laid out clearly, I stopped. I just looked out at the sky and beheld the beauty. I thought about what a nice day and week I had. All the love in my life I am so fortunate to have. I realized that, physically, I’ll never see my mother again. Not in the same ways that I’ve been accustomed to. Now the communication will have to be different. At some point, the signals I receive may become muted. If our souls travel to some other cosmic realm, free of these clunky bodies, then I think time itself is also altered on the other side. Time itself isn’t even a factor, as are so many of the guardrails that define this mortal portion of our journey.

One of the stories my mom used to tell, which I thought was the coolest thing ever, was that we lived in a haunted house for several months when I was a baby. Mom said that, in the morning, my crib would be in a different spot. The crib was too heavy for my three-year (maybe 4) old big brother, Kip, to move. Mom said that Kip would say that the people who moved it talked to me, and he was kind of irked because they would ignore him. Mom said there was no way for weirdos to get in my room without anyone noticing, and it was just before we moved that a neighbor informed her of the house’s “interesting” history of unexplained phenomenon.

In the last several years, I was playing 80s cover sets with my friends. I settled on wearing my AIDS Memorial shirt under a hot pink jacket. I did that because I wanted to acknowledge all of the people we lost in the 80s... the groups of friends that went out to dance to all of the music we were performing the first time those songs came around. In wearing that shirt, I was inviting any spirits poking about to come out for one more dance night if they felt like it.

Maybe some day I’ll find out if anyone took me up on the offer. 

As for my atheists out there, I see you. My spiritual beliefs might be off, I get that. The joy of my belief system is that it makes this mortal journey a bit more palatable. And it doesn’t take away from this experience. I’m welcoming my mother’s little messages for as long as she wants to send them, while also encouraging her to look over and guard some others that may need it more than me... she certainly did more than enough to make sure I’d be fine when she as here in the physical sense.

2022 has been a challenge. But there have been a lot of things to be thankful for. And I am so thankful for having had Pam (Moses) Decker for a mother.

“Thanks, Pookie.”

Positively Yours,
Shawn