Alison Gertz: Lady who was once a girl

Today I read about Alison Gertz (Wikipedia random, its a good way to learn new and random stuff).

I goggled more about her and got to know of a movie made on her life story. To quench my thirst of curiosity I watched “Fatal Love” the movie.

How precious life is? This question we never ask our self until and unless we are faced with the dilemma of losing it. Who could have thought that a mistake that you did when you were sixteen, could lead you to the arms of death. Death which should not come to a twenty six year old girl.

Alison Gertz, was diagnosed with HIV in 1988. She was a girl with full of hope, love and dreams, and all it took was one bad decision, one bad night for her to contrive this deadly disease. What has made her death apart from all the others is the fact that she did not hide herself and her illness. She took it into her stride and told the world about it, educated them. That was worth a million years that she could have lived. She was also awarded with Woman of the Year award by Esquire magazine.

Strange thing with us is that we do not discuss death, we do not discuss sickness. We want to avoid such conversations. We actually want to avoid the person who is sick. Does it matter? Yes, it does. It does matter when we lose someone dear to a chronic illness. But, we never think about it, as if it does not exist.

Time is changing and so are we with time. But, still I have seen so many people who does not want to talk about HIV. I am pretty sure, If they will know a person who has contracted this disease, they will never talk to him/her again. Nevertheless, ignoring something or someone has never ever helped in any situation (unless you are ignoring really really dumb people J ).

About the movie, Fatal Love, I love the way story is portrayed, without much of drama or blame game. Moll Ringwald who has played the part of Ali in the movie is quite extra ordinary in the role. She has done restrained acting, very thoughtful. I really like the scene when her father cried seeing a small girl coming out of elevator talking with her father, or the scene when she saw her boyfriend in the shower cleaning himself rigorously after having sex, and the scene when she asked her mother “What did I do?”.

What we can do? We can certainly open up. Talk about everything just everything, live a healthy life and live our life. Live it to the fullest. 🙂