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Each Tuesday evening, a dozen or so men take their places arounda Formica table on the fourth floor of St. Vincent's Hospital. Onthe wall is a drawing of St. Jude, the patron saint of hopeless causes. The books on the shelves have titles such as "Death Education" and "Anticipatory Grief." A couple of flowerless geraniums rest on the nearby windowsill.
The men in this most unusual group are the surviving mates of men who have died of AIDS - a disease that, along with almost certain death, carries with it a stigma that forces the men into isolation at a time when they can least afford it.
"We get Wall Street types with their three-piece suits and their briefcases, construction workers and people in advertising," said Kathleen Perry, a social worker who runs these unique bereavement groups. So far, only one participant in the groups has succumbed to the disease that took his lover. "They're in so much pain," Perry said, "and they do not have the normal sanctions for grieving."
Psychiatrists and social workers are just beginning to focus on the problems of the AIDS survivor. St. Vincent's is one of only a handful of institutions to run bereavement groups for AIDS survivors. It is run by a nun and a social worker who conduct the sessions on their own time and without funds from the hospital. Social workers at Beth Israel Hospital are planning a similar program.
"We had a high-school principal who'd lost his lover of 27 years," Perry said. "He lived in a suburban house and he said, `Look, we've lived together for 27 years; they must know.' But people don't come over. It's not the same support a heterosexual couple would get."
Many people with AIDS live out their last years as pariahs, suffering miserable, often lonely, deaths. Many of them leave behind lovers who, like them, are homosexuals, and whose ordeals also are largely unparalleled in this modern age of wonder drugs and cures for contagious diseases.
Survivors have nursed their dying partners through debilitating illnesses, ranging from chronic diarrhea to dementia to pneumonia, wondering whether they, too, will get sick. Their lovers' families sometimes shut them out of the funerals. Landlords seek to evict them from their...