6.12.19
/ Community

Louise cared for friends who died from AIDS complications. Today, she volunteers for them.

By Emmett Findley, Director of Marketing & Communications

In our series “God’s Love Stories of Pride” we tell the stories of our donors, volunteers, and clients post-Stonewall. Hear from Louise Kramer, our longtime volunteer, about what brought her to God’s Love, and why she stays.

“I had been a reporter on the health beat at a NJ daily in the late ’80s and wrote extensively on AIDS at the height of the crisis when people were dying all around us. I moved to NYC in 1990 and connected to God’s Love. For the next four years I volunteered on the Wednesday evening shift. I was no longer writing what I thought were important articles about AIDS but I felt that I was filling a need I had to help deal with the crisis in my own tiny way.
 
In 1994 a good friend was dying of AIDS-related causes and my husband and I were his care buddies. He had a live-in partner, but we would step in and help. At the time my marriage was falling apart, but I stayed with my husband until John died. I felt it was my moral duty to stay at John’s side. We hosted a memorial service for John and I left soon after.
My older brother’s best friend from childhood, Gary, called me out of the blue to say he needed a friend and asked if we could get together. His partner had just died of AIDS. He lived around the corner from me and I was very involved in caring for him when he, too, was dying. I was with him when he died. After that I fell into a depression. Just too much sadness and hopelessness.
 
Flash forward to 2017. A great friend from the God’s Love family pulled me back in. I’ve been volunteering ever since.
 
I view my volunteering as a way to honor my dearly departed friends, among so many who died in the ’80s and early ’90s before there were medications that are available today. I feel like I am somehow connecting with them via God’s Love and it makes me feel good to be doing good.
I have had to deal with many of my own health issues including two kinds of cancer, and I feel like working at God’s Love is sharing that I care about others who are sick and that I understand how hard it is to cope, especially for those of us who live alone.
In terms Stonewall, one of my brothers is gay and so is my ex-husband. I am glad that we have come a little way forward since Stonewall to make it easier for people to live in a more inclusive environment.
 
And, by the way, my ex-husband is my best friend in the world.”
#AIDS #HIV #louise kramer #stonewall #stories of pride