‘I’m one of the few volunteers who works in the AIDS unit. I love the boys.’

When her son David was in the hospital seven years ago, Dinah Shapoff visited the director of volunteers. She was offered a job in the gift shop, but she insisted on working with patients. She is still making the rounds at Sherman Oaks Memorial Hospital two days a week and spends much of her time with patients in the 18-bed AIDS unit. Shapoff lives in Van Nuys.

I enjoy working all over the hospital. That’s sort of my exercise. When I get there in the morning, I go into the kitchen, and the dietitian leaves the menus for me to distribute.

I start at the burn center and work my way through the whole hospital. I give them out to the patients. There are many patients who can’t fill them out. Some of them are blind and in the burn unit some have their hands bandaged, so I help them fill out their menus.

When I’m in the AIDS unit during the day, I’ll ask them if they want coffee or ice cream or fruit. Since they know me in the kitchen, I’ll go down and tell them, “These are for my boys.”

I’m one of the few volunteers who works in the AIDS unit. I love the boys. You can’t believe what wonderful guys they are. You see, when I look at a person, I look at you from within. I just don’t look at you from the outside. A lot of people say, “I can’t stand them. I can ‘t stand they way they live.”

Why is it anybody’s business how they live? I don’t care who they’re sleeping with. I don’t care how they live, if they’re not hurting anyone, if this is their life style. I don’t know whether they choose to be gay or whether it’s something they can’t help.

When I started working in the AIDS unit, I didn’t tell a lot of the volunteers. I thought they would ostracize me. If they did, they did, but that wasn’t going to stop me from working with the boys. I felt they needed a friend.

I’m a toucher. I’ll touch the boys’ faces when I’m talking to them. I’ll massage their arms, just to let them know that I’m not repulsed. I hug them, they hug me. They kiss me on the cheek, I kiss them on the cheek.

When I go in, one of the patients will say, “Dinah, I didn’t get my hug today.” And I will just throw my arms around him and hug him. They need that touching.

People don’t know enough about AIDS. They say to me, “You go into their rooms?” When they say that, I don’t even tell that I touch them, because they would think it was terrible. The public is very frightened, you know. But the public is becoming more aware. Now the families are coming to visit the patients. The friends are coming.

You know what hurts? Patients come in and they are treated and they go home. Then they come back again a few months later. And each time they come back their condition is worse. And then some of them go into intensive care. And, God, you don’t think they’re going to make it. When I come in the next time, I check the computer to see if they are still there.

One young man died there, and a few weeks later his lover came up. I went over and we embraced, and he said to me, “Dinah, I want to thank you for being so good to Javier and to the boys up here.” And I said, “Well, I loved Javier.” And he said, “I loved him too.”

One patient said to me, he’s since passed away, he said, “Dinah, why do people make such a big fuss about the way we live?” He said, “Love is very important. And the important thing is to love, not who you love.”

My sympathy is there because I live with a problem too. My son is brain damaged. He can’t help the way he is, and I hope people are understanding about him. So I certainly give these boys all the understanding I think they need. I feel that if you’ve had a couple of knocks in your own life, then there’s a greater understanding. Maybe that’s the way it’s worked for me.

I get my rewards from the patients. They tell me, “You don’t know how good you make me feel.” Bob said something so beautiful to me yesterday. He said, “Dinah, you light up my room.” That is better than getting a paycheck at the end of the week. It’s just wonderful.