'90S FAMILY : A Positive Move : The Lone Bright Spot for the Loved Ones of Someone With AIDS: Time Together--Back at the Family Home--to Heal Old Wounds and Love Again

By ROB CAMPBELL SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

Jan. 3, 1996 12 AM PT

There are many gay adults who feel apprehensive about visiting their parents. Tension crackles around the dinner table like static electricity, and they wonder if old wounds will be opened.

When gay men who have AIDS come back to the family home, it’s different. Often it is to stay. Facing illness and death, many want to air the past when there have been conflicts or estrangement. If parents are ready and willing, old resentments, anger and fears can be discussed. Reconciliation can ensue.

But it’s not easy. Most people with AIDS who return to their families wait until late in their illness, says Kathleen Zechmeister, a psychotherapist who has worked with the issues surrounding HIV and AIDS for 10 years. Often, she says, an infected person has not told his family that he is gay or HIV-positive until he has full-blown AIDS. Then the family must deal with two bombs at once.

Robert Oppenheimer, a social worker for the AIDS Initiative at the Actors’ Fund of America, says many people with AIDS must return to families despite past problems because they have nowhere else to turn for care. “In a lot of cases,” he says, “their partners have already died of AIDS and there’s no way for them to live alone.”

This kind of reunion doesn’t always lead to reconciliation. “People who work through unfinished business with their parents are people who have done work on themselves. They feel good about themselves, and it doesn’t matter what the parents think,” Oppenheimer says. “This often frees the parents to work through their own feelings.”

Jeff Higgins, 33, of Torrance, who has been HIV-positive for five years, describes the urge to get things out in the open. He says that being HIV-positive has prompted him to become much more open and honest with his mother, Marty, a new experience for his family. Having had an older brother die of AIDS and another brother commit suicide, Higgins says he and his mother felt this is their last chance to get closer to each other.

“We had a secretive family,” Higgins says, “you know, those Southern secrets--nobody wants to know your business. Now I tell everyone my business. We worked through a lot of things about the past, and my family educated themselves. I’d tell them read this or do this, and they’d actually do it.”

Higgins’ mother now lives across the street from him. “We have a great relationship,” Higgins says, “and she doesn’t hover over me or worry too much.”

Higgins says that his father has not been supportive and that the two have been estranged for years.

Higgins says that at the support group he attends through Being Alive South Bay, he is the old-timer. Several of the men who come to the group have not told their families they are gay or HIV-positive. Higgins says he advises them to tell their parents when they feel it’s right. “Some people say you have to tell your parents everything,” he says. “But you don’t have to do anything.”

Zechmeister urges parents of people with AIDS to “pull away their parenting veil and accept their children’s weaknesses and strengths as a person.” In her work, she has found that “what someone with AIDS wants more than anything is for people to be real.”

This is well understood in Tom and Brenda Freiberg’s household in Los Angeles near UCLA. The Freibergs’ oldest son, Brett, died of AIDS in 1991. Their son Michael, who is HIV-positive, moved back to Los Angeles from Santa Fe, N.M., three years ago for the superior medical care here.

“We found out they were HIV-positive literally a year apart,” says Brenda Freiberg. “There have been tons of changes since then. It’s brought us closer together. There’s lots of stuff that everybody had swept under the carpet. When you’re confronted with a terminal illness and you’ve chosen to really make everything count, what happens is that everyone wants to get that stuff out in the open, because nothing works unless you do.”

Michael, 30, lives in his own apartment on the west side of Los Angeles, but spends a lot of time at his parents’ home, especially when he is ill. He says he doesn’t have any tolerance for smoke screens: “I don’t smile and say everything’s fine if it’s not.”

“His perspicacity is incredible,” says Brenda Freiberg. “He cuts through everything. He tests me and pushes me to be honest. He wants that in my dealings with him and in my dealings with myself.”

Brenda Freiberg believes that the family has grown because of this crisis, but says that she and her husband still have to confront a lot of pain and anger. “You’re not talking to Pollyanna here,” she says. “There are times when it’s all too much to handle.”

Priscilla Levine, Western Region Coordinator of the AIDS initiative at the Actors’ Fund, believes that if any problems are to be resolved, it’s important that families of people with AIDS reach out to community agencies. (See accompanying list.)

When Brenda Freiberg learned that her oldest son was HIV-positive, she sought out others who were in her situation and educated herself. In turn, she has worked as a volunteer for many community organizations.

She visits parents from out of town who are in Los Angeles to see their children in hospitals. She says they often come from places where homosexuality and AIDS are still taboo topics, and end up discussing these issues for the first time while their children are dying.

“I’ve seen people who have rejected their children in the past turn around, at least to offer love even if they don’t accept everything,” Freiberg says. “There’s so much homophobia in the world. And it’s not going to change through big campaigns. You have to cut through to the heart. It’s more of a ripple effect, from person to person.”

Freiberg admits that she held back for quite a while before reaching out for help. But when she got involved and found herself working with people with AIDS as peers, her fear about the disease fell away. “It gave me some insight into what my sons were dealing with,” she says.

In February, she and her husband will begin a support group for families at Being Alive, and she is a supervisorial appointee to the Los Angeles County Commission on HIV and AIDS. She describes her relationship with Michael as both a joy and a challenge.

“When he is ill, he needs me,” she says, “and when he’s not ill, he doesn’t, and going through this being in the middle and pulling back is one of the things parents have to deal with.

“Part of me wants to mother the whole world, and that’s not good nor is it effective.” What is effective, Freiberg says, is “to open up and keep opening.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Where to Go for Support

The following is a partial list of organizations that offer support groups for people who are HIV-positive and people with AIDS and their families, caregiver, significant others and friends.

AIDS Project Los Angeles: (213) 993-1432

In Spanish: (213) 993-1434

For affected children: (213) 993-1337

AIDS Service Center: (818) 796-5633

Being Alive: Los Angeles, (213) 667-3262

Long Beach, (310) 434-9022

Orange County, (714) 534-0862

South Bay, (310) 544-2702

Van Nuys, (818) 908-3840

Westside, (310) 358-2281

Desert AIDS Project, Palm Springs: (619) 323-2118

Families Who Care, Long Beach: (310) 498-6366