The views and opinions expressed in this piece are the author’s and do not necessarily represent the position of Positive Women’s Network – USA.

Nearly 30 years of living with HIV

This is a living obituary written while I am still here

It is not a suicide note, and it is not a declaration of defeat. It is a protest and a reflection of what it feels like when the care that has kept people living with HIV alive for decades is under threat.

I am writing this for the people who walk beside me, our partners, families, caregivers and communities whose lives are intertwined with ours.

And for policymakers, the public, and anyone who has forgotten the history of the epidemic and the lives that were lost before care and treatment became possible.

And for the generation coming after us. They deserve to understand that the stability we have today was built through decades of courage, advocacy and love.

This November will be 30 years of living with HIV

I am alive because treatment exists
Programs were fought for.
Because our community refused to let people living with HIV disappear.

Today, the systems that keep me alive are under attack.

Funding cuts are putting that care at risk.

The medication that keeps me alive is now a political target.

When people hear my name, I hope they remember my smile and the hugs that I give. I want them to remember the happiness and connection I bring into spaces I enter and the way I show up for the people in my life .

My husband and daughter are my everything. The love for them has carried me through some of the hardest moments of my journey. They are the center of my world and one of the greatest reasons I keep moving forward.

I am passionate and determined. I am rarely still. I often describe myself as a busy bee, I am always on the go. Connecting, advocating and doing whatever I can to support my community.

Being a dedicated advocate is not just something I do,it’s part of who I am. I believe deeply in speaking up, showing and making sure the voices of people living with HIV are heard.

I carry a deep fear that everything our community fought so hard to build could be taken away.

Now that threat is becoming more visible everyday.

Much of that fear comes from witnessing decisions about our health being made by people who do not understand what it means to live with HIV. Or what it took to build the care systems that keep us alive.

I hear it in conversations happening across the country and in my own state.

Assistant drug programs are being cut.

People are already being refused help to obtain the medication they need.

Due to these cuts, more people will fall out of care.

When life saving treatment becomes political, it sends a message that our existence is negotiable.

As human beings, our lives should never be negotiable.

What scares me most is what this means for the people who are exhausted from fighting.

Some people will not have the strength to keep fighting if the systems meant to support them disappear.

Without access to medication, the consequences are real.

HIV cases will rise across the country .

Prevention services will be cut.

People will begin dying in ways many believed we had left in the past.

I did not live through the earliest years of this epidemic.

But I remember walking into places for treatment and visualizing what my own death could look like.

Those images never leave me, especially after losing someone I loved.

Those memories remind me how quickly everything can fall apart.

More people living with HIV without care.

More lives lost.

More families devastated.

This is the future we fought to prevent.

This obituary should never have to exist.

For this to remain symbolic, the systems that keep people living with HIV alive must be protected.

Services that provide access to medication, care, housing, mental health, and prevention cannot be treated as optional or expendable.

The voices of people living with HIV must be a part of the decisions that shape our lives.

Policies about our health cannot be made without listening to the people who live with this reality everyday.

We know what it took to build the stability we have today.

We also remember what it looked like before that progress.

When those protections weaken, history repeats itself.

New HIV cases will increase.

Prevention services will disappear.

Lives will be lost that modern medicine knows how to save.

This obituary is not a prediction.

It is a warning

Now are you listening? Are you hearing us now?

I am still here.

I refuse to stand in silence.

Bee (Brandi) Velasquez

For those we lost, and those still here