She poured her heart out onto the pages of Fairy Land, a memoir about her father living with HIV.
The following is a transcript between Alysia and Karl.
ALYSIA
This is a gift that I can do something with.
KARL
Welcome to plus talk on plus life. Where’re all about turning positive into a plus. What’s it like to be the child of someone living with HIV? What’s it like to lose a parent from an AIDS related illness? My guest today, Alysia Abbott, is an author and a teacher, and she knows a thing or two about it. Good to see you, Alysia.
ALYSIA
It’s lovely to be here.
KARL
Wow. What a year you have had, and we’re gonna dive into all of it. It, but, but going back in 2013, you published Fairyland a Memoir of My Father, which is a fantastic book about growing up in San Francisco in the seventies, and then through the, the turmoil, I guess of, of the height of the AIDS pandemic. And, and it really affected your life in more ways than one. What was it that motivated you to tell your story and your father’s story?
ALYSIA
Thank you for that, Karl. Actually, I was motivated to write about my father before he had even yet died of aids, simply because we had become very close in his final years via letters. I was in college and we were writing each other, and this was long before Zoom or even email was available, and I knew he was HIV positive. I knew he wanted me to come home and, and live with him and graduate college early. He died with within a year of my arriving home to take care of him. And I think I was interested initially in writing the book as a way of staying close with him and keeping our relationship going. This was something that affected many other families. And at the time, I just felt that this history wasn’t being talked about enough. And so I felt an urge to sort of tell the larger story as well.
KARL
How old were you when you fully understood, you know, what was going on with your father and, and also what AIDS meant?
ALYSIA
I was aware of AIDS before I knew that my father was HIV positive because I was living in San Francisco in the eighties. There was a lot in the news, there was a lot of active activism that was happening in the city itself. And we also had friends and neighbors that died of aids, and I think I found out when I was about 18 or 19 that, that he was HIV positive and that he, his T-cell count was, was getting very low, but a lot of that information was communicated via letter, and I didn’t really f fully understand the weight of his health reality until I, I came back from school on, on break to visit with him.
KARL
Looking back on it now, what, what is it like when you, the child, in a way, has to become the parent and the primary caregiver?
ALYSIA
I was a young adult. I was, I was 21, 20 right when I moved home to take care of him. And, and I should just add that, you know, I lost my mother when I was two and a half and I didn’t have any siblings. And so, and my father was not close with his parents or siblings, so it really fell on me to be that person for him. I think in some ways it was an opportunity to be close with my dad that I got to share with him. And living in the city in San Francisco at that time in the early nineties, there were a lot of really incredible services for people living with aids. There was open hand, but there were also support groups for the caregivers. And so I joined one of these support groups for the caregivers, and I was one of two women in the group, and I was the only, you know, person of my age group there, but I found a lot of support in that group.
KARL
When your peers have their lives, and you talk about this a bit in the book, you know, you’ve got friends and moms and dads and all of this, then you have to go through the process of caring for your parent who’s dying of AIDS emotionally. Does this catch up at some point and come to a head, I guess? And if so, how do you, how did you process that?
ALYSIA
To some extent, I, while I was living with my, my father and, and taking care of him, I just had to put one foot in front of the other and just sort of get through this process. I mean, I, I definitely went through periods of, you know, resentment or self pity that I didn’t have any more help than I did, that I didn’t have other family members. Like even if there were people who had a parent die of aids, there usually was another parent or other siblings, just someone to share that burden. And I think I felt resentful for that. But for me, I moved away from San Francisco for New York, and eventually I think the way that I really processed the experience was through writing about it. It took me a long time to be able to write about it because it was so close, but I had this feeling that I wanted to make something of this like that I, I couldn’t just like, why did this happen and sort of, you know, sit with that pain. I wanted to turn it into something that could make me feel better about the experience. And, and the fact of the matter is too, is that my father was a writer, and so he left me not only letters that we wrote each other, but his journals, his own poetry and books, and so I had these materials and no one else had them. And so there was a feeling of, well, if, if I, this is a gift that I can do something with, like, I have to create something of this, and if I don’t do it, nobody will.
KARL
Did you face stigma directly sort of towards you?
ALYSIA
I was very much in the closet about him. I had not, I had this feeling that I couldn’t, you know, I didn’t, I shouldn’t talk about him, I couldn’t talk about him. I wanted to keep it very separate, and then suddenly he’s sick and dying, and I have to tell some of my, my friends from high school, not only that my father is dying, but he is dying of aids and yes, he’s was a gay man the whole time, and for the most part they knew that. They just, they, I pretended they didn’t, they pretended they didn’t know. But I think that there, I think the, the stigma maybe affected me in ways that were indirect, meaning that my father’s family that lived in Nebraska never came out to visit us.
KARL
You’ve said that when we talk about the history of AIDS in this country, I don’t think we necessarily talk about the way it impacts families.
ALYSIA
The AIDS experience was understood as something that touched this ing, you know, this, this isolated community of gay men. I mean, just in the public consciousness, these gay men that, that never married, never had kids that were, you know, cut off from their families some somehow, but in fact, there were a lot of men and women who, who died of AIDS or who continue to live with aids with children that, that people with HIV are, are, are every people or everyone. This is a more universal story.
KARL
Alysia Abbott, it has been a treat talking to you. The memoir, fairyland a memoir for my, for my of my Father Rather, is available where you can get all good books and we’re excited to see the film get its distribution. Congratulations on it all. Thank you for sharing this story and the, and the work that you do.
ALYSIA
Thank you very much. My pleasure.
KARL
Thanks so much, Alysia. That is gonna do it for this episode of Plus Talk. If you want more information on Fairy Land, a memoir of my father, check out our website plus life media.com. Remember, you can follow us across all social media platforms we are at plus life media. Until next time, be nice to yourself and others. We’ll see you soon. Bye-Bye.