I am This One Walking Beside Me: Meditations of an HIV Positive Man
Gebhardt, Daniel, Pilgrim Press (Cleveland, 2005).
Book Review by Joshua Spencer

The author, Daniel Gebhardt, graduated from Oberlin College. The book jacket states he works as a data manager for the AIDS Clinical Trials Unit at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. This book is a daily devotional and meditation of his suffering and feelings about being HIV positive. The text is arranged by six sections: Everyday Living, Medical Issues, Relationships, Self-Exploration, Death, and General Prayers. The book opens with the introduction of a beautiful poem by Juan Ramon Jimenez.

Like many other religious devotionals, this text opens with personal thoughts concluding with a prayer following each passage. However, Mr. Gebhardt empties his soul at the deepest level, and the reader walks with him on his journey. He vividly describes the physical pain from having the virus, the feeling of being an outcast, lesions and side effects from medical treatment, personal and social contact with others, and the need for a loving relationship with a partner.

Indeed, the journey described could be interpreted as the passion of being HIV positive, and the personal agony and isolation from society not understanding the struggle of living with the disease. Walking with him, the reader as observer learns to see the loss of body weight, being told AIDS is God’s wrath on gay men and drug users, the fear of losing or not having health insurance, need for intimacy, and feeling like a soulless machine due to the daily routine of taking medications.

Yet, he comes away, responding in a very Christian manner to being persecuted and oppressed by others who misunderstand HIV and its victims. He prays for people to learn to understand and be compassionate. He forgives them for the hatred directed against him and other persons living with AIDS. He prayers for an end to HIV/AIDS so that it can no longer harm anyone again.

Meditations form as HIV becomes a teacher. He states that AIDS has taught him to accept what he cannot control, death is not the end of existence, reconnect with his inner soul, the importance of love in a relationship, stand against injustice, and that he can help others in need.

Essentially, the devotional is the personal, written portrait of a man (and symbolically all victims of the virus) living with the horrible disease that is AIDS, and the equally dangerous illness of the mind known as homophobia. The author realizes that he is “more than flesh” (71-72), and his need to help others who also suffer from disease and hatred. It is the passionate illustration of a gay Christian man who feels his illness can be a teacher, and this book should be read by those who do and do not understand AIDS. Ironically, he has become a teacher as well in writing this prayer journal, and shows the reader the need and importance for an end of HIV/AIDS.