I was stopped in my tracks by the sight of him, completely unprepared for an encounter with what appeared to be a skeleton lying on the bed. So wasted was this poor body that it barely made a lump under the blankets. So emaciated was the face that it seemed little more than a skull with skin stretched across it. The eyes were closed, and the breathing so shallow that the chest barely moved. But most disconcerting was the skin. It had turned such a deep mahogany that it made its owner look for all the world like bones carved from wood.

Marionel had AIDS.

He was the first person with AIDS with whom I’d ever come in contact, and I was terrified of him. Of course I knew that his illness posed absolutely no threat to me. But that didn’t keep a large lump of fear from forming in my throat. Just then I heard Cheryl, his nurse, announce with her usual cheerful confidence that “we” were going to turn Marionel. So, swallowing the lump, I donned gloves from the “special procedures” tray outside his door, smiling bravely and hoping my face did not betray what I was feeling inside.

One.... two.... on three, we lifted. Marionel weighed nothing! I held him gingerly, balancing his body as Cheryl rubbed his back with lotion and talked soothingly to him. His eyes opened a crack. Only one small moan escaped his lips as we settled him back.

I thought to myself that I would never cease to be amazed at the remarkable reserves of the human body. Since coming to VITAS, I had witnessed people in what I thought had been unimaginable stages of dying, but this was ten times worse than anything I had seen. It seemed impossible that he could muster the strength even to draw a breath. I thought he would die while we were turning him - or at least soon after. But Marionel kept breathing.

Talking with his relatives, I learned that Marionel was 23 years old, the youngest of eight children. As the baby, he was the cherished jewel of his wonderful Filipino family. Marionel was to have been the family’s doctor, they said. He contracted AIDS in the lab at the medical school. That this boy was well-loved, there was no doubt. A crowd of his young friends and his many relatives constantly filled his room, spilling out into the hall and lounge. They came from halfway around the world to be with him. And as each new person arrived, Marionel smiled.

I left that night filled with an overwhelming sadness that this bright young light would be snuffed out so soon. I shuddered at the thought of what he must have endured so far, and felt relief that his struggle was almost over. I assumed he would die that night. But Marionel did not die. In fact, next week when I arrived, there he was - sitting in a chair, watching TV! I could barely believe it. He looked like some medical student’s idea of a sick joke, gowned and propped in the recliner. But he was smiling and talking, and that day he received his usual steady troupe of well-wishers.

I knew that last-minute rallies were not rare in patients so close to death. I assumed that was what I was seeing, and I was sure he would die within the next day or two. But again, I was wrong.

In all, Marionel lived about six weeks on the unit. He eventually lost consciousness and slipped away peacefully one morning. In the years since, I have seen a number of AIDS patients, both young and old. But I have never forgotten that first, jarring sight of Marionel - nor any of the time I spent with him. I think often of that valiant young heart, whose strength kept his body alive long past any reasonable expectation. But mostly I remember his smile, as he greeted a friend, a loved one.... or as he showed his appreciation to a once frightened, but now stronger, VITAS volunteer.