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Mary Fisher's Heroes
David and Alice Camp at Haven House in Atlanta. |
The House that God Built.
"Haven House,"
says Metta G. Johnson, "is a home of love and nursing care for ten patients
with AIDS - a house that God built." She believes it. Only the foolhardy
would challenge her by pointing out that God evidently used her (and Clyde,
her husband and Haven House co-founder) to imagine, create, fund, and manage
the facility before installing her as resident matriarch and caregiver.
David Camp took up
residence at Haven House. His mother, Alice, and one of Haven House's nurses
were in the room when I visited. David was momentarily alert, even cheerful,
but he'd been "coming in and out" of consciousness, according to his mother.
Alice adored David.
If he were childlike again, she was happy to be motherly, to care for her
child. When she sat in a nearby chair, and he smiled, she beamed. Her hands
constantly smoothed the sheets. His slightest movement was her cue to act,
and she knew what each movement meant, what he wanted. A shiver in his
arm meant he wanted to be moved. A turn of the head meant he needed a drink.
She was stoic without being cold, in charge without being overbearing,
caring for her man-child as he slipped away. They took joy in each other,
such pride - she was his caregiver and he was her hero.
They sparkled together.
"David Camp went peacefully on Thanksgiving
evening (November 25, 1993). Last Saturday, when you were with him, was
the last day he was intelligible - except for Tuesday, when he made it
very clear he was accepting and peaceful, and wanted everything stopped...I'm
so grateful you (came to meet him)."
- Personal Correspondence
from Metta G. Johnson,
December 3, 1993
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