At Aliveness, our community is built on connection. People finding each other, supporting each other, and walking through life together. This month, we honor Sherry, and remember Cindy.
Sherry met Cindy five years ago, in a support group for women living with HIV. At the time, Sherry was new to Minnesota and navigating stigma and fear. She didn’t know how to tell people about her diagnosis.
Then she met Cindy.
“She just grabbed onto me,” Sherry told us. “We became friends. She was my go-to person.”
Cindy was diagnosed with HIV just weeks after giving birth to her son, Nicholas. Both she and Nicholas were HIV+. Nicholas lived for only three short years before passing away from AIDS. Cindy lived on, not just in grief, but in purpose. The same month she received her diagnosis, she became a member of Aliveness.
Cindy spent her life telling her story loudly and lovingly. When Sherry confided, “How am I supposed to tell people I have HIV?” Cindy: “Just tell them. You deserve to be free.”
Because of Cindy’s openness, Sherry began opening up too.
“My mama died knowing,” she said. “My children know and love me.”
What started as two women attending a group became a sisterhood that shaped their lives.
They carpooled to Aliveness.
They took writing classes together.
They went to bingo, bonfires, Duluth road trips, Dallas conferences, family cookouts, and HIV advocacy events.
“We were different people from different places,” Sherry said, “but we made each other feel safe. We didn’t blame life. We survived it together.”
“We became sisters instead of victims.”
Cindy passed away earlier this year, after 35 years of living with HIV. Her loss is deeply felt by everyone at Aliveness, but her impact remains everywhere, especially in Sherry.
Cindy never stopped advocating for women living with HIV, women who are too often left out of the story. She marched at the Capitol. She led Aliveness in good times and bad. She fought to keep our doors open. She shared Nicholas’s story so no other mother had to bury her child in silence. Cindy didn’t just shape our history, she is part of the reason we are still here today.
Towards the end of Cindy’s life she said, “My involvement with Aliveness over the years has been the best support I could ever have asked for and given me so many friends. My journey has been complicated but it’s mine. I want people to remember that I am more than a woman living with HIV. I am a mother, a wife, an auntie, an educator, and advocate. I have a wealth of knowledge and a heart of compassion. Nicholas was more than a child who lived with AIDS. Nicholas was the light of my life. He was my dream.”
Her heart now lives on at Aliveness.
Today, Sherry continues to show up for other women living with HIV, carrying forward the lessons Cindy gave her, openness, honesty, courage, and connection. Sherry is still here with a full, bright life ahead of her. She is still building community, still offering people the same compassion Cindy offered her.
Sherry told us, “Cindy made me realize it doesn’t matter what color you are, you can be friends and you can be family. I love her and I miss her everyday. I’m still here, and I’m still fighting.”
Thank you Sherry for keeping Cindy’s legacy alive and for helping us make sure no one is ever forgotten.
