A Mother’s Love and Devotion Help Provide Comfort to AIDS Victims

MONTEBELLO â€”  As soon as Gennie Reyes found out her son had AIDS, she prayed. Then she flew to San Francisco and brought him home.

Reyes, a member of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal Catholic Church in the conservative, largely Latino community of Montebello, wondered if the parish would accept her son after they discovered he not only had AIDS, but was gay. Instead of being scorned, Reyes and her son were embraced and supported by the priests and the parishioners, she said.

“They were never judgmental,� she said. On the contrary, they helped Reyes establish support groups for AIDS sufferers and joined her on local AIDS walks. On last year’s walk, 73 people and a priest from her parish joined thousands of others from all over Los Angeles to raise money and the public’s awareness about the disease.

“So many people are always saying how bad the church is,� Reyes, 55, said. “I can say this church has been caring, loving and understanding.�

Taking care of AIDS patients and their families is a logical extension of the church’s mission, said William Piletic, priest at Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal. “We have a great sensitivity toward those who are hurting. We don’t look to say: ‘How did you get that way?’ When someone is hurting, we try to be with them.�

Reyes, he said, has been a great inspiration to the parish. “She is an excellent minister to AIDS victims and their families. She’s always there for them. She keeps raising our consciousness and awareness. Because of her prodding, we’ve gotten organized and involved.�

Reyes first discovered that her son, Eddie, had AIDS in November, 1985. “My son was gay. I’d always known that,� said Reyes, who raised her three children alone. “I knew when he was 9 or 10. A mother knows. At 17, he started dating women and men. He went out with beautiful girls and then he’d stop seeing them.

“So I said, ‘Mi hijo,’--that’s ‘my son’ in Spanish--I notice you date beautiful girls and then you never see them again. Is there something wrong with them?’ And he said, ‘No.’ And that was it. Finally, I said to him, ‘It doesn’t make any difference to me if you love men or women as long as you’re happy. That’s what matters to me.’ �

The two cried together, she said. “He was able to talk to me about being gay. He told me about his lifestyle. I’m not ashamed of it. I learned a lot I never knew.�

When AIDS became well known, “I had fears, but I figured he’d be OK,� Reyes said. In 1985, a call from a San Francisco doctor confirmed that Eddie had AIDS. That is when Reyes began her mission to help her son and other AIDS patients. Two years later, Eddie died. He was 31.

Reyes has remained dedicated to educating the public, supporting families like her own, raising money for home-bound AIDS patients, helping to start a hospice, serving on the Los Angeles County Commission for AIDS and various other AIDS-related panels, including doing workshops and helping at masses at Catholic churches throughout the archdiocese.

“I think it’s very important to take one’s loss and turn it around and do something positive,� she said. The other parishioners took her son’s death very personally, she said. “Because if it happened to me, they knew it could happen to anyone.�

Janet Armenta of Downey recently received the highest recognition given by the American G.I. Forum, a group of military families who do charitable work, commending her dedication to the forum, her church and the disadvantaged youths of her community. She received the Hector P. Garcia Award at the forum’s annual convention in Aurora, Colo.

Mary Ann Mays, an area superintendent in the Long Beach Unified School District, was one of 100 educators selected from a nationwide field of applicants to serve on the faculty for the Coalition of Essential Schools. The coalition works to reform individual schools’ priorities and strengthen their educational programs. Mays will attend two forums, one in Philadelphia and the other at Brown University in Providence, R.I.

Long Beach City College graduate Melvin E. Salveson has received a California Community Colleges Distinguished Alumni Award for 1992. Salveson, a member of the college foundation’s board of trustees, received the award along with five other distinguished alumni of California community colleges, including actors James Edward Olmos and Tom Hanks; attorney Lordes G. Baird; Congressman Gary Condit (D-Modesto), and Dr. James Goodrich.

South Gate Councilman Albert T. Robles was recently elected to the executive committee of the Southern California Assn. of Governments to serve a two-year term. SCAG is an association of local governments within a six-county area that plans and coordinates regional issues such as transportation, air quality, traffic congestion, and business, housing and growth management. Robles will represent District 25, which includes South Gate and Downey.

The Rio Hondo College newspaper El Paisano won first place for general excellence in fall competition conducted by the Journalism Assn. of Southern California. The student paper also won second place for best use of photographs. The faculty adviser is Larry Knuth.