Member Perspectives: Jim Anderson on the Impact of the HIV/AIDS Crisis on BGMC

As we prepare for our exciting tour to South Africa next June, we are recalling the effect that HIV and AIDS has had on our chorus. We will be meeting with groups and individuals in Johannesburg and Cape Town who continue to be effected by the global pandemic, where about 20% of the adult population are fighting the disease and medical help is not always available.

This is the story of former baritone Larry Poitras, a dear friend of chorus founding member and current baritone Jim Anderson, who bravely helped Larry at the end of his life to die with dignity and comfort. Jim describes how a vibrant and talented friend was lost during the dark days before effective treatments were available. In 1992, those diagnosed with AIDS  likely faced a certain and excoriating death.

The full impact of the AIDS epidemic hit to BGMC in the mid to late 80’s and we were all terrified. And it hit hard. During this time, we sang at more memorials than we could have imagined, many times, several in one month. We began to have a new and different purpose for our music: We were singing for our lives.

Larry Poitras joined the chorus in the early 80’s and on his first rehearsal he happened to sit next to me. By the end of that rehearsal, I knew I met someone that would surely become very special to me.

Larry was a surgical nurse from Maine; he was a kind and gentle soul that loved to feed squirrels during the winter as he walked through the Boston Common from his home on Beacon Hill to his job at Tufts Medical Center. He had the best sense of humor and could make you laugh with just a few well-placed words or a look that was perfectly timed.

I remember like it was yesterday when Larry told me about his diagnosis. It was in early 1992, we were at a rehearsal and it was obvious something was wrong. At the break he asked me to leave with him to talk. We went to Napoleon’s (for some of you younger members, Napoleon’s was a legendary piano bar and disco in Bay Village). Thankfully it was a quiet night with only a few guys around. We got drinks and sat down and he immediately burst into tears. When he finally was able to speak he said he was just told he had AIDS. At that time, it was a death sentence. My heart sank to the floor, I held his hand and began to cry with him. After a while we were able to speak again and he said, “Will you help me die?” 

Those words still ring in my ears, 25 years later. Of course, I told him, I would. 

After the shock settled in and life turned back to a new kind of normal, we had learned about the complex regimen of medications he had to take, in which many pills had to be taken throughout the day at specific times. Because he was a nurse, he was able to understand what was going on from the medical side and was very good at taking his meds correctly. But these meds would only buy him so much time.

He needed to tell his family what was happening. And Larry was very nervous about telling his parents, brother and sister. We both drove to Maine to tell them. There were a lot of tears and they all were lovingly supportive. We also told them that we arranged for me to be his Healthcare Proxy and his Power of Attorney. I think they were grateful that I was the one to make his healthcare decisions when he couldn’t and to help get his finances in order. 

Some people with AIDS had their good days and bad days, but the disease affected Larry differently, he got slightly weaker and sicker with each passing day. Slowly it became difficult for him to walk, so he began using a cane until he eventually needed a wheelchair. A group of friends, including several from the chorus, would spend nights with him to be sure he was safe. A point of true sadness for him came when he realized he would never be able perform with the chorus again.

Things took a turn in early December of 1992, when we were out Christmas shopping at the Cambridge Galleria. We were in the food court and I was at a counter getting our food but always had an eye on Larry. I noticed he began to shake. When I got to him, I realized he was having a seizure, the first of many. Thankfully a gay man who was a nurse quickly came over to help. We called an ambulance and got him to Beth Israel Hospital. He never went home again.

This was the time that I had to really help his parents, who were elderly, understand what was happening. I was at the hospital almost every day and his whole family came down often to see him and spent many days with him, as did his friends. 

During his stay at the hospital he began to have hallucinations. One day I came into his room and he told me that “weird things” happen at night and that the night before: Monkeys were running around jumping on everything, which really scared him. Another time he said that The Supremes were there, strutting down the corridor singing “Baby Love”, which he began to sing. I couldn’t help but laugh.

During our holiday concert, we had a party theme for our second half, where I played the party’s host. I was dressed in a silver metallic tux jacket, a feather boa and red pumps, and introduce the songs. This was the concert when we sang “Everything Possible” for the first time. The day after the concert I went to the hospital, the concert seemed like a distant memory. I got off the elevator with a man dressed in scrubs, as we parted, he turned to me and said “I loved the feathers and the pumps.” I laughed and thanked him. I really needed that; it just showed how the chorus could bring something unexpected at a much needed time.

After several weeks in the hospital, we were told that we should start to think about hospice care. I had already begun to look into a hospice on Mission Hill for people with AIDS, and on January 11, 1993, on his 42nd birthday, he was brought there and we were able to have a small party for him.

The folks at the hospice were amazing; they took care of us as much as they took care of Larry. He had some good days there and we got to know several of the other guests, which helped his parents, particularly when they met other parents that were going through the same thing they were going through.

One day, I walked into his room and he was particularly happy, he told me that I just missed Elizabeth Taylor, I humored him and said, “Oh really, how nice”, thinking he had another one of his hallucinations. When I talked with the nurse on duty, she was also excited. Elizabeth Taylor, she told me, had in fact just been there and left a large personal check as a donation. She was in town promoting one of her perfumes and without any cameras or press, she quietly stopped by and visited with each guest, whether they were conscious or not. This was such a beautiful thing for her to do, my admiration for her went through the roof (though I was a little pissed I missed meeting her).

After a short time, Larry’s health got worse and it was clear that he wasn’t going to last much longer. I had to make the difficult call to tell his family they need to come down as soon as possible.

We began our vigil and early in the morning, on April 1^st, and Larry took his last breath with us by his side. This was the week between two concert weekends when the chorus preformed “Hidden Legacies”, a choral cantata that tracked the epidemic and the gay community's response. I cried through all the performances because another dear friend and chorus member, Jim Gordon, died the morning of our first performance. By the next performance, I had lost Larry, 5 days after Jim. The chorus held me up with love and support; I can’t begin to tell what that meant to me.

There were two services to celebrate Larry’s life; one was a funeral at his hometown church in Maine. For the service, I was asked to give the eulogy and Larry’s mother asked me if I could play “The Pilgrim Chorus” from a concert that Larry performed in which they attended. I brought a sound system and Richard Arsenault, a dear friend and also a founding member, helped me set things up and suggested that we quietly play the song to be sure that it was cued up correctly. I didn’t think it was necessary but agreed, and found out I put the cassette in (Millennials: Google it) on the wrong side and the song that played was “On a Wonderful Day Like Today.” The two of us were in the front of the church holding onto each other laughing as people were coming into the service. Larry would have much preferred to have that song played instead of “The Pilgrim Chorus.” This was another time that the chorus helped in such an unexpected way.

The following weekend we had a memorial service in Boston for his family of friends and the Chorus sang a few songs, one of which was “Everything Possible”, the only song that Larry requested, while a slide show of photos from his life was shown.

Larry’s story is only one of many the chorus has to tell. Thankfully AIDS is no longer the death sentence it was when Larry was diagnosed. As we head off to South Africa, where AIDS is still a major health issue, I think it’s important that we all remember our chorus brothers that are no longer with us, whether we knew them or not, the chorus would not be the chorus we are today without each and every one of them.

--Jim Anderson