“How HIV Changed My Life”

 
Ebony L. Ross

A personal story brings new understanding of what it means to live with HIV/AIDS

In “How HIV Changed My Life,” a young woman from Brownsville, Brooklyn, gives a touching personal account of how the challenges of dealing with her father’s death from HIV/AIDS when she was just 16 transformed her into a stronger and more loving member of our community.

Ebony Ross tells us that initially she was keenly hurt, disappointed, perhaps devastated by her father's death from AIDS. It took her years to learn to deal with the cruel blow the disease had dealt her and her family. She gives much of the credit for her positive evolution to the AIDS Service Center NYC. By volunteering at the Center she learned more about HIV/AIDS.

But even after she started volunteering there, "I was still angry, still hurt, still trying to understand why did this happen to me." It took years to really understnad that she was not the only person in the world to whom such a thing had happend.

Finally Ebony realized that it was okay to share her feelings with her friends. Then she discovered that they were very supportive and the warmth of their friendship was restorative. "It's all about love," she says.

And that's what she seeks to convey to the young people she works with at the AIDS Service Center, at her church and in her community. Ebony's hard learned lessons in life have enabled her to become a youth empowerment leader, spiritual advocate and “foot soldier” in the spread of awareness on HIV/AIDS.

Hear her tell her story in her own words -- and song:

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Ebony L. Ross is a singer, song-writer, actress and speaker is a D.I.V. A. (Determined, Intelligent, Victorious & Able) in her own right, captivating audiences with her hardcore and gut wrenching vocal delivery. From the time she grabbed the microphone as an eight-year-old in her current church home of Trinity Pentecostal House of Prayer Church, she felt comfortable captivating an audience.
Born and raised in Brownsville Brooklyn, Ebony learned early through her community... |MORE