He was beautiful, she said, perfect and fine-boned. Afterward, she said, he wept, Burks holding the frail young man as shoppers streamed around them. Once, a few weeks before Billy died — he weighed only 55 pounds, the lightest she ever saw, light as a feather, so light that she was able to lift his body from the bed with just her forearms — Burks had taken Billy to an appointment in Little Rock.
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Afterward, they were driving around aimlessly, trying to get his spirits up. She had to be strong for them. While Burks got to see the worst of people, she said, she was also privileged to see people at their best, caring for their partners and friends with selflessness, dignity and grace.
They would hold them while I washed them. They would carry them back to the bed. We would dry them off and put lotion on them. They did that until the very end, knowing that they were going to be that person before long. Sometimes, she would listen to the confessions of the dying.
There were two of us, so that was the best I could do. In all the years she worked with AIDS patients, she said, she never wore gloves unless the patients had broken skin. It was touching them, she believes, that kept those she cared for alive longer than others. By the s, experts in the field were beginning to take note.
They sent them to me so they could see what I was doing that helped them live. I think it was because I loved them. They were like my children, even though I was burying people my age. Burks helped care for Raymond Harwood, a Hot Springs resident who died in at age Jim recalled Burks as a very caring person. God, Harwood said, has a hand in everything, so He had a hand in bringing Burks into their lives. Harwood said he was surprised to hear from Burks that some parents abandoned their children when they were diagnosed with AIDS.
He could have gone out and murdered people. You may not like what he does, but you love him. After the stroke, she had to relearn everything: to talk, to feed herself, to read and write. After better drugs, education, understanding and treatment made her work obsolete, she moved to Florida for several years, where she worked as a funeral director and a fishing guide. A few years ago, she moved to Rogers to be closer to her grandchildren.
In , she went to bat for three foster children who were removed from the elementary school at nearby Pea Ridge after administrators heard that one of them might be HIV positive.
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The work she and others did in the s and s has mostly been forgotten, partly because so many of those she knew back then have died. And so she has become the keeper of memory. She was surprised in recent months when a producer with the oral history project StoryCorps reached out to her, asking her to tell her story on tape. Part of that interview was eventually broadcast on National Public Radio.
She talked to the BBC this week, and other requests for interviews keep coming. She honestly seems a little shocked that anyone cares after all these years.
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Still, she clearly sees those years as the time when she had a mission, maybe even one ordained by a higher power. Too, she said, she loved and believes she was loved by the people whose lives she touched — every one. Even as they were dying, they showed her what bravery is, and brought joy into her life.
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While she made sure it was kept up back when she lived in Hot Springs, it appeared to have been let go a bit when the reporter visited in late December, some of the tombstones pushed over and broken, the snag of a dead oak left to rot among the graves. Even without knowing the story of the place, it might have been downright spooky if not for the constant stream of traffic cruising by at 10 miles an hour over the speed limit. Something to tell people the story. A plaque.
A stone. A listing of the names of the unremembered dead that lie there. A complete list of the holiday shipping deadlines can be found at usps. For reporters interested in speaking with a regional Postal Service public relations professional, please go to about.
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The same day, the senate committee also considered a bill to ban sharia law in Arkansas. Education Schools Teachers Universities Students. LGBT rights.
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This article is more than 5 years old. Jennifer Rambo, right, and her partner Kristin Seaton, left, got married in May to become the first gay couple to be wed in Arkansas. Steven W Thrasher in Little Rock.