on Richard Forrest Woods – Part 14

This is one of many installments of a biography of mentor and friend Dick Woods, organist/choirmaster at the Church of St. John the Divine, Houston. See here for the entire series.

*******************

The tragic surprise

By the spring of 1992, Dick’s skin had developed a grayness. His lips were coated with a pasty, white residue, and he had little appetite for food and had lost the energy to clean his house or wash his dishes. Heavy smoker that he was, I thought he had emphysema or cancer. I had no idea what he thought or knew about his condition, other than that quitting smoking cold-turkey – which he did – might help. Several people had other suspicions, and they feel that Dick did at that time, too. By the time he finally went to a doctor just after Easter 1992, he was diagnosed not only HIV-positive but also with full-blown AIDS, manifested via pneumocystis pneumonia. He was immediately admitted to Park Plaza Hospital and remained there for three months. Here I must acknowledge most gratefully the heroic efforts of Didier Piot, M.D., and the entire Park Plaza team. Dr. Piot was a pioneer in the U.S. for HIV/AIDS care, and he was the founding physician of what eventually became the AIDS Foundation Houston. The Park Plaza team worked several miracles on Dick, and he was able to return to work a few months later, if only for a short time. His illness was too far along for him to work meaningfully for much longer.

A diagnosis of HIV or AIDS in those days was a death sentence in most cases, not only to one’s body but also to one’s employment and/or status. HIPAA protection was still four years away, and there were no mechanisms in place at St. John the Divine for continuing nor suspending the compensation of a sick staff member, especially one with a sickness suspected to result from a ‘lifestyle’ of which the parish so often vocally disapproved. Dick did not disclose his diagnosis outright to rector Larry Hall for quite a while. (Although that secret was of course particularly sensitive, Dick was always keeping secrets, anyway, thanks to the mistreatment he endured at places like St. James in Wichita and St. David’s in Austin and here at St. John the Divine, Houston.) The rector inferred Dick’s diagnosis from the location of his hospital room on the AIDS floor at Park Plaza, but he could not get confirmation from Dick nor Dick’s inner circle. That had to have been frustrating. I knew it wasn’t my place to reveal information like that. I also didn’t know the law nor which of these men was more within his rights. I can understand Dick’s unwillingness to trust Larry with that information, and I can understand the rector’s frustration as a boss being strung along without much recourse.

Once Dick was stabilized enough to sit up and talk more or less coherently, I would haul service planning materials to the hospital so we could work. I did that to keep him occupied, to encourage him, to help him show the administration that he was still working, and to keep him from otherwise losing face. But I also knew I was engaging in a certain amount of codependency, which was draining my own energy. I mitigated it all as much as I could. I’d certainly not work so hard today.

While I was doing the work of two, it was a little annoying to have to point out to the administration that increased salary for it would be nice. But Dick, ever the threatened one, then wondered if he was to receive some sort of docking or if I was now to be doing twice the work in other capacities. None of that was going to happen. Dick’s salary continued throughout his hospital stay, and my pay situation quickly improved, for which I was most grateful.

Things were chaotic under the surface for a time. The situation never boiled over, but the amount of scrambling and face-saving was near-epic. Dick was naturally withdrawing from his earthly authorities, even as his body was withdrawing from functionality. I’m sorry to report that he was also withdrawing from some dear friends, who would have moved heaven and earth for him. I was fielding questions I had no business fielding, from people who had no business asking. I was fielding phone calls from debt collectors. I learned very well how to say, “You’ll need to speak with Dr. Woods’s attorney. You know how this works. Here are his name and number.” Meanwhile, I was managing the program with the scant two years’ experience I had as an Episcopal musician up to that point, while the rector was wrestling with his own opinions of what to do, especially regarding exercising a Christian response to an evil disease that most people in those days were all too quick to blame the victims for. Anecdotal evidence from others suggests that the rector wanted to fire Dick outright but was eventually talked down from that particular ledge – by whom, no one seems to know. Dick had few allies outside the choir, and so it is reasonable to assume that whoever it was, they had either money or diocesan authority. At any rate, it was high drama as AIDS had finally arrived in posh River Oaks.

Dick eventually came clean with rector Larry, who to his own credit then organized an HIV/AIDS training session for the staff with a guest clinician. It was time, and it was important. So many people were uninformed or ill-informed in those days, and I was grateful to learn the language of the illness much better. I don’t recall us receiving much Christian sympathy/empathy training, but at least we learned some nuts and bolts about the terminology. There was mild grumbling about Dick’s privacy, and there was mild [uninformed] panic about catching HIV from him, but for the most part, heads were pulled from the sand, and we began to deal with the reality that was now upon us.

However, toward the end of Dick’s life, I remember a staff meeting during which a status report on him was requested. After a tick of silence, one clergyperson said, “I think he looks good. I saw him yesterday.” I asked, “Are we talking about the same fellow? He doesn’t look ‘good.’ He looks lousy; he is dying.” [I nearly added, “You idiot.” Dick had always thought that person was stupid, anyway.] The aftershocks of denial were still rumbling following the earthquake of the flagship River Oaks church learning that it had employed not only a gay man all this time but also one now dying of the gay man’s curse in those days.

I should add as I have before in this series that this parish eventually and largely cleaned up its act, and it is a much more Christlike place to be today. History is history, but I would be remiss to continue to leave the dear Reader with an unfavorable impression of a parish that no longer deserves it. I'll address that more directly in three more installments here.

Next time: The inevitable