Northpinellas: Son's AIDS fight memorialized

CLEARWATER -- After her beloved son died in his bed at her Clearwater home on June 3, 1993, Mary Stephan made a covenant with God, promising him she would write a book about her son's death from AIDS.

The result of that private contract is God's Gifts in the Midst of AIDS, a 229-page book Stephan self-published recently, chronicaling Fred Stephan's struggle and eventual death from AIDS at 42, and Mrs. Stephan's spiritual journey during those difficult years.

The proceeds from the book will go to AIDS Partnership, an organization Mary Stephan helped found in 1994 with the help of friends. AIDS Partnership was formed to help break the silence in churches concerning AIDS, to get pastors to talk to their congregations about the disease and to help those infected with the AIDS virus feel welcome.

"I want to get the ministers to do what they don't have time to do," said Mrs. Stephan, who is 73.

She is especially focused on helping African-American ministers who she said sometimes will not discuss AIDS with their congregations.

"That's a place where the judgment can be quite harsh," said Carol Dunn, an AIDS Partnership volunteer. "There is more of a stigma there than in the white community. The implication is, well, that's how you got it. If it's not spoken in the pulpit, there's no permission to speak about it in the pews."

In an effort to break the silence, AIDS Partnership has worked with an organization called the Balm in Gilead during Black Church Week of Prayer for the Healing of AIDS.

The membership waxes and wanes through the years, but the five or six steady volunteers involved with AIDS Partnership share ideas, lend support to AIDS sufferers and work with AIDS service organizations.

Sitting on the patio recently in the house where Fred Stephan and his brothers Clifford, Paul and David grew up, Mrs. Stephan cradled Fred's photo in her hands and smiled.

"I can't help but laugh when I see him," she said in a Southern drawl. "He was such a happy person."

Fred Stephan wanted his ashes to be buried in the back yard because he had such good times there, she said, but he ultimately decided to have them scattered in the Gulf of Mexico where he raced his pram as a child, and where his parents sailed their boat, Peaches.

Mrs. Stephan wrote about her son's childhood in the book, but she focused heavily on the years following the diagnosis in 1988.

Always interested in the entertainment industry, he was living in Los Angeles and working as a warehouse manager at Warner Brothers, a job he loved. As his disease worsened, Mrs. Stephan and her husband, Bill, would shuttle back and forth from their Clearwater home to help care for him before he eventually became so sick he moved back into their home.

Never a very religious person, Fred Stephan attended church with his family only once during that time, at Easter. Like many AIDS sufferers and gays, he did not feel comfortable at church.

"He felt like he wasn't accepted," said Mrs. Stephan.

Robert Brown, who has attended AIDS Partnership meetings, understands this feeling. He grew up as a Southern Baptist and found out he had full-blown AIDS in March 1994. He has attended other churches and has recently found some peace at Trinity Presbyterian Church.

"I feel that churches are like society in general, maybe a little more compassionate," said Brown, who calls himself a religious person in a cosmic way. "But when it really comes down to it, I don't think they practice what they're preached. In the Bible, didn't (Jesus) befriend a prostitute?"

Brown does not like hiding his sexual orientation or his disease from his family or anyone else. He also doesn't like to hide it in church, although he knows there is a price to pay for choosing to be open.

"Me smiling to that little girl in church, that would be all right," Brown said. "But if her father knew anything about me, he wouldn't sit in the same pew."

Mrs. Stephan's plan for AIDS Partnership is to create care teams to help people like Brown, who does not have transportation.

"People with AIDS have a lot of needs," she said. "A car to get to the doctor, food, things the church could help with."

But, Bill Stephan said, the main goal of AIDS Partnership is to "get people to accept people with AIDS rather than reject them like they did in the Old Testament with the lepers."

According to Mrs. Stephan, there are at least 40 churches that she knows of that offer some sort of AIDS relief program. But she knows there are many more than 40 churches in this area.

To get the book

Mary Stephan's book, God's Gifts in the Midst of AIDS, is available at Trinity Presbyterian Church, 2001 Rainbow Drive, Clearwater. They are $20 each, plus tax. Call (727) 446-6210 or send $20 plus $3.50 for postage and handling to AIDS Partnership, P.O. Box 5763, Clearwater, FL 33758. Make checks payable to AIDS Partnership. For online orders, the address is AIDSpartnership@ij.net.

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