這是一個扣人心弦、感人至深的關於人性之美的真實故事，講述了阿肯色州溫泉城的年輕單身母親露絲·科克·伯克斯（Ruth Coker Burks）的經歷。她被捲入愛滋病危機，並成為美國對抗愛滋病運動的關鍵人物。
1986年，26歲的露絲到醫院探望朋友，注意到一間病房的門漆成了紅色。她看到護士們正在抽籤決定誰來照顧裡面的病人，但所有人都猶豫不決，不願進入病房。出於本能，露絲走進了這間隔離病房，立刻開始照顧那位在生命最後時刻哭喊著要媽媽的年輕人。還沒等她反應過來，消息就傳遍了整個社區：露絲是唯一願意幫助這些愛滋病患者的人，她被召去照顧他們。她與她幫助的男人們建立了深厚的友誼，不知疲倦地為他們尋找住所和工作，甚至尋找願意接收他們遺體的殯儀館……常常是在半夜。她用在超市後面的垃圾箱裡撿到的廢棄食物為數十人做飯，為最緊急的病人儲存稀有藥物，在秘密酒吧的深夜為變裝皇后們教授性教育，並成為一群生活在保守州邊緣、被社會遺棄的患病男同性戀者的希望之光。
多年來，露絲不顧當地牧師和護士的反對，竭盡全力幫助她照顧的男人們：保羅和比利、安吉爾、奇普、托德和盧克。在他們共同承受的痛苦的鼓舞下，她熱切地為他們爭取安全和社會關注，最終就全國性的愛滋病危機向州長比爾·克林頓提出了建議。
A gripping and triumphant tale of human compassion, is the true story of Ruth Coker Burks, a young single mother in Hot Springs, Arkansas, who finds herself driven to the forefront of the AIDS crisis, and becoming a pivotal activist in America's fight against AIDS.
In 1986, 26-year old Ruth visits a friend at the hospital when she notices that the door to one of the hospital rooms is painted red. She witnesses nurses drawing straws to see who would tend to the patient inside, all of them reluctant to enter the room. Out of impulse, Ruth herself enters the quarantined space and immediately begins to care for the young man who cries for his mother in the last moments of his life. Before she can even process what she's done, word spreads in the community that Ruth is the only person willing to help these young men afflicted by AIDS, and is called upon to nurse them. As she forges deep friendships with the men she helps, she works tirelessly to find them housing and jobs, even searching for funeral homes willing to take their bodies . . . often in the middle of the night. She cooks meals for tens of people out of discarded food found in the dumpsters behind supermarkets, stores rare medications for her most urgent patients, teaches sex-ed to drag queens after hours at secret bars, and becomes a beacon of hope to an otherwise spurned group of ailing gay men on the fringes of a deeply conservative state.
Throughout the years, Ruth defies local pastors and nurses to help the men she cares for: Paul and Billy, Angel, Chip, Todd and Luke. Emboldened by the weight of their collective pain, she fervently advocates for their safety and visibility, ultimately advising Governor Bill Clinton on the national HIV-AIDS crisis.
This deeply moving and elegiac memoir honors the extraordinary life of Ruth Coker Burks and the beloved men who fought valiantly for their lives with AIDS during a most hostile and misinformed time in America.
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When hospitals turned away AIDS patients in the 1980s, she walked through the door marked "Do Not Enter." She became the only family dozens of dying men ever knew.
In
1984, the AIDS crisis was tearing through America—and nowhere was the fear more palpable than in small-town hospitals, where even healthcare workers refused to enter patients' rooms.
Ruth Coker Burks was a young single mother from Hot Springs, Arkansas, visiting a friend at a hospital in Little Rock when she noticed something strange: a room with red tape across the door.
Nurses whispered warnings. Inside was "one of them"—a man with AIDS. No one would go in. No one would bring him food. No one would touch him.
Ruth did.
She walked through that door and found a young man—skeletal, alone, terrified. He weighed less than 100 pounds, barely distinguishable from the white sheets on his bed.
He asked for his mother.
Ruth found a nurse and requested the mother's phone number. The nurse looked at her like she'd lost her mind: "Honey, his mother is not coming. He's been in that room for six weeks and nobody is coming."
But Ruth called anyway.
The voice on the other end was cold: "He died to me when he turned homosexual."
Then the line went dead.
Ruth returned to the room. She sat beside him. She held his hand—a hand no one else would touch, a hand his own mother had rejected.
For thirteen hours, she stayed. Until he took his last breath.
That moment changed her life.
Word spread through Arkansas's small but terrified gay community: there was a woman in Hot Springs who would help. Who wasn't afraid. Who wouldn't turn people away.
More men came. Or rather, Ruth found them—in hospitals, abandoned by families who'd rather tell neighbors their sons were dead than admit they had AIDS.
Ruth Coker Burks became a one-woman AIDS support system in central Arkansas.
She had no medical training. No funding. No organization backing her.
Just a determination that no one should die alone.
She drove patients to appointments when no one else would transport them. She picked up medications from pharmacies—keeping supplies of AZT in her pantry because many local pharmacies refused to stock AIDS drugs.
She helped them fill out paperwork for assistance. She cooked for them. She sat with them through the fear and pain.
And when they died—when their families refused to claim their bodies—Ruth made sure they had a final resting place.
Her family had plots in Files Cemetery, a small historic cemetery in Hot Springs. Ruth used that land to bury men whose families wouldn't take them home.
She worked with a funeral home for cremations. Then she and her young daughter would go to Files Cemetery with a post-hole digger and a small spade. They'd dig. They'd bury the ashes. They'd hold their own funeral service—because no priest or minister would officiate.
"My daughter had a little spade, and I had posthole diggers," Ruth recalled. "I'd dig the hole, and she would help me. I'd bury them and we'd have a do-it-yourself funeral. I couldn't get a priest or a preacher. No one would even say anything over their graves."
The exact number of men she buried has been debated—Ruth has mentioned different figures over the years. Records from that era are incomplete.
But what's undisputed is this: Ruth Coker Burks buried men whose families rejected them. She gave them dignity in death when they'd been denied it in life.
The cost was high.
Her community shunned her. Her daughter was ostracized at school. Crosses were burned in her yard.
But gay bars in Arkansas rallied around her. Drag performers at places like the Discovery Club in Little Rock would organize fundraisers—"they would twirl up a drag show on Saturday night and here'd come the money"—to help Ruth pay for cremations and care.
Ruth never lost her faith. "I just lost faith in everyone else's faith," she said.
She worked tirelessly through the late 1980s and into the mid-1990s, until better HIV medications and more enlightened medical care began to change the landscape.
In 2010, Ruth had a stroke—which she partly attributed to the stress of those years. She had to relearn how to talk, feed herself, read, and write.
But she survived.
And decades later, her story began to resurface.
In 2015, the Arkansas Times profiled her as "The Cemetery Angel." The story went viral. Suddenly, people around the world were learning about the woman who'd cared for dying men when no one else would.
She was honored by Broadway Sings for Pride. NPR interviewed her. CBS News featured her. Actress Rose McGowan directed a short film about her.
In 2020, Ruth published a memoir, "All the Young Men."
During one of the darkest chapters of American public health history, when fear and stigma killed as surely as the virus itself, Ruth Coker Burks showed up.
She walked into rooms others avoided. She touched hands others refused to hold. She buried men others pretended didn't exist.
Paul Wineland, a Hot Springs resident who knew Ruth during the crisis, put it simply: "Here, we were pretty much left on our own. I had Ruth, and that was about it."
That's what matters. When people were dying alone, terrified, abandoned by everyone who should have loved them—Ruth was there.
She didn't change laws. She didn't end the stigma. She didn't cure the disease.
She did something both simpler and harder:
She stayed when everyone else left.
When hospitals turned away AIDS patients, she walked through the door marked "Do Not Enter."
She became the only family dozens of dying men ever knew.
They called her "The Cemetery Angel."
But Ruth never saw herself as one.
"They just needed someone," she said. "And I was there."
Sometimes that's all it takes to change someone's world—or to help them leave it with dignity.
~Old Photo Club
上世紀80年代，當醫院拒收愛滋病患者時，她走進了那扇標著「禁止入內」的門。她成了數十位垂死之人唯一認識的家人。
1984年，愛滋病危機席捲美國──在小鎮醫院裡，恐懼的氣息特別濃厚，連醫護人員也拒絕進入病房。
露絲·科克·伯克斯是一位來自阿肯色州溫泉城的年輕單親媽媽。她去小石城一家醫院探望朋友時，她注意到了一些奇怪的事情：一間病房的門上貼著紅色的膠帶。
護士們低聲警告。裡面住著「他們中的一員」──一個愛滋病患者。沒有人會進去。沒有人會送飯給他。沒有人會碰他。
露絲卻這麼做了。
她走進了那扇門，發現一個年輕人──骨瘦如柴，孤單一人，驚恐萬分。他體重不到100磅，幾乎與床上的白色床單融為一體。
他問起他的母親。
露絲找到一位護士，要了孩子母親的電話。護士看著她，彷彿她瘋了一樣：“親愛的，他媽媽不會來的。他已經在那個房間裡待了六個星期了，沒人會來看他。”
但露絲還是打了電話。
電話那頭的聲音冰冷：“他變成同性戀的那一刻，對我來說就死了。”
然後電話掛斷了。
露絲回到房間。她坐在他身邊。她握著他的手──一隻別人都不敢碰的手，一隻連他親生母親都拒絕的手。
她守候了十三個小時，直到他嚥下最後一口氣。
那一刻改變了她的人生。
消息在阿肯色州這個雖小卻恐懼的同性戀群體中傳開：溫泉城裡有一位願意提供幫助的女人。她無所畏懼。她不會拒絕任何人。
更多的男人來了。或者更確切地說，是露絲找到了他們——在醫院裡，被家人遺棄，家人寧願告訴鄰居他們的兒子已經去世，也不願承認他們得了愛滋病。
在阿肯色州中部，露絲·科克·伯克斯（Ruth Coker Burks）獨自承擔起了愛滋病患者援助的重任。
她沒有接受過任何醫學培訓，沒有資金，也沒有任何組織的支持。
她唯一的信念就是：沒有人應該孤獨地死去。
當其他人都不願意接送病人時，她會開車送他們去赴約。她會去藥局拿藥——由於許多當地藥局拒絕販售愛滋病藥物，她會在自家儲藏室裡儲備一些AZT。
她幫助病人填寫援助申請表格，為他們做飯，陪伴他們度過恐懼和痛苦。
當他們去世——當他們的家人拒絕認領遺體時——露絲會確保他們擁有最終的安息之地。
她的家族在菲爾斯公墓（Files Cemetery）擁有墓地，那是一座位於溫泉城（Hot Springs）的小型歷史公墓。露絲利用這塊土地安葬那些家人不願將遺體帶回家的逝者。
她與一家殯儀館合作進行火化。之後，她會帶著年幼的女兒，帶著挖坑機和小鏟子去菲爾斯公墓，挖出一個墓穴。他們會自己埋葬骨灰。他們會自己舉行葬禮——因為沒有牧師或神父願意主持。
「我女兒有一把小鏟子，我有挖坑器，」露絲回憶道。 「我挖坑，她幫我。我把他們埋葬，然後我們自己舉行葬禮。我找不到牧師或傳教士。甚至沒有人願意在他們的墳前說句話。”
她究竟埋葬了多少人，一直存在爭議——多年來，露絲給出的數字各不相同。那個時代的記錄並不完整。
但無可爭議的是：露絲·科克·伯克斯埋葬了那些被家人拋棄的男人。在他們生前被剝奪尊嚴之後，她賦予了他們在死後應有的尊嚴。
代價是沉重的。
她的社區排斥她。她的女兒在學校被孤立。有人在她家院子裡焚燒十字架。
但阿肯色州的同性戀酒吧卻聲援她。在小石城探索俱樂部等地，變裝表演者會組織募捐活動——「她們會在周六晚上舉辦一場精彩的變裝秀，籌款就來了」——來幫助露絲支付火葬和護理費用。
露絲從未失去信仰。 「我只是對其他人的信仰失去了信心，」她說。
從1980年代末到90年代中期，她不知疲倦地工作，直到更好的愛滋病藥物和更開明的醫療照護開始改變現狀。
2010年，露絲中風了——她認為部分原因是那些年的壓力造成的。她不得不重新學習說話、吃飯、閱讀和寫作。
但她活了下來。
幾十年後，她的故事開始再次被人們所知。
2015年，《阿肯色時報》以「墓園天使」為題為她進行了專題報導。這個故事迅速傳開。突然間，世界各地的人們都了解到了這位在無人願意照顧垂危病人時挺身而出的女性。
她榮獲百老匯驕傲之歌（Broadway Sings for Pride）的表揚。美國國家公共電台（NPR）訪問了她。哥倫比亞廣播公司新聞（CBS News）也報道了她。女演員羅斯麥高恩（Rose McGowan）執導了一部關於她的短片。
2020年，露絲出版了回憶錄《所有年輕人》（All the Young Men）。
在美國公共衛生史上最黑暗的篇章之一，恐懼和污名與病毒本身一樣奪人性命，露絲·科克·伯克斯挺身而出。
她走進其他人避之不及的房間。她握住其他人不願握的手。她埋葬了其他人假裝不存在的逝者。
在危機期間認識露絲的溫泉城居民保羅溫蘭德（Paul Wineland）簡單地說：「
溫泉城居民保羅·溫蘭德在危機期間認識了露絲，他簡單地說：“當時，我們幾乎是孤立無援的。我只有露絲，僅此而已。”
這才是最重要的。當人們孤獨地死去，恐懼萬分，被所有本該愛他們的人拋棄時——露絲就在那裡。
她沒有改變法律，沒有消除歧視，也沒有治癒疾病。
她做了一件既簡單又艱難的事：
當所有人都離開時，她留了下來。
當醫院拒絕接收愛滋病患者時，她走進了那扇標著「禁止入內」的門。
她成了數十位垂死之人唯一認識的家人。
他們稱她為「墓地天使」。
但露絲從未認為自己是天使。
“他們只是需要有人陪伴，”她說，“而我在那裡。”
有時候，改變一個人的世界──或幫助他們有尊嚴地離開人世──就只需要這樣。
#露絲·科克·伯克斯 #愛滋病危機
~老照片俱樂部
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José José, Mexican Crooner Crowned ‘Prince of Song,’ Dies at 71
He moved audiences to tears with melancholy love songs, and his sartorial elegance was copied in nightclubs across Latin America. 子女爭產
王淑平（1959年10月20日－2019年9月21日），
河南扶溝人，
中華人民共和國醫生。在幫助曝光
河南血禍之後的幾年中
失業、
離婚，後移居
美國。
在河南血禍事件後，王淑平被開除公職，並與丈夫離婚。2001年與子女告別後獨自一人移民美國。她後來與美國人蓋瑞·克里斯滕森（Gary Christensen）結婚，居住於
猶他州鹽湖城，並在
猶他大學擔任研究員。
[1]
2019年9月21日，王淑平家人對外宣布，王與丈夫在
鹽湖城附近的峽谷登山途中，因心臟病突發而逝世。
[1]
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