I Was Born Smiling
I was born smiling, my mother says.
All of my life I’ve been complimented on my smile. I don’t have the whitest or straightest teeth. I’ve never modeled and I’m not that photogenic.
But I am light and I don’t look like what I’ve been through.
From birth, I’ve had to use my light to fight to be in this world, cry for my need to breathe, my need for nourishment, and have dignity (diaper changes were immediate when I was a baby)!
Interested in sharing your own diagnosis story, treatment experience, or another aspect of living with HIV?
Living with HIV as a black woman and mother
As a Black woman. As a daughter, as a mother, as a vessel of pleasure, as a woman living with HIV; I have prioritized my standards for what I need to thrive. I have taken up space. I have used my voice and I have been visible in trying to be a face to challenge stigma.
Recognizing stigma
Embracing those identities of myself took a long time. It took my HIV diagnosis in 2003 for me to really see myself. I saw myself through the history of the epidemic, the residue of stigma, the lives and talents lost to complications of AIDS and I saw that all those lives matter in a way that won’t let me sit back and not make this world better than how I found it.
A safe place for those living with HIV
I want others whether newly diagnosed or veiled in the shadows of historic stigma to look up and know if they reach out, a safe and brave space can be theirs to rest in so that they no longer have to deny themselves a life of light, dignity, authenticity, and power. I strongly believe in living beyond your diagnosis; embracing healing, giving inspiration and living victoriously for a redefined legacy that’s all yours.
This is why I introduce myself as Kamaria Laffrey, a woman living with HIV and born with chronic optimism and Black Girl Magic *cue smile*.
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