Matthew: A Child’s Life and Death with HIV

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There’s a problem with your baby. We need to get him into surgery right away.

The HIV test is positive.

Can you come down to the police station and pick up your son?

His name was Matthew. He lived long enough to write a too-short autobiography that he hoped would testify to his perseverance in living with HIV. It was a life spent seesawing between hope and disappointment.

Michael promised Matthew he would self-publish the autobiography, but Matthew did not persevere, and for years the story seemed too sad to tell. Yet Michael knew there were other parents like him and his wife, Kathy, who thought they had failed, whose prayers had gone unanswered, and who wondered if God had failed them too.

Following Matthew’s suicide, Michael and Kathy reached a place of darkness where God either had to be true or had never been true. Matthew: A Child’s Life and Death with HIV blends their son’s autobiography and journal entries, their own journal entries, and a narrative thread to describe how they came through their love and loss of Matthew with their faith, marriage, and surviving family intact.