Melva Hightower (MH) and Tyler Hightower (TH)

MH: What are the most important lessons that you’ve learned thus far in life, granted I know you’re only twelve?

TH: Um, well when I was younger I was a lot heavier so people would always make fun of me and call me fat. I didn’t understand why people would make somebody feel so bad about something like that? Just like if somebody was born with AIDS or—or was born with seven fingers and six toes; you were born like that and that’s wrong for somebody to try and point that out and make you feel bad. You know what? People will say a lot of things about you. If you’re too big they’ll call you fat and obese. If you’re to tall they’ll call you a giant, if you’re too short they’ll call you a midget. So, even if people get on your nerves or they say mean things to you, eventually you will be on top, if you be nice. So there’s no point in making two wrongs cause they won’t become a right.

MH: That’s a pretty wise way to handle it.

TH: Aunt Melva what’s the saddest thing that ever happened in your whole entire life?

MH: I lost a very good friend to AIDS.

TH: How did he get AIDS? Was he born with them?

MH: No. He contracted it through—I’m assuming cause I don’t know for sure—um, a sexual encounter. He was somebody I had grown up with. Somebody I had known since I was about 4 years old. And I spent many nights talking on the phone with him. I mean, he got me through my teen years. He had been in the hospital, and the night before I had a dream about him, and in my dream he was telling me goodbye. So I called him the next day…and, when his mother answered the phone she told me he had died. So—he told me in a dream. And I miss him so much. Cause I’d always thought he would walk through life with me—and in a way he does. Cause I have all those wonderful memories, and, you know he fills up my heart every day.