Annie Russell (AR): Time now for StoryCorps.

Joseph Rogers Britton has spent 40 years caring for others.

Joseph Rogers Britton (JRB): In the early days, I used to sit with babies who were positive for HIV. And all I did was just hold them and rock and sing. You know what the biggest joy was? Finding a smile in that small, sick child. That just made my week.

AR: During the height of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s Joseph cared for other gay men living with HIV.

And, as he told his friend Jeff Moore at StoryCorps, that’s how he fell in love with another caretaker named Steven.

JRB: We met doing volunteer work, HIV work. Me caring for someone who was dying with HIV. Our first dates, for the first six months, were sitting on a porch swing every single day and talking till three in the morning. We missed every single dinner date, every movie. [laughs] 

And that led into a thirty year relationship.

And then we found out that we both love gardening. Steven and I used to have a tradition that every fall when the winter freeze on the rose gardens, we would go and raid the roses. 

We would snip them all down, and we’re talking about a carload of nothing but roses. And then we would go home, have glasses of wine, and we’d fill up every vessel we could find, whether it’s a soup can, a bottle, or whatever, and we’d secretly run around to every single house of a senior citizen, a single mother. 

And we’d leave bouquets of roses at their door. And we’d do this all night long. We were giving it out to those who don’t get out.

Jeff Moore (JM): Certainly, that kindness that you emanate has meant a lot to me since I’ve known you.

JRB: When you experience people living and dying together, it breaks it down to the things that are important.

And it’s not the glitz. It’s the simple touches.

You know, so many people… thought that HIV is a death sentence. I’ve always been very proud of the fact that I’m a living individual with HIV. You see everything as an opportunity because you’re here.

JM: And, you really believe and you live – if you put kindness out there, kindness is gonna come back.

JRB: I can guarantee it.