The Miraculous Life of Jonathan Swain(continued)
By Keith Morrison,
Correspondent, NBC News
July 7, 2006
Neil Willenson, founder of Camp Heartland, a summer camp for children with AIDS, met Jon at the National Institute of Health when Jon was 10 years old. Neil invited Jon to Camp Heartland— to play, to forget even for a little while his daily struggles with AIDS. But he also asked him to talk to children and adults about his disease, to educate, to give them some of the hope that kept him going.
As he remembered it... the realization came slowly that cocaine had stolen his mother away, that in her desperation to get high, she’d forgotten his needs. Luckily Jon had his older brother Josh to protect him, not only from the world outside but his own mother, but then Josh left. It was hard, even for a boy as strong as Jon, to withstand the downward spiral of a junkie for very long. A young child on the verge of death had become his mother’s parent— her nurse, as she flirted with the fatal dangers of her addiction.
Jon Swain, neglected and depressed, gave up. He stopped taking his AIDS medication. For all those years he had hoped, but now, he didn’t anymore. But Jon says it felt strange. He wasn’t used to just giving up. And that’s when a name came into his head: The one adult he could trust.
Neil Willenson, the founder of Camp Heartland, who’d bonded with Jon through all the speeches they’d given together, answered the phone at one o’clock in the morning.
Willenson: He kept asking, “Can I live with you? Can I live with you?”
Jon Swain: I said, “I know you don’t know me.” I said, “I know I’m just some kid from your camp. And I know how bad it would look but I have nothing else. I have nothing.”
Neil knew the one thing Jon needed was a stable home. He’d made it his life’s mission to help children with AIDS and here was a real opportunity to make a difference. He said yes.
In mid-1998, Sheila had finally kicked it- no more drugs and a stable job. She had moved to Milwaukee to be near her son in whom her interest was once again insatiable. Jon told Neil she was “mom” again. Then one day, when Jon was 16, the past caught up. In October 1999, Sheila answered the door to a dozen FBI agents with an arrest warrant for her drug dealing days in Iowa. She could do nothing but plead guilty, she was guilty. In a lifetime of bad days Jon called sentencing day the worst. It was hard that day to face his mom. Sheila Swain was sentenced to 12 years in prison. She’s an inmate at the federal correctional institution in Dublin, California, reflecting on the mother she failed to be.
Part 3: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13756759/page/3/
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Excerpts from Part 4
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In June 2001, Jonathan Swain was posing for photos with Neil Willenson, the man who’d given him a home these last 5 years, who’d made sure Jon got back on his AIDS medication and began to look after himself again. His mom was now in prison, serving 12 years for drug-dealing. He might have abandoned her; he didn’t. He went to see her and made a video of his high school graduation just for her.
The future was a strange and unsettling concept for Jonathan Swain, but he knew there was someone who could help him figure it out— his older brother Josh. Josh, now a cook, lived in a small town called Vernal, Utah. Was Jon ready to leave the understanding world around him, ready to face possible discrimination, to fight for acceptance one more time? Was Jon ready for Vernal, Utah? People who knew Jon asked a different question: Was Vernal ready for him?
Jon, in a way only Jon could, wasted no time in making his presence known. He was back with his brother again, weathering the storm — this time of food orders — side by side, just like old times. And then, the most unexpected thing: Jon met a girl. Her name is Amber. She was a waitress at the restaurant. She liked Jon. And Jon liked her. Jon had always been upfront about his disease. With girls that usually meant the end of any romantic relationship, but not with Amber.
Amber came from a tight-knit Mormon family. She had two little kids. She was separated, soon to be divorced. She was bright, rebellious... and in love. Jon used a condom to minimize any chance of infecting Amber with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Still, when Amber told her parents about Jon, they warned her: she was playing Russian roulette.
On June 6, 2004, when Amber was eight months pregnant, she and Jon got married. Amber’s parents attended the ceremony, finally ready to embrace Jon as one of their own. Then, six weeks later, on July 27th, 2004, it was time.
Jon and Amber were in the delivery room. Jon was there, of course. He was nervous and almost dazed, in utter amazement that this was happening to him at all. Jon watched open-mouthed as the baby appeared, cut umbilical chord, and handed the baby to Amber. Just like that, the boy who was never supposed to live, was now a father to a son to "Jett Davis Swain." They tested Jett as soon as he was born and there was no HIV. Jett was healthy.
To be continued.
