Morning-Glory Babies: Children With AIDS And the Celebration of Life

This is the true story of three babies with AIDS and the small lay Catholic community that opened its farm home to care for them. It is an intensely moving story of the pain of fighting indifferent bureaucrats so that the babies will not be warehoused in hospitals; a courageous story in which the initial hysteria and hostility of rural neighbors are transformed into acts of kindness and charity; a sad story of one baby who dies the day after cutting his first tooth. Above all, it is a story of hope, as the bonds of love gradually erase the frightening solitude of each baby's past, and good people rally 'round to guarantee the ultimate right of any child: not to die among strangers.

But this is not a book about dying, it is a saga of living -- the chronicle of a year in which these special children respond to the excitement of each new season, as they bask in love and the gentle California sunshine, cutting a first tooth, taking a first step, and reminding us, the readers, what life is all about -- the small miracles of the average day.

Unlike so much in the AIDS epidemic, this is a gentle and quiet story, a rare patch of calm and wisdom in the midst of hysteria and grief. Morning-Glory Babies is an incredibly moving story, a story of true heroism of the spirit, a story that will make you proud to be a human being.