Macomb Township

A doll that's worth a thousand words

By Erin McClary
C & G Staff Writer

Local HIV/AIDS outreach project, advocate receives $60K grant

MACOMB TOWNSHIP — G.I. Joes, playing ball and keeping up with her brothers is how Kathy Gerus-Darbison spent her time as a girl.

So why a traveling doll exhibit as a way to “speak” for women struggling with HIV or AIDS? Gerus-Darbison isn’t quite sure. But 10 years ago, she and colleague Candice Moench decided on the STITCHES Doll Project to help infected women artistically express the trials and troubling experiences that have shaped their lives.

That was 15 years after her daughter was born, 14 years after she found out she had HIV, seven years after her husband died of AIDS, and six years after she, herself, was diagnosed with it.

Finally, just last month, the international project that started in Macomb Township was awarded a $60,000 grant from the Johnson & Johnson/Society for the Arts in Healthcare organization. The money will give Gerus-Darbison, 51, the funding she needs to travel to different conferences and HIV/AIDS agencies around the world, inviting women of all ages to create a doll that represents themselves and, thus, become a part of her traveling exhibit.

“Healthcare initiatives that involve partnerships between arts and health professionals are demonstrating real benefits — improving patient outcomes, helping people make connections, and engendering a sense of community,” said Anita Boles, executive director of Society for the Arts in Healthcare, in a prepared statement.

Of the 320 projects throughout the United States and Canada that submitted proposals, nine were awarded grant funding. The money was issued to programs that use art not only as a form of therapeutic healing, but also a form of preventive health. It will be distributed in increments of $20,000 over a three-year span.

Material, embellishments and other supplies to make the dolls already clog Gerus-Darbison’s two home offices and her garage. Now she just needs volunteers and advocates to help with her cause. Her 75-year-old mother and just a few others are currently volunteering with STITCHES.

She said, “It’ll be nice to at least offer them gas money now.”

Recently, Gerus-Darbison piloted presentations at five Macomb County schools in something she hopes will take off as a different kind of sex ed for girls. She said after hearing what she has to say about living with HIV and AIDS, the dolls seemed to stir up several other issues surrounding the dangers of sexuality — including drug abuse and domestic violence — among the crowds of students.

“It is much more complicated than saying ‘don’t have sex until you’re married,’” she said. “These dolls can get into places that people who are infected can’t … they cross religious, race and age boundaries.”

Gerus-Darbison was infected with HIV in a monogamous, married situation; a situation she said is commonly misconceived as being rare. She said even now, there is not enough focus on women living with HIV and AIDS and how they can contract it, even though the most common way is by having heterosexual, unprotected sex with an infected man.

So far there are 140 dolls in her collection — some from as far as South America — each touting a “story.” On April 1, nine were on display at Gerus-Darbison’s home in Macomb Township. Most of the women that created them, she said, have already passed away. One among the nine, titled “Bound,” tells her story.

“She symbolizes all the important things and people who have made her what she is today,” her story begins.

Gerus-Darbison’s doll, which she now refers to as “me,” sits on a bed; her hair is several different colors, representing her different moods and fears; she is tied by rope and a lock, binding her to the events of her past and present; a mirror is placed behind the bed; and a box of ashes and a bloodstone sit at her feet, representing her late husband, Michael Gerus, a hemophiliac who died of AIDS in 1992.

“She is naked, vulnerable. Except for the ever-present BIOHAZARD. … Her mouth speaks of AIDS Awareness. … In her arms she holds her daughter who has witnessed everything. … The bed signifies the place where HIV entered her life. … The mirror symbolizes the reflection of society,” her plaque reads.

In 1985, Gerus-Darbison, Gerus and their then 1-year-old daughter, Stephanie, participated in a national blood-transfusion study. The study came back showing that 95 percent of hemophiliacs were infected. When the doctors broke the news, they brought good and bad: Stephanie was not infected, but the newlyweds were.

There wasn’t much information on the disease at the time, she said, so the trio was sent home with little instruction. The doctors told them it’d be best to keep quiet.

Since then, Gerus-Darbison has been the guinea pig of several new medications; she and Gerus came out with their disease in a 1990 televised interview with reporter Bill Bonds; she has undergone eight surgeries to treat cervical cancer and has even fought off shingles, two of 26 AIDS defining illnesses that often result in death.

After finding out she’d contracted HIV from Gerus, who contracted HIV through blood transfusions treating his life-long struggle with hemophilia, Gerus-Darbison said she refused to live in a “plastic bubble” or succumb to what society stereotypes as a ticking time bomb.

In a few weeks, Gerus-Darbison anticipates completing a graduate program, which will garner her a master’s degree in Sociology. She has remarried since Gerus’ death and her daughter is currently an undergrad at a university in Florida.

Gerus-Darbison is an educator by trade, she said, and would devote all of her time to spreading the word about HIV/AIDS awareness, all the while reaching out to those that share her story, if only time and funding were unbounded.

Under the administration of former President Bill Clinton, Gerus-Darbison also served on an HIV/AIDS Advisory Council. On the wall in her home hangs a framed letter from Clinton himself, commending an 8-year-old Stephanie for her book titled “My parents have HIV/AIDS.”

Within the next few weeks, Gerus-Darbison will be visiting victims of sexual abuse in Ann Arbor for a “Take Back the Night” event. Then she’s bringing STITCHES to Indiana for a presentation. And right after that, she’s off to Buffalo, N.Y., where she was asked to present the dolls at a Johnson & Johnson/Society for the Arts in Healthcare conference.

On Nov. 21, she will be participating in a “Steppin’ Out” fundraiser in Royal Oak, where some of the STITCHES dolls will be auctioned off.

Even with all she’s been through, despite her weakened immune system and touting her fragile display of dolls, Gerus-Darbison can still deliver a powerful message to society — and give an even stronger hug.

You can reach C & G Staff Writer Erin McClary at emcclary@candgnews.com or at (586)279-1118.