Theresa Kenney
William Brochinsky
Cheshire, Connecticut
Positive since 1985

I have been positive 28 years and am still counting T-cells. Here’s to the value of self-disclosure. 



Why have I survived 28 years?


  1. To integrate meditation and yoga in my life

  2. To attain a Master of Arts degree
  3. To live up to my responsibilities
  4. To care for mom
  5. To reinvent myself once again
  6. To continue to dream and dream big
  7. To participate in vaccine trials to benefit others
  8. To survive cancer with HIV
  9. To acquire a dash of wisdom and knowledge to guide me into my future by living in the present
  10. To honor all of those who have gone before me
  11. To help thousands of patients and families with their end of life journeys

  12. To inter my brother into the red soil of Colorado. "Roger, out."
  13. To respectfully eulogize my father
  14. To tote my lover’s ashes to Denny, Scotland. "Rest Laird, rest."
  15. To experience wailing and profound lamenting and in time surface beyond those deeply experiential words
  16. To fall into the chasm of addiction and to recover daily
  17. To frame my life’s puzzle and fill it in piece by tedious piece

  18. To inform my sexual perpetrators they were wrong, even if I was destined to become a gay man
  19. To carry a C movie as the lead character. “Vladimir has a killer idea."
  20. To heal myself, that I may heal others
  21. To have had great lovers and moved on
  22. To appreciate beauty—and on occasion—to have created it
  23. To have directed some wonderful theater, especially for and with kids
  24. To collect residuals
  25. To have found a path however it may vary in width and direction
  26. To evolve through education and teach others
  27. To have the desire for 27 more answers and 27 more years. So at the age of 82, I can ask why I have survived 27 more years and care nothing of T-cells because I have cured myself to live a complete life
  28. To inform my 88-year old mother that her sister and son died five months apart in 2012. Let’s hope reason #29 will be better news
With love, courage and strength to all.  

What three adjectives best describe you?
Resilient, alive and enthusiastic

What is your greatest achievement?
To have inspired others to be more

What is your greatest regret?
Not adopting

What keeps you up at night?
Mom crying out from dementia

If you could change one thing about living with HIV, what would it be?
The lost decade when I thought I was next

What is the best advice you ever received?
Live your purpose

What person in the HIV/AIDS community do you most admire?
Magic Johnson

What drives you to do what you do?
The desire to help

What is your motto?
Have faith in yourself, even if others do not

If you had to evacuate your house immediately, what is the one thing you would grab on the way out?
My mom, of course

If you could be any animal, what would you be? And why?
An eagle so I could soar high


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