Reflection
Anne Delano Weathersby
August 30, 2024
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Leftovers
- By Margaret Kim Peterson
- visuals
- 2 Comments
About the Artwork
“Medication regimens for HIV/AIDS in the 1990s were burdensome and complex. My husband, scientist that he was, kept meticulous track of everything. After he died I inventoried the leftovers, which included some 12,000 capsules or tablets of prescription medication, plus several thousand more of over-the-counter meds. Before handing it back to the clinic, so it could be re-dispensed to patients without insurance, I took this picture.”
Margaret Kim Peterson is a licensed marriage and family therapist working in private practice in Philadelphia. Before moving into clinical work she taught theology and ethics at the college level for twenty years. While doing her doctoral work in theology, she married a Korean molecular biologist who was HIV+. He died of AIDS four years later, in 1995, at the very peak of the AIDS epidemic in the United States.
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2 thoughts on “Leftovers”
Oh my. This photograph immediately brought to mind a patient I’ve called Lady Jane Jackson. She was quite the artiste. In the course of the largely one-way conversation I had with her on my first home visit (I confess I used it later in a poem), she said, “Go into my kitchen / and look at my pill nook–/ medicine boxes and / cups full of capsules / stacked up in little pyramids / there on the table. / Now go into the bathroom / and see my collection / of towels and soaps… / I love pretty things / and lots of them.” Dear Lady Jane!
This is an amazing and thought provoking image. Many thanks for sharing