The story of a real-life hometown hero

Sometimes, as an NFL beat writer, I think I help to create false heroes and simply make really rich people filthy rich.

But there are real heroes around us in daily life. Kelly Chambers is one of them. She is 37, and in September, reached 20 years of living with HIV and AIDS. She has survived longer than any female in this area. But she hasn't just counted days on a calendar. She has filled them by reaching out to children "infected or affected" by the disease.

On Oct. 14, a few hours before flying to Tampa, Fla., to cover the Bengals game the next day, I will attend a fundraiser lunch and silent auction to Carrabba's Italian Grill in Crestview Hills that benefits the organization started by Kelly Chambers and her mother, Dixie Sucher. It's called F.A.C.E., For Aids Children Everywhere. Right now, F.A.C.E. is helping brighten the lives of 113 Tristate children.

I first wrote about Kelly Chambers in March 1999. She almost died in 2002. My phone rang a couple of weeks ago. It was Kelly. We're pretty open and honest with each other. I told her, a few minutes into the conversation, that I thought she had died and that, embarrassingly, I had not stayed in contact or said good-bye and thought I had missed her services.

Hearing from her made my day.

I met with her and her mother for an hour this morning at their Holmes Hospital office. Same one we sat in early in the reporting process in 1999. I got a huge hug from Kelly when I arrived and one when I left.

I had one piece of Bengals memorabilia in my house -- a gift from a grateful public relations firm for writing a brief about an item -- that I gave to Kelly and Dixie for their silent auction. I don't keep gifts. It's not ethical. I give them away to charities, send them back or tell people up front not to bother.

This item was pretty nice. I had hung onto it, waiting for the right organization. Kelly didn't even have to ask on the phone. I asked if she needed something.

She's more of a hero than anyone I've written about on the football beat in almost seven years.

When I think about Kelly, the Beatles song "The End" comes to mind:

"And in the end,
the love you make
is equal to the love
you take."

Please read this story. Not because I wrote it. Read it because you'll be glad to learn about Kelly Chambers and her work, if you already don't know. Like me, you'll be better for it.

March 21, 1999

HEADLINE: One of the Faces of AIDS

By MARK CURNUTTE

The Cincinnati Enquirer

This is an obituary about somebody who's still alive.

That's the idea two callers had. The somebody is Kelly Chambers. "She's a
person who deserves to read her obit," one said.

Kelly is 30. She has been HIV-positive since 1986, the year she graduated
from Oak Hills High School. "Unprotected sex," she said. "I know who I got it
from."

Crystal Chambers, Kelly's daughter, died from AIDS on Nov. 16, 1991. She was
14 months. They were at home in Cleves. Kelly was holding her. Sesame Street was
on TV.

Kelly didn't know she was HIV-positive until Crystal was 6 months old. Kelly
found out from doctors treating her daughter at Children's Hospital Medical
Center. The baby is HIV-positive, they said. Dad is negative. Mom is positive.

Kelly ran from the room. Her cries echoed in the hallway. "Oh, I've killed
you."

Now Kelly's time is running out. "It is," she whispered when her mother
turned her back to answer the phone in the Holmes Hospital office they share.
Dixie Sucher doesn't like to hear Kelly talk that way. Dixie is vice president
of Kelly's organization, For AIDS Children Everywhere. They call it FACE.

FACE has assisted children in more than 150 HIV-positive families --
"infected or affected," Kelly said -- with peer counseling, groceries, household
and hygiene products, clothing, recreational outings, holiday and birthday gifts
and transportation to clinic appointments and group meetings.

"And I can tell you each one of their names," Kelly said.

It's what she has done through FACE that has won her admirers. She didn't
crawl in a hole. "Almost," she said.

Why not? "I said I'd follow her down," Dixie said.

"I couldn't have that," said Kelly, who instead redirected her grief into
helping other people like her and her daughter. Dying mothers with dying
children.

Kelly co-founded the group in January 1992 with another HIV-positive mother
who'd lost a baby to AIDS.

Kelly and her FACE co-founder were soul sisters. They helped each other cope
with their children's deaths. They buried the girls beside each other in the
infant section of Spring Grove Cemetery. The women also picked out their plots
together, too. They are side-by-side, not more than 50 feet away from their
daughters' graves.

But the two women are now estranged.

Kelly's co-founder, who thinks she got AIDS from IV drug use, took a
sabbatical from FACE in October 1996. In November 1997, with her name still
associated with FACE, the woman broke into the group's office in Holmes'
basement, took money and checks made out to Kelly and signed Kelly's name to
them. Kelly had to sell her car and several belongings to buy gifts to give to
youngsters at FACE's annual Christmas party.

Kelly filed a complaint, and the woman is now serving a one-year sentence for
theft and possession of drugs, according to Ohio Department of Rehabilitation
and Correction records.

Kelly has no plans to reconcile with the co-founder. She won't let heartache
slow her.

"In my condition, I can't let anyone bring me down, emotionally or
physically," she said.

Now it's Kelly and Dixie. They don't take a dime from FACE. Their hospital
office is donated space, and it's a busy place. There are boxes of tissues
everywhere. Health books and directories are squeezed onto shelves, competing
for space with photographs of Crystal and bumper stickers: "My next office will
have a window." "Fight AIDS. Not people with AIDS."

Dixie, who's in her late-40s and lives in Delhi Township, quit her job with a
cleaning service to work with Kelly. She will take over when Kelly dies. "I
wanted to be with her to watch her," Dixie said.

Kelly has had full-blown AIDS since 1994. An infection took the hearing from
her left ear; she turns her right ear toward people to hear them speak. She has
constant leg pain. She and her doctor decided to take a break from her medicine,
which is rotting some of her teeth. She used to have a round face beneath her
strawberry-blond hair. Over the past two years, AIDS has whittled her once-full
figure into a stick.

"Please put some weight on her," Dixie said to a photographer taking Kelly's
picture.

Kelly's relationships with the people around her changed after she went
public with her AIDS. So did her circle.

"I lost all my friends when I told them I had AIDS," she said. "I told them I
had cancer originally. One friend, I knew her since we were 4, she told me she
couldn't watch me die piece by piece, the way we watched Crystal die. But I have
made new friends."

And admirers.

Aside from its 13 directors, FACE's board has eight high-profile honorary
members. That list includes Cincinnati Mayor Roxanne Qualls and Dr. Peter Frame,
director of University Hospital's Infectious Disease Clinic and Kelly's doctor.

FACE is thought to be the only group of its kind nationally.

"There is an organization in Texas for women and children with AIDS, but it
wasn't set up by women with AIDS," said Pam Daniel, a nurse in the infectious
disease clinic who met Kelly when Crystal was hospitalized at Children's.

"I liken FACE to what people who come through drug treatment say. There are
two kinds of counselors: People who've gone to school and people who are
recovering. The people who are recovering are the ones who get the respect. I'm
as empathetic as I can be, but I can't understand."

Kelly does. "AIDS drains your bank account," she said. "It can make a wealthy
person a poor person. Before I got hooked up with the government, my meds were
costing me $2,800 a month."

Beyond money, dying women and children have many emotional needs.

"Isolation and fear. I felt like I was the only woman in the world with a
baby who died of AIDS," Kelly said. "When I formed FACE, there was not another
group geared toward women and children. I was alone. It hurt. I didn't want
another woman to hurt the way I did.

"We don't judge. It doesn't matter how you got it."

Many people with HIV and AIDS marvel at Kelly's ability to put them first.
FACE is short on bureaucracy and long on personal touch.

Eric Gamble, 30, of Lincoln Heights met Kelly when the mother of his child
was diagnosed with HIV. The woman died in 1996.

"Kelly tried to do everything to comfort her," said Mr. Gamble, who is also
HIV-positive and sees a specialist every two weeks at Holmes. His child, now 4,
is HIV-negative.

"Kelly got us food, toys, money at times when I was in a bind," he said. "She
gets close to you when nobody else will, you know.

"Whenever I'm at the clinic, I stop in to see her. She lifts my spirits."

Good times are few for families with an HIV-positive or AIDS-stricken child.
Kelly knows this, too. That's why FACE tries to create what she calls "Memory
Making Outings."

As a mom, she is sustained by the memory of Crystal's first birthday. The
party is part of a manuscript Kelly has written and would like to get published
about her daughter's life and death.

"We had aunts, uncles, friends, tons of presents and cake," Kelly said.
"Crystal stuck her hand in the cake. It was a great day. We didn't have to go to
the hospital. She could be a normal kid. There was no needles and no probing.
Nobody stuck her. There was no crying, no spinal tap, no IV. She screamed
because she was happy. She was happy."

The tears flow down Kelly's face, but she keeps talking.

"Sometimes, that's all us moms have -- memories. A lot of our kids are so
sick, and their parents are so poor and sick, that their outing with us might be
their last adventure."

She pulls a scrapbook from a shelf. FACE took a dozen kids to Sea World in
Aurora, Ohio, in 1995. They petted dolphins, ate pizza, stayed overnight in a
hotel and forgot about hospitals for a couple of days.

A handmade thank-you card falls from between the scrapbook's pages. It is
made of orange construction paper, folded in half, and has a yellow paper flower
on the front.

"Thank you," the little girl wrote. "I like my doll. I like my game."

On the back, she cut the shape of a school bus from a sheet of lined notebook
paper.

"That's her on the bus going to Sea World," Kelly said. "She died a month
after that trip."

FACE takes children to sporting events. The Mighty Ducks and Cyclones hockey
teams are generous with free tickets and souvenirs. FACE has a Christmas party
every year for children and their families. Santa gives each child a new toy.
Local Marines involved in the Toys for Tots program have donated dozens of new
games, dolls, trucks and balls. Cincinnati's gay, lesbian and bisexual community
has been supportive from the beginning. Loveland and McAuley high school
students and the Wellness group at the University of Cincinnati are some who
have organized canned food drives.

Dixie keeps organized an adjacent storage room in the Holmes Hospital
basement. There's not much in there right now.

"We need everything," Dixie said. "We gave everything away."

The budget is so small that the organization, as a tax-exempt nonprofit, does
not have to file a financial form.

FACE receives no public money; it operates entirely on private donations and
within the last year has turned around about $20,000 in goods (food, clothing,
birthday and holiday gifts for children, household items) and services
(transportation and trips).

"We've survived this long by begging," Kelly said.

Pam Katz is a three-year FACE board member and Blue Ash CPA who volunteered
to do the group's books.

"I don't know how Kelly and Dixie do everything they do," she said. "Kelly's
legacy will be how she touched children who were infected or affected and by
educating huge numbers of people -- like me -- who had questions in the
beginning about AIDS based on lack of information."

Kelly is a tireless public speaker and will address 60 first-year students in
Northern Kentucky University's nursing program in April. It will be the fourth
consecutive year she has been there.

"She came over one year with pneumonia," said Frances Mosser, an associate
professor of nursing at NKU and Kelly's contact.

It's one of 13 times Kelly has had pneumonia since 1994.

"She was weak and had chills, and we tried to send her home," Ms. Mosser
said. "But she wanted to speak. So we sat her down and wrapped a blanket around
her. She spoke and answered questions for more than an hour."

Kelly is Catholic. Her faith is strong.

"I was angry with God for having Crystal endure so much pain before taking
her," she said. "I was angry that somebody in my family circle would be
infected. But it's not his fault. It's nobody's fault.

"He gave me the strength I have today. I should honor him. I hope I am doing
his work.

"I don't read the Bible. I don't go to church. I believe in God. I believe in
life after death. I believe church is anywhere you choose to pray. There are
times you pray, "Come get me now. I'm tired of suffering.' Then you have good
days.

"I believe this has happened for a reason. I took something ugly and bad and
turned it into something good, and not just for myself, but for everyone I have
met. If I can take a teen-aged girl and make her realize she's not invincible
and prevent her from getting AIDS, I've done something good."

Clarence and Kelly Chambers have been married for more than 10 years. He's
HIV-negative and works for his father on the family farm near Brookville, Ind.
He supports her work. At Kelly's request, he has even talked to some fathers of
HIV-positive children.

But Clarence doesn't have a lot to say publicly.

Kelly has a lot to say about her husband. "I'm the luckiest woman in the
world," she said. "We wanted four kids, two boys and two girls. I wanted to stay
home and be a mom."

She worked as a waitress before Crystal was born. Then Kelly stayed home.
Then she and her husband found out why their baby was always sick.

"When our daughter was in the ICU, I told him, "Divorce me. Get a healthy
wife who can give you healthy children.' He told me no. He said his vows were
for better or worse, sickness or health. . . ."

More tears. More talk. She's fervently trying to make the most of the time
she has left.

Kelly and Clarence are legal guardians of another child. The child's parents
had AIDS. The mother committed suicide. The father died in Kelly's arms.

"I've seen people who had nobody," Kelly said. "People have been afraid to
say they had AIDS, even to their own family. This man was alone. I climbed into
his bed at the hospice and put his head in my lap. I stroked his hair and said,
"I've got your baby. I'll take care of your baby. Your baby will be OK. Go ahead
if you want to. It's OK.' Then he took a deep breath and died."

Clarence will care for the child after Kelly dies.

There's only one problem with writing Kelly Chambers' obituary ahead of time.
She has a lot of life left in her, even if her time is short.

The news last week wasn't good. Her T-cell count is down, and T-cells are
what ward off infection. Kelly had to go back on her AIDS medicine cocktail. It
has major side effects, and she had been off it since Dec. 22.

"I have to take pills to go to sleep," she said. "I have to take pills to
wake up. I have to take pills to go to the bathroom."

There are many side effects. "The meds got her teeth," Dixie said. "She's
missing one of the front ones. I want her to get it fixed before she goes out
again, so she can smile."

Still, she's working to come up with money to take another group of dying
children to Sea World this summer. She needs at least $2,000. FACE's storage
room is bare, and there are always phone calls to make to ask for donations. She
maintains a busy speaking schedule; Aiken High School is up next.

Kelly pauses long enough in the FACE office on a winter afternoon to talk
about herself. The woman who has made wishes come true for more than 100 dying
children has a couple of wishes of her own. Three to be exact.

She'd like to go on an Alaskan cruise and see whales in their natural
habitat. She'd like to meet Diana Ross and have her sing and dedicate the song
"Do You Know Where You're Going To?" to her.

Kelly also wants to go bungee jumping.

"That's the last thing," she said. "When they tell me I have two weeks to
live, that's what I'm doing."

How to help

What: For AIDS Children Everywhere (FACE).

Where: P.O. Box 19783, Cincinnati 45219. The office is in the basement of
Holmes Hospital, corner of Eden and Bethesda avenues, Corryville.

Mission: It is a nonprofit, tax-exempt agency dedicated to providing services
to children and their families who are infected or affected by HIV - AIDS. It is
in need of nonperishable food items and nonfood items that are not covered by
food stamps, such as diapers and household and personal hygiene items.

The organization also is attempting to raise money to take HIV-positive
children on an overnight outing to Sea World in Aurora, Ohio.

Information: 584-3571.