HIV 'poster child' still learning, coping and sharing

Kim Smith did not want to be the walking poster child for HIV and AIDS.

Even so, it is not uncommon for complete strangers to recognize her on the street and embrace her — not just in the Salt Lake Valley but even as far away as New York City and Washington, D.C.

Smith agreed to share the most difficult part of her life with the world with the production of "The Smith Family." Filmed by Tasha Oldham and premiered on PBS, this documentary zeroes in on the Smiths as they cope with the impact of HIV and AIDS within their family.

In 1987, on their ninth wedding anniversary, Kim learned her husband, Steven, had engaged in sex with a number of men. The punches didn't stop there. Two years later, Kim would learn that she was HIV positive.

"It was like being hit on the head with a crowbar," she said. And ultimately, if she was positive, so was Steve. Anonymous testing confirmed what they already knew.

Kim and Steven were determined to keep their family together. They were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. While their religion played a large role in their decision, Kim said they truly loved one another. In sickness and in health.

"We shared a love of so many things," she said. "We just couldn't love each other in a physical way the way we loved each other in an emotional way."

When Steven became seriously ill with AIDS, Kim used her medical background to nurse him herself, so that he could remain at home. But she wanted her two young sons to have a normal life, so she still drove them to ball practice and did all the other things that mothers do. And through it all, she was going through treatments of her own — treatments that left her feeling weak and nauseous. She coped by breaking her life down into five-minute increments.

"There was so much to think about that sometimes I just didn't think," Kim said.

As AIDS destroyed his body, Kim said her husband carried a certain heaviness, knowing he had passed the potential for the full-blown disease on to her.

"He suffered more than I know," she said. "He would sometimes ask me, 'Who is going to do this for you?"'

In 2000, Steven passed away within a week after their son Tony entered the Missionary Training Center in preparation for serving a church mission.

"For a year after, I just wandered around ... I would sleep hours and days away," she said.