It is that time again for Michael DeSalvo of Friends of Dorothy. A time to say final goodbye to his guest of one year who is suffering from HIV/AIDS and will not live beyond a few weeks according to doctors at University Hospital.
DeSalvo and Nick Orth, his partner of 16 years, have been taking in hospice patients as their guests for over 14 years, caring for them and making them part of their family. Those who come to their house at 212 Wayne St. are often fatally ill. Some have no where to go. A few are unloved and unwanted.
But they are always welcome at Friends of Dorothy - A Catholic Worker House.
“We provide a home for them, cook for them. Our guests are part of our family,” said DeSalvo. “Some move on, others pass away.”
In these 14 years, the couple has seen at least 30 of their guests die.
“It is an intense time. We become attached. When you wipe their ass, hold their head when they are puking, dress them, it is so intimate. Sometimes, I feel we know them more than their families do. And when they die, it is upsetting,” said DeSalvo who is a hairstylist and owns Hairnaoir, a beauty salon, at the intersection of Green and Catherine streets. When the condition of the guest becomes bad, DeSalvo cancels his appointments to be with him.
So while DeSalvo works at the salon, Orth stays at home to take care of the guest and run errands.
“He is our house husband,” said DeSalvo, 47, who met Orth at a demonstration at Syracuse in1989.
“It was love at first sight. He walked by and I said ‘who’s that?’,” he said.
At the time DeSalvo was in the process of getting a divorce from his wife of 13 years and Orth was living in Washington D.C.
DeSalvo, openly gay, said he always knew he was attracted to men but he was confused.
“I did not fit in the gay community. And I liked women too. May be I felt like that because of the pressures of the culture. But I am more gay than straight,” said DeSalvo who is now divorced. He has two step children.
For Orth too it was love at first sight. He had been in relationships before but they did not last. But with DeSalvo it was different. Orth moved to Syracuse in 1992 and together they started their home. He never felt like a marriage wrecker, said Orth, 42.
“I did not feel bad about his divorce. Never felt that because of me he lost something good. His marriage was bad and it was not working,” said Orth who is an artist and a carpenter.
Though DeSalvo and his partner have been together for a long time, they have not married.
“I am committed to him (Orth). I don’t believe in marriages,” he said adding that this is his way of showing to the world that being gay is not only about sex, it is about relationships too.
They do not have any children and Orth said DeSalvo jokes with his god-children that he expected them to take care of him when he grew old.
DeSalvo, an Italian, was born and brought up in Syracuse. He went to Henninger High School and after finishing high school went on to do courses in interior designing and beauty. He did the interiors of his salon, which he bought around two years ago. It has ochre yellow walls and maroon and dark brown furniture and little angels hanging from the ceilings.
“They look cool. One of my professors presented them to me,” he said.
The earnings from the salon pay for the house expenses. DeSalvo works with the University Hospital that refers patients to them. The couple does not have to worry about medical bills, which are usually taken care of by Medicaid. DeSalvo was taught how to take care of patients by nurses.
“We choose people who have the least amount of support. We keep one or two guests at a time so that we can give them proper care,” he said.
Things are not always easy for the couple. They have had bad times. Money has always been a problem.
“It is hard. When we first started, we had even less. We have always lived on a shoestring budget. I still don’t have health insurance because it costs money and we can’t afford it,” said Orth who does not work because someone is needed at home to take care of the guest.
But they have been working toward fund-raising by organizing and hosting dinners on Sundays and every first Wednesday of the month.
“Our friends have been generous with donations,” said DeSalvo who does not get any funding from the government nor does he want any.
“I like our autonomous status. I don’t have to worry about filling beds,” he said.
They have also been publishing a newsletter called Friends of Dorothy since 2003 to inform their donors and supporters about their work. Both DeSalvo and Orth write for the letter , which they design and publish themselves.
The Catholic Worker Movement started in the 1930s by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin inspired the duo to provide hospitality to the needy.
“This is our way of observing our religion. When everything collapses, someone needs to be working to pick up the pieces and this is what we do,” DeSalvo said.
Hope, who has been a guest at Friends of Dorothy, and now helps DeSalvo and Orth in their work, said if it were not for them, she would have died in a nursing home.
“I had AIDS and I stayed with them for seven months. They are my adopted parents. They cared for me better than my father. I consider them as angels that God put in my path. I feel blessed. They are now the constant in my life,” she said.
Hope came to stay at DeSalvo’s home around eight years ago and said she was very ill at the time. The doctors said she just had two more weeks left. And she owes her survival to the two men.
His customers love him. Kelly Donahue who came to get her hair cut, said she just loved DeSalvo for what he did for the community.
“He is very special for what he does outside his work. He is my Michael,” she said.
Donahue has been coming to Hairanoir for nine years.
Tom Burbank, who works at the salon, said he loved working with DeSalvo and appreciates his community work .
“I respect him immensely. There is a huge need for this kind of work,” he said.
DeSalvo has been involved with community service for a long time. He used to be a visitor at jails and an HIV positive prisoner inspired him to work with HIV/AIDS patients, he said.
The home is not part of the Catholic Church. And though he does not agree with many of beliefs of the church, DeSalvo still keeps his faith and attends mass at times.
“I call my work ‘peace politics’. Communion to me is having dinner with my guests. I don’t agree with the church but I am not going to let them drive me out. It is sad when people give up their faith because of institutions,” he said.
The Catholic Church recently barred gay people from becoming priests according to a New York Times report that was published in September.
“It is a disservice to us. They are using power and privilege to control sexuality. They are recreating what Christ changed for example, the way they treat women,” he said.
DeSalvo said though he is gay himself, he does not like the exclusionist approach of the gay movement.
“I have kept myself away from such groups. Groups scare me. I feel angry at the gay community for excluding transgender people,” he said. “I work with the marginalized people. I work to support transgender people. They need our compassion.”
The neighborhood in which they live is gay-friendly and most houses have the rainbow-colored flag hanging from their parapets or windows to show support for gays and lesbians.
“I don’t like this. LGBT issues should become non-issues. This is boxing ourselves,” he said.
DeSalvo is comfortable with his life and identity. But sometimes he wants to escape from his world. He wants to travel.
“I want to go to Italy, Europe. I want to go to a beach. Maybe I can do that sometime. I could never do it because I never had money,” he said.
The couple took a year off around three years ago but stayed at home. Orth was sick at the time.
“We could not stay away from work for a long time. We do think about going on vacations sometimes. Our work and home are inseparable,” said Orth.
A judge at Utica once told DeSalvo after he was arrested for protesting in a civil disobedience march in the 1990s that he was meant to do community service. He could not have been more correct.
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