Every week, Oprah is setting an intention exclusively for Oprah Daily Insiders, with reflections on topics like letting go, forgiveness, coming into your own, and more.
Hello, Insiders.
This week, I have profoundly sad news to share. The AIDS activist Hydeia Broadbent, who many of you will remember as a young guest on my show, has passed.
Hydeia was 11 years old when she first appeared on the show in 1996, and I know that many of you were as moved as I was by our conversation. Born HIV-positive and abandoned by her drug-addicted mother, doctors told her adoptive parents she wouldn’t make it past the age of 5. But she proved them wrong, living until the age of 39. And what a life she lived.
It would be easy—understandable, even—for someone in Hydeia’s position to sink into self-pity, but she did no such thing. She told me she could either feel sorry for herself or “try and make a difference…say, ‘Today’s another day. I can get up, I can do something and make something positive.’”
And that really is how she went on to live her life. Hydeia traveled the world spreading awareness about HIV prevention and lobbying for better treatment and care. It’s impossible to measure just how many people’s lives were moved and lifted for the better by Hydeia.
I want to leave you with some powerful words she spoke at a convention when she was 12 years old: “I am the future, and I have AIDS. I can do anything I put my mind to. I am the next doctor. I am the next lawyer. I am the next Maya Angelou. I might even be the first woman president.… You can’t crush my dream. I am the future, and I have AIDS.”
My thoughts are with her parents, Patricia and Loren Broadbent, and her siblings, Kecia, Kimmi, Trish, Shana, Kendall, and Pepe, as well as the many, many people whose lives she touched.
She loved and she was loved, which is the best praise anyone can receive for a life well lived, no matter the years.
