For me, World AIDS Day (December 1st) is a reminder of my ties to the AIDS epidemic of the early 90’s and the LGBT community. I started the process of coming out of the closet, a phrase that seems so quaint now, only to find that my gay friends were suffering under the chaos of this new aggressive, debilitating and hate-inducing disease.
At the time, I worked in the Creative Services Department of the University of Maryland. We were a tight knit group that had a lot of fun working closely together. I was an intern for a couple of years before I was hired post graduation as a Junior Graphic Designer (a whopping $17,500 starting salary). My new position was created because our coworker, Stephen, an accomplished illustrator and designer, fell mysteriously ill and eventually passed away, leaving room for me to be hired.
I can still remember walking into his hospice room, months after we had last seen him at work, only to discover a man who was physically unrecognizable to me – except in his eyes and from the little he could speak. I loved his Caribbean accent and his deep chuckling laugh.
In October of 1992, my co-worker friends and I presented our handmade commemorative AIDS quilt to Stephen’s partner and together we placed his panel among the thousands of others that made up the expansive Names Project Quilt on the National Mall in Washington D.C.
It has been 17 years since that chilly morning in October and I can still remember what it felt like to be present on the Mall. Seeing small bunches of grieving friends and family huddled around their quilt panels; seeing people quietly walk among the thousands of homemade quilts; seeing surviving lovers hold vigil over their lost sweethearts; seeing parents with expressions of disbelief…for me, it was a profoundly humbling and spiritually rich experience.
A community gathered that day, seizing visibility at a time when isolation and discrimination were slowly being pushed out of the way. That day was a building block in the foundation for better understanding in the years to come.
I remember needing to make a last stitch in the quilt before we left it behind – little did I know at the time that those few stitches would tie me to almost two decades (and counting) of fighting the AIDS pandemic through community activism and volunteerism.
During that time period in the early 90’s, I went to too many funerals for young gay men who had AIDS. Today, I have dozens of friends who are living with the disease and better able to “manage” it with the medication.
This story by itself is insignificant, it’s one small dot in a pointillist landscape of stories and history associated with the 40 million people who have died from AIDS.
On this World AIDS Day, take a moment to discover more of these stories, especially among the estimated 33.2 million who are living with the disease.
Resource links:
Pangaea Global Aids Foundation
National Sexuality Resource Center (Bishop Yvette Flunder)
Asian and Pacific Islander Wellness Center
(Special thanks to Joy O’Donnell for her help in gathering the resource links.)
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What does it say about humans that tragedy is the best community glue? Or am I being too pessimistic? I write about a dear friend who's been living with HIV for over 21 years here:
http://www.care2.com/causes/health-policy/blog/...
Perhaps suffering is here to inspire us to great things.
What does it say about humans that tragedy is the best community glue? Or am I being too pessimistic? I write about a dear friend who's been living with HIV for over 21 years here:
http://www.care2.com/causes/health-policy/blog/...
Perhaps suffering is here to inspire us to great things.
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