« An Anniversary | OK, back to home | Clarification »

Wednesday, December 1, 2004

Recognition is Due

Today is World AIDS Day and a red ribbon adorns the Google homepage, so that means it’s REALLY worth recognizing.

Over the past few months, I’ve tried to take an honest look at the disease that has killed many in my community, and that today affects many more in all walks of life. It’s a difficult thing to think about. It’s an awful, wretched, fearful disease that makes me queasy to contemplate. But I force myself to think about it and deal with my own fears. After all, it’s not something that can or should be ignored, pushed to a dark corner and relegated to the realm of "it doesn't affect me." I believe Reagan already tried that.

Here are a few ways HIV and AIDS has entered my life:

As a young teenager, I read “Ryan White: My Own Story.” You may remember that Ryan was the poster boy for children with AIDS in the early ‘90s. As I read about his visits with doctors, I passed out cold. Ironically, I was in the doctor’s office waiting for an allergy shot and I woke up to my mom and a nurse carrying me to a back room.

A couple of years later I found out that a second cousin or step-cousin, whom I’d never met, died of AIDS in the ‘80s. It’s never been discussed openly in our family, so I still don’t know much about that person and his history. His photo still hangs on the wall at my great aunt and uncle’s home. When asked, they say only that he passed away.

I’ve turned to books and popular movies to help me understand the fear that swept through the gay community in the early ‘80s, when the “gay cancer” first started taking out friends, lovers and neighbors. Angels in America, Philadelphia, Longtime Companion and The Hours are just a few movies that have illuminated the effects of this disease.

These movies (and books like Three Junes) tend to focus on the dying of men with AIDS. There is another story that needs to be told: Living with AIDS.

A couple of summers ago, I lived with a man who has HIV. To my eyes, he was much healthier than I, riding his bike 20 miles a day. He never told me. I knew only because I saw the fabled drug cocktails in the bathroom cabinet. To this day, we’ve never discussed it, though I wanted to ask questions. He taught me, though, that HIV doesn’t mean the end of life, and it doesn’t mean it needs to be the center of one’s life.

J, one of my favorite bloggers from Minneapolis, provided the first account I’d encountered of what it’s like to find out you have HIV. His entry That Day, posted in July, is impossible to forget.

These days, I volunteer a couple of hours a week at the Minnesota AIDS Project. It’s the least I can do. In several places throughout the building, there are framed photos of young men. Beneath the photo are words that say something like, “This room is named in honor of James Smith, whose passion for life will never die.” It’s sobering, but touching.

Those photos are even more sobering in public bars. One night when I was with some softball friends at The Townhouse bar in St. Paul, I looked up to see one of these photos hanging on a column above my head. The man was wearing a cowboy hat and a smile. The years of his birth and death were inscribed on the wooden plaque. Below him, an Asian man sang a bad version of Black Velvet.

There are many people in my life who are living with HIV. The pastor of my church, for example. It is not a disease that immediately means the end of life. There remains much mystery about the disease and those who have it. A former pastor once told me he had a friend whose AIDS went into remission for a couple of years until a spider bite caused it to reappear and killed him within months. Perhaps it's true -- I don't know -- but it's the type of story that feeds on the mystery of HIV and AIDS.

Some would like you to believe it’s a disease created to strike down gay men. Fred Phelps, for example, carries signs that say things like, “Got AIDS yet?”

The reality is that there are almost 39 million people worldwide living with HIV and AIDS. The majority of those are not gay men. According to the UK's National AIDS Trust, more than 70 percent of people affected with HIV are infected through heterosexual sex. Yes, heterosexual. That means that, whoever you’re sleeping with, you’re at risk for HIV. Luckily, it’s preventable, as long as you take the time to use precautions.

Today is World AIDS Day – a day to remember those who have passed away. It’s more than that, though. It’s also to remember that there are people living with HIV who are very much alive and with us. It’s to remember that HIV and AIDS is preventable, if you care to do so. And finally, it’s to push our governments and communities to search for a cure, to educate, and to care for those living with the disease.

Posted by Aaron on December 1, 2004 11:55 AM