Note: This is not a light-hearted or humorous post like I often try to write. However, I feel it is an important subject and deserves my acknowledgment.
I clearly remember watching Tom Brokaw talk about a new disease that had been discovered on my 9 inch black and white television in my dorm room. I have no idea why that image of the Nightly News from 1984 is so ingrained in my memory.
I do know that disease was AIDS and it greatly changed our world and would cost me at least one close friend. In a way, I am lucky to say that it has only costs me one dear friend that I know of as of this date.
World AIDS Day typically remembers all those who have died of AIDS. Today, I remember my childhood friend.
We were friends since grade school, talked on the phone for hours upon end in junior high, and went out once in high school. Frankly, I knew he was gay in high school, but I was in a sort of denial. After all, he told me in fifth grade who was going to marry and it was a girl:)
We were going to the same college until he changed his mind because of the math requirements for his major. He went to a college in another state instead and I would never see him again.
I would hear rumors of how he was dressing like Boy George, how he was now openly gay, and then I heard he was sick. I honestly thought he died just before our 10th year high school reunion, but apparently his move back home was just that – coming home after getting sick.
He lived in the neighboring town to me for 10 years and I did not know it. Ironically, he died just before our 20th high school reunion.
When I think of him, I think of the kind, funny and nerdy friend of mine whom I could talk to for hours about everything. Unfortunately, I also think of how his life was seemingly cut short because of AIDS.
He was my age. My generation came of age in the early days of AIDS when very little was know about it, how it was spread, how to treat it, and how to prevent it.
Today in the United States, there are better treatments, screenings, medical and dental practices, and much education. However, there has not been a cure.
HIV/AIDS is still a killer disease. Many people contract HIV everyday around the world, including in the United States.
My concern is that their will be World AIDS Days for generations to come. The “it won’t happen to me” mentality has to change. This has not been a new disease for a very long time.
