World AIDS Day

Today marks the 20th World AIDS Day... how many of you knew that? How many of you cared? I am old enough to remember, and participating in those early years of the fight. It's strange to look back at what we did then compared to the attitudes of today.

Tonight I have my own little memorial service. A glass of wine and some 15 year old picture of a young, smiling blond man I had in my life for a few years before he fell to the opportunistic diseases that is often the end of too-short life. Jerry Heard came out when he was 17 and had his first sexual encounter... six months later he tested positivie for the HIV virus. I met him right after I moved to St. Louis. We were part of a large group who met to see a local production of "Pippin" and have dinner afterward. He sat at the opposite end of the table from me but he kept looking at me and whispering to his friend. After a few awkward dates we decided to make a go of it. He was always up front with his disease and told me that if at any time I wanted out he understood (he said that was why most men didn't hang around him). I didn't leave. When his health was in steep decline I asked him what he wanted more than anything else... he said to be married. We were, if not in the eyes of any government we were in our eyes and our hearts. I was with him when he died, holding him in my arms. He was 25.

So today, as I have entered a relatively new chapter in my life, on this 20th annual World AIDS DAY I am thinking of how HIV has impacted my life. I am sure many of you have more stories you can add to mine. What we have to remember is that the fight is NOT over. There is no vaccine, there is no cure. We have no solid evidence that long-term application of the new drug "cocktails" (with apologies to Larry Kramer who says that cocktails are supposed to make you feel good while his HIV cocktails gives him severe intestinal problems) can be tolerated and while in the short term a better quality of life exists, after almost 30 years of it being out in the open we still have not beaten this enemy.