World AIDS Day

Today marks the 30th anniversary of World AIDS day. As I previously discussed, I have a special place in my heart for those involved in any way with the AIDS crisis. For a couple years I've followed The AIDS Memorial on Instagram and it is without question the most beautiful account on the platform. It is funny, touching, heart-warming, and more often than not, the posts leave me crying and crushed. So many lives lost, so many stories cut short without a fitting end, and so much suffering and cruelty. That's what hurts the most for me, the cruelty inflicted on people just because they contracted a specific disease. Like Blanche taught us, deliberate cruelty is unforgivable.

Myself, I've never lost anyone close to me from AIDS, although I have friends that have lost loved ones. The primary losses I feel from AIDS are Freddie Mercury and Keith Haring. Freddie was the first person I knew of that contracted and died from the disease. I remember I was a sophomore in high school and true, I liked Queen and had for a handful of years, but I was not a fan that owned all their albums and knew every song. Regardless, I was very sad that he died and thought of him a lot. It wasn't like most celebrity deaths, like Fred Astaire, where I would think, "what a shame - I always liked him" and then not give it a second thought. With Freddie I just couldn't stop thinking about him for days after. I attended a prep school at the time and the day after his passing I wore my black sweater with my black skirt, thinking that dressing in mourning was a way to let Freddie know I was sorry that he was gone. (Silly, yes, but I was a sad, lonely, alienated fifteen year old who felt closest to imaginary friends than anyone else.)

Later on in high school Keith Haring became my favourite artist, Through him and my idolisation of Madonna I became more interested in helping eradicate this disease in whatever small way I could. I took part in the Philly AIDSwalk every October and raised as much money as possible. I preached about safe sex to friends and family and wore my red AIDS ribbon lapel pin proudly. (Sidenote: at my very first job in 1994 a woman came through my checkout line wearing an AIDS pin. I complemented her on it and she promptly removed it and handed it to me telling me that she wanted me to have it. It's on my vision board with some other pins and I think of her kindness every workday.)

Through The AIDS Memorial I have been introduced to so many extraordinary people. People like Thom Hunter, Cookie Mueller, Frank Silano - one of the first stories that I still think about, Dorothy Kirschner, Reverend Bernard Lynch, Belinda Mason, Eric Stryker, Mary Jane Rathbun, and Essex Hemphill to name just a few. Plus, there is the incomparable Alexandra Billings, who I adore and admire so very much, and her beautiful post regarding the importance of an account like The AIDS Memorial from February 5th of this year:

In closing, I am forever grateful to Stuart for creating a place for the stories of those lost to live on and to everyone that shares those details of those who are no longer here with us, but will not be forgotten.

Please check out the article on The AIDS Memorial by The Guardian or visit Adam's Nest to purchase The AIDS Memorial t-shirt which $10 of purchase price will be donated to Housing Works to support its fight for funding and legislation to ensure that all people living with HIV/AIDS  have access to quality housing, healthcare, HIV prevention, and treatment, among other lifesaving services and its efforts to end the AIDS epidemic nationally by 2025.