We Remember
World AIDS Day
On World AIDS Day, we remember...
The vibrancy of life — so much life — extinguished.
Death measured in the tens of millions worldwide.
A new disease, surging from the unknown, leaving unimaginable heartache in its wake.
We remember...
The stigma, the sadness, and the scapegoating.
The alienation, acrimony, and abandonment.
The pain and suffering, all too often, alone.
We remember...
The fear and the fearmongering.
The othering and oppression.
The stoking of hate when love was needed most.
We remember...
The silence of our leaders.
The courage of the activists.
The compassion of health care workers and the tenacity of scientists.
There are many alive today who are too young to remember. That AIDS is no longer a death sentence is a testimony to all who fought for life.
But we must always remember those who are not here, lives cut short, a generation of loss.
You are not forgotten. You are missed and loved. You are remembered.
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Thank you Dan and Elliot for remembering… in 1978, I began my healthcare career at Roosevelt Hospital in NYC. It began most mysteriously, young men dying of a very strange virus. They did not even know what to call it, other than Fever of Unknown Origin, FUO…I remember writing FUO in the diagnosis box so many times, too many times, too many lives lost, much too many. Finally, after all too many years we got a name and along with that the stigma, the death sentence… it was unimaginable. It was heart wrenching when I worked in pediatrics and had children dying of this disease. I just retired recently, ( yes, I started my career with the AIDS epidemic and ended it with the COVID pandemic which ironically started 2020 during The Year of the Nurse) but in my last years as a Registered Nurse with patients with this disease and seeing them with active and beautiful lives, managed with meds, I breath a breath of relief for them. Grateful and thankful that now lives are saved, lives are lived. …. Yes, indeed, I remember all of you.🙏🏼💔❤️💔❣️a must watch movie is “And the Band Played On” it depicts those very early days, an excellent movie!
I was a nurse in hospital during the AIDS heartbreak. I got called to start an iv on a patient (strange since his nurse could have started it) and when I got there, was told he had AIDS. OK, in I went, introduced myself and proceeded to check him for veins, by touch of course. He just looked at me and said this was the first time he was touched by human hands without gloves since his admission. Of course, I was current on how AIDS was really transmitted so I hugged him and expressed how sorry I was. Then, started his I’ve and visited for as long as I could. Sad the ignorance of medical personnel, then and now.