On a Friday night over a week ago, I stood under a tent in a large urban park at a memorial service for no one in particular and for every one on this planet. I held the microphone in my hand and began. Began again. To tell my story of AIDS.
Friday night was a small candlelight ceremony for those who have been lost to HIV/AIDS in our community, and they were celebrated that evening by those under the tent. But I have lost no one. No one I can hold up a photo for. No one I can memorialize on a T-shirt, flag or banner.
I held that microphone as tightly as I hold my son. That was who I was fighting for, I said. Sixteen years ago, I held a newborn boy in my arms as I volunteered for the first time along the route of the AIDS Walk. Months before he was born, a friend had asked me to help. Standing in the grass on a spring morning sounded magical to me in my eighth month of pregnancy. When the day arrived, it was dreamlike. Me, my husband, my new son – all sporting little red ribbons and helping a band entertain walkers and enthusiastic runners in the sun.
Every year since, I have worked on the Walk and moved up through the volunteer ranks. Route helper, volunteer coordinator, project coordinator, special event committee person, steering committee member, Walk co-chair. Every year since that first one, I’ve had a little hand in mine or a little head in my eyesight on Walk day. My son has never missed a Walk and now joins me as a full-fledged committee member on one event. Walk day is a family reunion for all of us.
My story is short and simple. I desire deeply a world without AIDS for my son. For all sons and daughters and mothers and fathers. Sisters. Brothers. A world free of stigma and hate. Pointed fingers and whispered admonishments will be behind us. Every year I renew my commitment to making that world come to be.
This year I stood in the light rain as my son walked by me carrying a dated memorial flag representing the 25 years of the AIDS Walk. Three long blocks later, I looked up, and there was my niece sporting a flag of her own. This one held the name of someone who no longer walks. She carried it to its final place with the others in a circle of flags that every one of the 2,000+ walkers walked by. My tears were easily covered by Mother Nature’s water show.
They are my future and my chance to live in an AIDS free world. They’ve never known one.
I believe that they will.