World AIDS Day

One of the finer sociological nuances of being a child of the 1980s is that AIDS has been forever present in our generational psyche.  To wit, my mother loves to tell people about how at five years-old, inspired by a public service billboard, I sat her down and asked “What’s all this about sex, drugs and AIDS?”

My poor mother – no one deserves such a precocious kid.  And yet, who better to ask?    My mother spent the 1980s teaching health and sex education at our local urban high school (what a fascinating intersection of time and place, right?)  and so I was encouraged to ask questions that probably would have been shot down in less progressive homes.

When I was even younger, my mother lost one of her best friends to the disease.  I couldn’t have been more than three or four years-old at the time, but I remember my mom explaining to me why she was so sad, and how she had lost her friend, Edward.  Retrospectively, it strikes me that when Mom talked about Edward, AIDS was simply the subplot – the real narrative focused on an incredible individual who could take the ordinary and with wit and creativity make it extraordinary.

On World AIDS Day, the National AIDS Trust is urging you to Respect & Protect.  In honor of those we have loved and lost or never known, and those we are blessed to have living happy lives, I encourage you to do the same.