I Do Remember

The piece below is part of my theater class journal I turned in today. The assignment for this entry was to give feedback on my classmate's presentations from last week. I won't bore you with the descriptions of each student's project...I'm only posting this piece here because I kind of veered off subject in the assignment, and I think it's worth posting.

Dori -Presented information on the play and movie version of “Rent.” I have not seen this play or movie, but the storyline seems interesting. Dori told the class a good portion of the play material came from the playwright’s own life, who was dealing with the emergence of AIDS.  The most touching part of Dori's presentation was when she spoke a line of one of the characters in the play, who said, “I’m not scared of dying; I’m scared of losing my dignity.” 

The majority of my fellow classmates are too young to even remember when AIDS was first brought into the public spotlight.  They didn't grow up in the time when people were completely ignorant about the disease, when fear and prejudice plagued anyone connected to the disease. I am glad for my fellow classmates that they've grown up in a more educated era, and don't remember those days...but I do remember

I remember Ryan White, the young boy who contracted AIDS from a blood transfusion.  He and his family were subjected to terribly cruel behavior by the ignorant, hateful people of the town where he lived.  He was actually expelled from school because of his sickness. I remember being horrified that adults could be so cruel to an innocent young child. Ryan went on to become a national spokesperson for AIDS. In his short life Ryan made a huge difference on how Americans thought about AIDS and those people infected with the disease.

I remember Kimberly Bergalis, the local young woman who contracted AIDS from her dentist who knowingly worked on patients without following proper safeguards. Kimberly was not the only person her doctor infected with the virus. Kimberly spent the rest of her short life fighting to get mandatory AIDS testing for health care workers. I can still picture her in my mind as she looked in her last televised interview, wearing a light pink shirt, lying on her living room couch, looking so very sick.

I remember the first TV program, “Life Goes On” that had a regular character with AIDS, played by Chad Lowe who I had a huge crush on.  Ironically, watching the TV show week after week, made the disease of AIDS very real to me.

 I remember the pain I felt, crying many times over the unfairness of it all. Thinking of these people, even now decades later, as I type this I’m still tearing up.   The fact that the names of the people I write of just sprang to my mind so quickly was surprising to me. In general I have a terrible memory, but yet decades later, these people and their stories are still right here, in my mind, and in my heart.