AIDS Walk 2006

AIDS Walk Detroit 2006

Thank you to everyone that contributed. I met my goal and some.

It was interesting, I've noticed that I no longer have the extreme sense of guilt or sadness that I once had. I remember the first time I volunteered with the walk and watched a mother and father present a panel for the AIDS quilt of their son who had recently died. Oh how I cried. Now I walked through the display and reflected but was not moved. There were fewer and fewer recent deaths as part of the quilt and some panels that were not memorials to individuals at all. Maybe this is a good thing but I cannot help to think that this is just a lull. Someday the virus could mutate to fight off most current medications and the death rate will again be devastating. I believe already that many feel that to be HIV positive is not so bad. No thank you. Between the side affects, the social rejection - predominately from our own community these day - the cost, 'cause these drug are not cheap and the fact that you could still die from it I think I'll pass.

True I sometimes feel like it couldn't happen to me, I've taken some risks in my past, I only number a handful of people personally who are infected, and only one with full blown AIDS, but I do not know anyone personally who has past away because of the disease. Though I have never known a sexual world without this plague I suppose in a way it is like many other things. Everything eventually becomes old news and is no longer page one. While I do not want to read about the doom and gloom of the worst off I think it is worth reminding so that someday this problem may go away.

One can only hope.