World AIDS Day

Today, December 1st is World AIDS day. I know; I forgot too. If you were around in the 80s, you remember what a huge deal AIDS was back then. Even though I was in middle school, I was scared. The teenage hemophilliac who contracted AIDS from a blood transfusion, Ryan White was only a year behind me in school. Kokomo, Ryan's hometown, is only an hour from where I grew up. AIDS was not well understood at the time and he had been forced to study at home because parents were afraid their kids would catch it. When courts temporarily allowed him back at school, Ryan had to use a specially secluded bathroom and eat with disposable utensils in the school cafeteria. AIDS was scary for kids and scary for adults.

Celebrity AIDS cases, a myriad of enhanced drugs and education about risk factors for HIV/AIDS turned this once death sentence killing millions into a disease with which millions lead otherwise normal lives.

It is too easy to forget. Too easy to forget Ryan. Too easy to forget people who suffered horrible, lonely and painful deaths. Too easy to forget communities and familes whose lives overflowed with grief and loss. Too easy to forgot those red ribbons we once wore so courageously and defiantly.

Not today.

Today let us remember.