It was during these very early years of the AIDS crisis, in the early 80s that the first person I knew well came down with KS and wasting and rather quickly died. Remember this was a time when the miracle drugs we have today were still only a dream. Seeing Robert before he died, being truly a shell of the man he used to be, sent deep threads of pain through me. Although I had never slept with him, I had been in a closeted relationship with someone with who had slept with him. His death was like a physical blow, I felt his death in the pit of my stomach. It was personal, it was close, it was real. And I was frightened. I had a number of years of dread before I went for my first HIV test: years of worry and denial and fright.  

When HIV testing first started, I went to the NY Gay Men's Health Clinic for anonymous testing. In those days we had to wait two weeks for the results to come back, unlike the 20 minutes we now have to wait. The first and subsequent times that I was tested were always very long weeks to endure, again filled with self-questioning and denial and fright. In those early days, when there were no viable treatments available, it was like waiting on a death sentence. I will tell you that I have never tested positive, but I never get tested without those early feelings coming back, those memories of more fearful times.

Today there is medication, for those who can afford these miracle drugs: that can stave off, but not cure, most strands of HIV. It is important to remember that these drugs are not cures and that people still die from AIDS. The treatments are much more sophisticated and developments are more progressive then they have been in the past. Yet, for many, the stigma still remains making living as an HIV positive individual more than challenging. I have many friends who are HIV positive and their sharing of that information with me has usually been a time of quiet and personal reflection, a time of sharing and one of prayer. I liken those conversations to a different kind of coming out story, one that can be as challenging and difficult and self-revealing for people as when they came out as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.  

Another way I make statistical numbers, like 6000 dying per day and 7000 infections per day, more real for me is to think of activist programs with which I have been involved. Before going to seminary I was a member of an Episcopal Church in Greenwich Village in NYC. St. Luke in the Fields was in the wave of first churches to respond to the AIDS crisis in New York. In the face of having a large number of parishioners become sick and die, the church responded by starting a "PWA Dinner" (a People With AIDS Dinner). It was a place for individuals, from the parish and from the community, to come and not be stigmatized, not be shunted away by society. This program started in 1986 and is still running today. They still feed 70 to 80 people every Saturday evening. I worked as a chaplain at this dinner and got to know a large number of these individuals, who are now from Harlem and the Bronx, and Queens. The original parishioners for whom the dinner was started died a long time ago. The dinner and its purpose of support and providing a space where people can interact that are in varying stages of health, continues. As chaplain, it was an honor to get to know these folks, gay, straight, men, women, who have developed a community together at this dinner, sharing commonalities of stories, which drugs are working for them, but most importantly simply being themselves, as they are, without fear of rejection, or pity, or judgment. In other words, a safe environment in which they can live as themselves.