Today is world AIDS day
This is a day to inform yourself and others about the Facts of HIV/AIDS and to make awareness a priority!
I am going to share a very personal story with you all today and I do hope you take it to heart.
In 1994 I lost one of my very best friends to AIDS.
His name was Brian, he was 21 years old and he lost his battle on 5-12-94.
Brian was brilliant, creative, sweet, kind, funny, honest and beautiful!
Brian was never an IV drug user, he was never sexually active...Brian was in a serious car accident when he was 13 years old and during livesaving surgery he required a blood transfusion. Ironic isn't it, what was meant to save him only postponed his death and made it all the more tragic.
I was friends with Brian for years, I watched his health decline and I sat with him in his final moments.
I watched ignorant people make assumptions about him, I watched friends dissapear, family fear touching him and medical staff panic at having to care for him. The sad thing is that 16 years later I still see and hear many of those same reactions or misconceptions. It makes me sad and angry! HIV/AIDS has no agenda, it doesn't care what you age, gender, race, religion, country, sexual prefrence or financial status is....it's a disease like a thousand others that kill everyday. And this one is preventable!
Brian was not a drug user, not a prostitute, not permiscuise...he was a virgin until the day he died, he never did any drugs so the insane treatment that he was somehow dirty was/Is sickening. He was not gay which back then was assumed to lead to HIV (another twisted ideal) he was not being punished by some cruel God for being wicked or sinfull...he was a little boy riding in the backseat of his parents car...that is all!
People feared getting AIDS and though information was available they turned a blind eye and shunned him as if he were the disease itself.
The availabilty of information has grown a million fold and yet we still need to inform, teach and make people aware. HIV/AIDS is still spreading at an alarming rate. Spread the awareness...offer information, facts, truths. Refer people to places like http://www.aids.gov/hiv-aids-basics/ or http://www.worldaidsday.org/
Update yourself on what you know or don't know about HIV/AIDS. Join a local orginazation, volunteer anything you can do to get the truth out to others is one more life saved.
I made a promise to Brian a couple of years before he died. I promised to never forget him. I have kept that promise and I ask you to help me remember him today.
I love you Bri.....until we meet again!
