Once upon a time, I didn’t know anybody living with HIV, and didn’t want to know them. I didn’t want to be infected, and I was pretty sure that “those people” did something to deserve their disease.
Since then, I have changed, and the world has changed. HIV is more understood. Treatment is better. Prevention and testing are more common.
And yet, when I started with a new dentist, the standard questionnaire still asked me if I was HIV positive. Thousands of people still do not know their status, and may be infecting others. Health care and health insurance are complicated by the disease, as are relationships (both sexual, and otherwise).
Internationally, things are even worse. A friend of mine who served as a pastor in Malawi spent more time on funerals than anything else. AIDS is destroying individuals, families, and entire cultures.
While remembering this is important, there are other tasks at hand. Have you ever listened to a person with HIV share their experience? Have you been tested? Do you know what it takes for a person with HIV to stay healthy?
Tomorrow is World AIDS Day, and there are a number of ways to observe the day. Because this disease affects all of us, these events are for the entire community.
AIDS community services, is sponsoring speaker Natalie Lance at the Evergreen Center, 119 Chippewa, tomorrow from 11-3, and will share the “mending of the hearts” project.
Later that evening, there will be a chance to remember–and respond at Lafayette Church (Elmwood and Lafayette). This will be a spiritual-but-open time of listening to people living with HIV, that ends on a note of hope and a call to action. The observance begins at 7PM.
At least 6,000 of your Western New York neighbors are living with HIV. Take a moment tomorrow to listen to their voices, and to take action, so that we might defeat this virus.