Who Have You Lost to AIDS?

Actually, Indie, GRID, if memory serves, meant Gay Related Immuno Deficiency.

You're welcome, Jace.

I get that, Jace.

Hmmm...have lost too many to count.

I have seemed to have dodged that bullet, but not because of a saintly, non-promiscuous existence when I was younger. I chalk it up to blind luck.

I don't feel guilty and suggest you shouldn't either, Jason. Life is what it is...and how we've lived it in the past is just that: IN THE PAST. What you do today...not THAT is something entirely different.

We are a much more educated group of humans these days, and can make safer choices about our sexual encounters and habits. Yes, the safest sex is none, but that doesn't sit well in my head. Might for you, and that is fine. I suggest, though, that the playful alternative to celibacy can be safe and fun and healthy, and it is sorta how we're wired. To choose NOT to have sex is a choice, but not necessarily one without it's own positive and negative consequences.

Live life as if you're happy for the gift and mourn those who have moved on. That is how I get through each minute and each day.

I lost my lover of 22 yrs. It will be 8 yrs next Friday and I can remember it like it was yesterday.

Also, it was a total surprise to me when they told me cause of death. I never saw him ill. In July 2000, he fell sick, collapsed, rushed to the hospital, and he was dead in one week, after going blind, becoming paralyzed and incontinent, losing speech, and becoming delusional.

They originally diagnosed Fungal meningitis, but I was told he died of Full Blown AIDS after he had passed... Its just something you never get over.

Being in the arts, I have seen names of many of my former classmates,friends, and colleagues listed on the AIDS Quilt. It is a breathtaking loss to this country and the world community. I do so hope that a real cure can be found sometime in the near future. AIDS affects us all.

I grieve with you too. I can't imagine losing so many. You have my sympathies. I daresay your view is healthy, if very Aussie. If Americans dwell on the past very little, Aussies dwell on it twice as little.

I'm trying very hard to be thankful, for what I'm not sure of. There is so much I take for granted. Having sex is not one of them because the opportunities (self-made or otherwise) are too few and my confidence so slim. I'm trying hard to get motivated though it seems to escape me like sand through my fingers. It's very difficult even when people for whom I have enormous respect stand behind me.

Oh dear God. I can't imagine your loss. I'm very, very sorry. I don't know what else to say other than I hope you feel his spirit with you.

My condolences for those who have lost so many people, or a close loved one in their lives.

I've only known one person to pass from it and that was my mother's cousin.

Jason, we are much in the same boat. In theory, I should have been more exposed than I actually have been. I have met guys on summer stays in the East Village in the late 80s who had advanced Kaposi's Sarcoma, but I just met them briefly and I would imagine they are long passed. I sold a house to a guy who's lover has advanced AIDS in the mid 1990s, I know he has passed. Aside from terciary relationships, the whole AIDS/HIV epidemic has really passed me by. I don't feel guilt about it...I know more than my fair share or people who have died of cancer and heart attacks. I see it as a result of the course of my life that for whatever reason...I just never came face to face with the epidemic.

We all have our own life paths. They are as individual as fingerprints. You can't fault yourself for an experience you have not yet had. I am sure you make up for it in unique experiences that you have had that others here have not had...yet.

Don't be hard on yourself. Your book is not yet fully written.

Jason, I appreciate your kind words and compassion. Thank you. - Alyn

Scary thought that book thing. Reminds of Lawrence of Arabia and the story of Gassim.

No, I can't change the past and nor would I want to in that respect. Perhaps it's my other disconnections from gay society that emphasize this particular one. I have never lived in a gay ghetto, have never been out in the sense that I'm an activist of any sort, never read gay magazines or literature, and have visited gay bars maybe four times in my entire life. I didn't know what poppers were or much of the slang. I'm separate in so many ways, and the magnitude of the AIDS epidemic at its height made such an impact that I have difficulty understanding it. I've read various gay writers on the subject, seen a few AIDS-themed movies, but when I'm walking around Chelsea or the West Village, I feel like I'm an actor on set without a script. Everything else I can try to learn. The AIDS holocaust is something I may never experience and, providence willing, never will, but it definitely adds distance to a community I'm trying to appreciate and understand.

It is nice to know I'm not alone in this boat. Thank you very much for taking the time to share your experience with me.

You're most welcome Alyn.

My cousin, we are on the West coast and we had no idea he was gay until we received a copy of the obituary