Walk like it matters

I remember my first AIDS Walk like it happened just a week or two ago, even though it was actually 16 years ago, in 1995. I remember it because it completely overwhelmed me, and brought me to my knees. Literally.

I moved to San Francisco and came out there in 1983. The first of my friends to die of an HIV-related illness passed away in 1985. By the time I left San Francisco in 1990, more than 80 of my friends and loved ones had died.

It was numbing, to say the least. I was in my early 20s, and recently came out as a proud gay man. To be confronted with that much loss at that point in anyone’s life is unnatural. Being the king of denial when it comes to anything negative, I learned to get through the days and nights of my life without losing my sanity. I also became very good at not making new friends or “letting anyone in” because I didn’t want to invest so much of myself and become emotionally attached only to lose them a year or two later.

In 1990, I moved to Mexico and lived there for two years. It was very easy not to think about HIV, and in the two years I lived there, I didn’t lose a single friend or attend a single funeral or memorial service. I honestly don’t even remember ever hearing the words HIV or AIDS while I was there. And that suited me just fine.

I moved to Denver in November 1992, and a couple years later I attended AIDS Walk Colorado with some friends. I don’t remember the exact number of people in attendance that particular year, but it was approximately 10,000. I don’t remember the exact amount of money raised, but I remember the excitement of watching the number being updated by big white cards held high in the air by enthusiastic volunteers every 15 minutes.

I don’t remember the name of the speaker standing at the podium or her exact words, but she was a mother who had lost her son to AIDS. What I do remember, distinctly, is the nausea and sickening shame that I felt when I realized that I’d let my barrier down, and allowed myself to be drawn into her story.

As the woman spoke, I felt as if I’d been punched in the gut. I dropped to my knees, and tears began falling down my cheeks, one at a time at first, then in a torrent. Before I could stop it, the names and faces and smells and memories of all of those 80-plus friends and loved ones flooded over me. I wasn’t responsible for their physical deaths, but I was responsible for letting their memories die, and for not doing more to honor their lives. As I tried not to vomit, and to stop the tears, I swore that I wouldn’t do that again.

In 1998 AIDS Walk Colorado hit its peak with more than 12,000 walkers, and raised $1.4 million. Since then, both of those numbers have decreased significantly each year. Unfortunately, gay men continue to be newly infected at staggering numbers. In Colorado alone, an average of more than 400 gay men are infected with HIV each year.

Don’t buy into the media/social message (even if subliminally) that HIV is no longer a big deal.  It still is, and agencies providing support and services to people living with HIV/AIDS need our help now every bit as much as they did five, ten or 15 years ago.

AIDS Walk Colorado takes place on Saturday, August 13, at Cheesman Park. Write a check. Walk. Volunteer. Do something. If you have lost someone special in your life, honor them by participating in whatever way you can. And if you haven’t lost someone to HIV/AIDS … then participate as a way of honoring and thanking those in our community who have worked so hard to make that possible for you.