World AIDS Day

December 1st.

World AIDS Day.

Though it's technically not a holiday, I always feel compelled to say "Happy World AIDS Day" as if it were a day like Valentine's Day. This, of course, would be inappropriate, but maybe in a way not so much. If I said it I would mean "Be happy you don't have AIDS in a world where infants born with the disease are lucky to survive to their fourth birthday!"

A popular thing to do on Facebook on December 1st is to have a red ribbon as your profile picture for the day. I've decided not to participate in this this year because while I know it isn't true, it's like people are saying, "Stop AIDS TODAY" but not any other day. It's like being thankful for things only on Thanksgiving or telling people you love them only on Valentine's Day or getting drunk just on St. Patrick's Day.

I am, of course, wearing my GAP (PRODUCT) RED INSPI(RED) shirt today. It helps me to take a look at my life and feel slightly better about myself because I don't have AIDS or even HIV or even diabetes. Just a few cuts and bruises, which is nothing to really complain about.

I decided that it would be a good idea to include an exerpt or two from Hanson's Take The Walk book:

AIDS is an ironic disease. It amasses a gigantic death toll. It tears families apart, communities and countries. Yet AIDS itself isn't what actually kills you. It simply sabotages your body's ability to fight off contagions so lesser sicknesses can whittle you down to nothing before you die. When you ask many people in Africa how their family members of friends died they will simply say, "they became sick," avoiding the recognition of AIDS as the cause.

Last fall I did a landscape preservation paper on Avalon Cemetery in Soweto, South Africa and received something like a 98% on the paper. Researching for and writing the paper inspired me to add on something to my book that's a list of things I want to happen do before I die. I wrote "See a cure to AIDS."

My most favorite excerpt from TTW:

True hope is not dependent on science, vaccines, or new shoes. True hope is not rendered valid only when we come across some often invisible finish line to prove to others that our far-fetched expectations were not in vain. True hope does not exist on the other side of brokenness, failure, and loss; it exists in the midst of it. True hope kneels beside us in our darkest hours and greatest failures, and casts light into the shadows of our stories. It tells us that no matter how difficult life gets, we are not alone. True hope cannot be extinguished.


I'll leave you with this. It's a link to a video of Hanson performing "Lay Me Down" in Falls Church last October. Watch it here.

Happy World AIDS Day,
-ef