This is a picture of a panel from the AIDS Quilt. Today I searched some web sites about AIDS information to post on the Blogs page of my LnR web site so that I could provide information while participating in the day without weblogs. While doing this I found the site for the quilt. The day about weblogs requests that on December 1, people either do not blog or blog on the topic of AIDS rather than their usual topic. I had planned on blogging about my brother anyway, but this particular item which I found really surprised me. While searching the quilt web site, I found a section that allows a person to search the quilt for the names of AIDS victims. On a whim, I typed in my brother's name and up popped this picture with a list of all the people represented by this block. It is panel number 02663, and my brother is commemorated on it. I am guessing that the panel was created and submitted by Hospice At Mission Hill in Roxbury Mass by the panel that shows the T-shirt with the symbol for that Hospice house on it. I requested ayli to enlarge this graphic so I could see the embedded pictures more clearly because I could have sworn one of them was my brother, and sure enough, it was. I found myself near tears, and very emotional. My brother passed away on May 25, 1991 of AIDS. I remember when my mother first called me to tell me that Walter had AIDS. She was so shocked, and so very ashamed. She had always been embaressed by my brother's homosexuality, which would piss me off to no end. My brother was living in California at the time, and had known he had AIDS for 4 years. He could not afford the medications they had out at that time, they were far too expensive. My brother was in a hospital in California. AIDS had attacked his nervous system and he could no longer walk. He had to live in a wheel chair. All he wanted to do was come home to die. My mother at first did not want to bring him home, but eventually relented. My brother Bobby went out to California to get him, and we admitted him into the Hospice At Mission Hill. I remember having to speak with Walter's doctors to find out if he fit the criteria for the Hospice. The criteria was under 6 months to live. The doctor said my brother would definitely fit that criteria and would probably only last 3 months at the most. I honestly can't remember what month he returned to Mass in anymore, but I do remember he did not make it to 6 months, and died just shy of his 25th birthday.

It was a mixture of emotions that accompanied his return to Massachusetts. There was elation, fear, love, hate, anger, and so much more. He and I spent a great deal of time talking during his last few months. Though we never did settle our old ghosts, but I made the best peace with him that I could. Watching him die was one of the hardest things I have ever done. I remember sitting in the hospice talking with him, and talking with the other residents there. They were all very wonderful people. What amazed me the most was their lack of resentment. The workers of the Hospice were wonderful, loving, supportive people. They treated Walter and all the residents with the utmost of respect and always with obvious caring in everything they did or said. I remember one visit in particular. I had shocked Walter by bringing his neice in to see him. During his estrangement from the family, he had not heard that I had given birth. He did not expect to see Sam, yet I brought her in anyway. My parents were shocked that I would expose my daughter to possible infection by AIDS. I tried to assure them that the risk to her was very minor but they never did understand that. Walter was very happy to meet his neice, and he kept remarking how much she looked like me. I remember that he cried because I brought her in. It was a sweet, yet painful, visit. I visited every day with Walter. As did Bobby and my parents. I will give them credit for that, they did visit him. By the time he slipped into a coma during the last two weeks of his life, they started staying in the hospice's guest room to be with him. He did not want to die alone. I had started staying as often as I could. I went home early in the morning on the 25th of May to get a couple hours of sleep before coming back. I layed down for a short while and around 10 minutes to 6 that morning the phone rang. I knew before I picked it up what the person on the other end was going to tell me, and sure enough, Walter had died. I rushed back to the hospice. My mother was sitting on the couch, totally shell shocked. My father was with her. I went into the room where Walter still lay, and held his hand for a few moments. I remember that his body was still warm. All I could whisper was "May you be at peace now Walter". I cried. It was hard to believe that my brother was gone, but he was. This was a very complicated time for me, in many different ways.

AIDS kills people, though with the new drugs they have for it, HIV positive patients are living much healthier lives before contracting active AIDS. But there are still thousands for whom the drugs do no good. AIDS was once thought to affect only homosexual men, but that also is not true. AIDS can and will strike anyone. It is a deadly sexually transmitted disease, though it can be contracted through other means such as sharing drug needles with an infected person. AIDS is a very scary disease. For some it acts very quickly, for others it acts slowly even going into remission for a while before coming back and taking their lives. In this way it is similar to some cancers. It was not until a couple of years ago that I was finally able to forgive my brother for the many cruel and hurtful things he had done in his short life. I have managed to reconcile myself with that part of my past. This is the first year I have truly felt able to mourn his loss as a loss and not a relief. Walter had the potential to be a truly great man, andI like to believe that he would have become that great man had he been given the time. I wrote a poem about his passing, that was read at his funeral. I could not read it because by then I was a basket case, so a nurse from the Hospice read it for me. It contained the many things he had told me about how he felt about each of the members of our family. The forgiveness he had finally found both for them, and for himself. As well, the outlook he had managed to attain on life, and his sadness that this outlook came at the cost of losing his life. He remarked to me once that "Through the most painful times, come the greatest lessons." and he was right. So, this is for you Walter and the man you were inside. I love you.