Current Photo Friday theme: Light
World AIDS Day, Houston, 2006
This may be the first time that I didn’t acknowledge World AIDS Day (December 1) on my blog. I remembered it. I Instagrammed it. I have a post that I’ll do either Saturday or Sunday because of other things related to it.
When the Photo Friday prompt was “Light,” I chose this blurry old photo from World AIDS day in 2006. That year marked the tenth anniversary of my friend John’s death on December 4, 1996. At that vigil, I kept him first in my thoughts of friends lost.
John’s was such an irrepressible personality. He could be maddening, but he also could be so full of mischief and foolishness that you could only laugh and forgive him. In the years I knew him, he never said an unkind word to me. He protected me, defended me. Never directed anger at me. Recently, I found an old card from him in which he said, “You are my best friend.”
John died abruptly just as his own care plan would have included the “AIDS cocktail” that is the reason so many have lived and thrived in the twenty-four years since his death. It seemed particularly terrible in the unfairness of the timing.
I’m sad for what the world lost, for what his friends lost, and especially for what James lost. James arrived in John’s life after the card in which he called me his best friend. James became his true best friend as well as the love of his life. James provided the best of everything John knew before his death, and he is the best of who John brought into my life. I’ll always be grateful for both of them.
James and John, 1996
That was unfair indeed! Sometimes I really have to wonder what the Universe is playing at? Diseases are wicked things. I am so glad that John had you and James in his life. That is a lovely photo of them both. Are you still in touch with James?
Yes, definitely James and I remain friends. I haven’t seen him for a few years, because he lives in Maine and much of his family moved there, too, so he doesn’t get to Houston to visit much anymore. But we keep up. He’s very happy, and that’s the best way the story could continue.