World AIDS Day

I spent the past week with my young niece and nephew and couldn't help but think of the hundreds and hundreds of posts I see on the AIDS Memorial written by young men and women who never even got to meet their gay uncles because of the HIV pandemic of my youth. I can't even put into words how fortunate I feel to have survived its darkest days -- and how happy I am to be a generation into HIV's being both a preventable and treatable disease. But never will I forget how much pain and loss there was, and how I wish my friends -- Walter, Mike and Mark, in particular -- had also lived to see this day.