Columns

December 1st was World AIDS Day, which brought back memories of the death of our only child Michael, who died of AIDS in November 1984, the Sunday after Thanksgiving. Michael was 19 and a senior at U.C. Santa Cruz. He would be 45 today. We received a call on Saturday morning from a physician at a Santa Cruz hospital, who said that Michael had been admitted to the hospital with a serious illness. The physician indicated that if we wanted to see our son alive, we had better rush down to Santa Cruz. 

He was indeed diagnosed with pneumocystis, a common AIDS-related illness. We remember the medical staffs' contagion hysteria: gowned and masked up. One of the nurses insisted that we get someone to give him last rites. We declined. Basically, the medical staff had written Michael off. And indeed, back in 1984, AIDS was a death sentence.  

Today, AIDS is a treatable, chronic illness with promising ongoing AIDS research. For example, last month, The New England Journal of Medicine published research showing that a daily dose of an oral antiretroviral drug taken by HIV-negative gay and bisexual men and transgender women reduced the risk of acquiring HIV infection by 43.8 percent. The data showed even higher levels of protection from infection, up to 73 percent, among those participants who adhered most closely to the daily drug regimen. 

Losing Michael was the hardest thing that we have had to face. Yet, his death did have a positive effect. We have grown closer. We have come to terms with our mortality, now realizing how fragile life is. Don't wait, do and say it now. We also saw Michael mature and saw his courage. Most importantly, we were there to provide love and support. We are grateful that we had a chance to talk before he died. We could have spent our whole lives having never said the things that were said to each other in the last few weeks before he died. 

From our own experience, we know that parents of a child suffering from a life-threatening illness face special problems. The death of a child is a devastating experience. It severely taxes a parent's adaptive capacities. A child's death is unexpected in our society because children are supposed to outlive their parents. When a parent dies you have lost your past. When your child dies you have lost your future. 

The plight of AIDS sufferers has improved greatly since 1984 as have lesbian, gay, bisexual , and transgender (LGBT) rights in general, but there is still much to be done. We do find some comfort in the successful federal district court challenge to Proposition 8 and hopefully, the demise of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy in the military.