World AIDS Day

I am reading the statistics:
AIDS has decreased by 20% world wide.
Patients with AIDS are living longer.
This is good news.

I am remembering:
the young man being supported on both sides,
his arms draped over his relatives' shoulders,
being dragged through the hospital door,
his legs no longer working,
his eyes, agonized,
as they met mine,
his chest wracked by strangling coughs.
"Isn't it pitiful?"
asked one auntie to the other,
as they sat in the waiting room,
watching him pass by.
He suffered horribly
and died soon after.

I remember:
the man in the last room down the hall,
who had  just been diagnosed,
crying, his whole world shattered.
He was cold, but the nurse
wouldnt bring him a blanket,
wouldnt enter his room.
I brought him two, and tucked him in.
I felt stricken:
to be reduced to crying for a blanket
and to have even that small comfort denied.

I remember:
the young man from Port,
where no doctor would treat him,
calling the doctor in Tofino,
who accepted him and sent him
to our small hospital.

I remember:
my gay lifelong friend,
who died by his own hand,
not from AIDS, but from a lifetime
of difficulty and intolerance
of which he just got tired.

I remember:
Ryan White,
who fought for his rights
while fighting for his life,
and inspired millions.

I think of:
all of the sad-eyed orphans
in Africa,
living without their beloved parents,
waiting for rescue,
so their smiles can come back.

I think of:
all of the people,
many alone and abandoned,
in their lonely rooms,
trying to stay alive
and
all of those whose brave battle
has finally ended.

World AIDS Day:
millions of beautiful stories
that ended too soon.