Dear Readers,

I'm Spring-cleaning and I'm on the living room floor with a distillation of my 20 years in New York in piles of diaries, news-clippings and pictures on the floor: pictures of my first boyfriend and me, alongside pictures my Mom took of me in the hospital when I had PCP.

There I am, gaunt, forcing a smile, an IV in one arm, and flower arrangements that people had sent me in the other so I could thank them when I got better. (Mom's way of making sure I lived).

Twenty years ago I was a teen who had just moved to New York City from the suburbs and realized I was gay. I had a handful of sexual experiences, and for one short year I experienced the freedom of sexual expression without the fear of death. Then AIDS came.

For me it started with a tiny article about a "gay cancer" that was killing sexually active gay men. That first summer, unbeknownst to me, I sero-converted. Since then I have, like many, been to hell, and unlike so many more, back again. Close to half of my adult life belongs to AIDS and I hate that, but I am alive because the GLBT community saved me.

Back then, motivated by our love for one another the gay community came together in a beautiful way. Men and women together were making meals, sitting by hospital beds, creating buddy programs and walking dogs. They were finding and fixing up housing and sadly clearing them out like a teary-eyed swat team after someone had died because so many others were waiting for shelter. Still others were loud, screaming for help from the government. We all felt such a sense of loss within one short year, and we, all of us, still new enough in our pride and sense of community and grief, worked together like a loving family.

I felt an obligation to attend the Remember the Dead/Renew the Struggle, 20th Anniversary of AIDS March on Washington, D.C. the first weekend in June. I arrived Friday morning when a few dedicated people were setting up the Names Project vigil in Lafayette Park in front of the White House. There is no more moving a tribute than the Names Quilt and the reading of the names of those who have passed. It refuses to divide this global pandemic by skin color, nationality, gender or sexual orientation but rather unites all of us through love.

Hour after hour, volunteers read the names of those who have died of AIDS through the night and rain, without a break until the march on Sunday. Name after name after name. Some taken 20 years ago by our lack of knowledge and others snuffed out just recently by apathy. Faces, lives, lovers, friends, sons, daughters, fathers and mothers, their names flying up over my head into the clouds. That night the news was loaded with the CDC's staggering statistics on the soaring new infection rates and the next day they had to add 12 year-old South African AIDS activist Nkosi Johnson's name to the list they were reading at the vigil.

I spent the first hour of the march on Sunday speechless at the lack of marchers. There were hundreds of us, not the thousands that show up for Gay Pride or for a circuit party, but rather a few hundred men, women and children with AIDS and our friends and families.

I had the honor of walking alongside some of my heroes, Cleve Jones and Mary Fisher and her family. At the rally afterward, I heard children with AIDS talk about their disease with poise and purpose that few adults possess and then I watched a mom and dad say goodbye to their son with a new quilt panel dedication. One of 40 new panels dedicated that day. It renewed my spirit and dashed my hopes all at once.

You see I feel like we've been here before. Can we be that unaware? Can we afford to remain complacent? Despite the fact that we know AIDS to be preventable people are becoming infected at the very same rates as in the '80s. People are dying again. Amongst my clippings and pictures was a page torn from a page-a-day calendar with a quote from James Thurber which says, "Let us not look back in anger or forward in fear, but around in awareness." -James Thurber, not a bad idea in light of the new dimensions of AIDS.

With 17,000 new infections daily, many in young people under 25, with 14% of all new infections proving to be drug resistant and 1/3 of those infected not even knowing they are infected, we are going to need the strength, love, compassion and activism of our lavender family back.

I found out that I had HIV when I was 16. I'm 17 now. I was with my boyfriend for close to a year. He's 33, he has it too. I don't know who gave it to who. Since then life has been difficult. We recently broke up because he was too manipulative. Every time he's mad, he wants sex. The only thing he wants to do is fuck! If I say no, he's all pissed off and says things like "I'm going to the bath house." "I'm blah blah blah," He never asks how's school. He's never showed me that he cares about my life. I never get any encouragement from him. He doesn't like me hanging around with my friends. He says things like, "you would rather spend time with your friends then to spend time with me." All he does is stay home, walk his dog, order take-out and workout. That's his life... My life is a wreck. I'm in 12th grade. I was a top student, now I'm flunking. I need help.

Dear Proud Graduate,

Dumping your boyfriend was the first step toward a healthier life and shows a strength and maturity that even at 33, he does not possess. Congratulations, I know it isn't easy, but it sounds to me like this guy has not contributed much to your life.

This is kinda late, but my daughter's godfather died when she was six of AIDS and I told her that it was actually the liver cancer brought on during the disease. The doctors said that it was the AIDS that made the cancer prevalent and I admit to not knowing. My problem is that my daughter is older and she is asking questions like, "did he die of AIDS?" and it's difficult for me to answer correctly. Should I stick with the liver cancer story? Or tell her about AIDS? or maybe some combination of both? I hope that this letter doesn't sound as stupid as it looks. I really do need an answer.

Dear The Whole Truth,

I'm sorry for your family's loss. People don't die of AIDS they die of complications from AIDS. I'm not a parent and I don't know how old your daughter is but times have changed and you need to tell her the truth. The same day I got your email I got another one from a gay guy in his 20's that said--"I just have a brief question. What does it mean when someone says they are poz?" On a daily basis I get letters from people in their teens and early 20's who have already tested HIV positive. Please, please tell your daughter the whole story. In my mind it's never too late for the truth. You need to get her the facts before someone else tells her what they think the truth is, or worse yet, what they want her to think the truth is. It must be tough being a Mom these days but if she's asking the question, then she's probably ready for a straight answer.