I remember sitting at the breakfast table with Grandma when I was a little boy. I would hungrily devour the wonderful meal of scrambled eggs, homemade pancakes, sausage and sometimes-fried bologna. I would curiously peer up from my plate between bites, fearful that the delicacies before me would disappear and just watch Grandma. Her face was worn, showcasing signs of happiness and sadness, but she was regal. As I searched her face for some reaction, she would look up from her newspaper, catch me spying on her and gently smiled.

As she sat there with her morning cup of Maxwell House and the Salem cigarette she would allow me to steal puffs from, I sensed something different in Grandma’s demeanor. I looked at her with the attention I had only displayed on Saturday mornings, while watching the Bugs Bunny/Road Runner cartoons. This particular morning she seemed somber. I noticed next to her ashtray filled with cigarette butts, was her well worn telephone book. As she flipped the pages of the Metro section, I noticed how she would compare a name she came across in the paper to a name in her telephone book.

“Grandma, what ya doing?” I asked, as I stuffed the last piece of breakfast meat into my mouth. She thought carefully before she spoke. “I am erasing names from my telephone book,” she said with her shaky quivering voice. Not satisfied with the answer, I asked, “Why?”

Looking back now, I understand. Grandma was removing the name of a friend or a loved one who passed away

On June 28, 2007 , I had the honor of serving as a guest speaker for the HIV and Communities of Color Symposium at Columbia University in New York City . As I prepared my presentation, I reflected on the history of HIV/AIDS and my own personal journey.  

In July 1981, the New York Times reported an outbreak of a rare form of cancer among gay men in New York and California . This “gay cancer” as it was called at the time was later identified as Kaposi’s Sarcoma, the face of AIDS. About the same time, emergency rooms in New York City began to see a rash of seemingly healthy young men presenting with fevers, flu-like symptoms and a rare pneumonia Pneumocystis. This was the beginning of what has become the biggest health care concern in modern history.

Twenty-five years late the disease still plagues society. How did we get to this point?