AIDS: I Didn't Understand
Listen to this
Commentary!
By Thessaly La Force
 I never
really gave the AIDS virus much thought. I learned about it in the beginning
of my teens — somewhere between middle school and high school. It wasn't
that difficult to understand. It was a virus. You could be positive or negative.
It was exchanged through fluids. I remember thinking in freshman biology that
as long as I didn't become blood sisters with a best friend I was okay.
The thing is, it never really hit me that hard. I kept myself pleasantly removed
from AIDS. I had friends who did AIDS related community service, like delivering
meals to people with AIDS, or promoting safe sex for teens. But I didn't understand
why they worked so hard, because I felt like they could devote the same amount
of time to something else.
AIDS was just another project, another activity. Every year, at
least one person asked me, "Hey do you want to do the AIDS
walk?" or "Hey, you want to do the AIDS dance?" But
when I thought about it, I realized I was thinking about the event,
not the cause. I might as well be walking for the exercise.
That is what it became for me: just another exercise. I'd dutifully
wear my red AIDS ribbons, but I didn't get it.
Then this summer, I heard my mom and my aunty talking about my
mom's old job. Apparently, my mom has this friend who my aunty remembers.
"Whatever happened to him?" she asked my mom. "He
died," I remember my mom saying. "He had AIDS. At the
end he was so thin he had to sit on a pillow, because the chair
would be too hard."
As I listened to them talk, it finally hit me. AIDS lurks behind
the hospital curtains, the bed sheets of an invalid. I never wanted
it to enter my life, and I thought it hadn't. But in reality, it's
only something I had avoided. I thought I was desensitized, but
I just didn't know.
For Youth Radio, I'm Thessaly La Force.
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