Remembrance

[bjarvis]

Part of my touring yesterday was a visit to the AIDS memorial at the 519 Community Center and Cawthra Park. It's part of my Toronto visit ritual: take some time to visit the memorial and read all of the names. Every one.

I don't know how many names are listed... there's too many to count easily, all arranged by year of death, starting in the late 1980s. The later panels of 2000 onwards have vastly shorter lists than those of the 1990s but there are still more than there should be.

I didn't know many of the people named there, but there were several. I remember David Fitzgerald, a former producer with the Toronto Gay Men's Chorus (the first one, not the current Forte). There was Michael "Patsy Recline" Dolby who I knew from our weekly Sunday afternoon clogging/two-stepping/line dancing afternoons at Badlands.

The name I particular look for each time is Rod Jamieson. He taught a couple of the sign language courses I took years ago at the Canadian Hearing Society. Rod was Deaf, a farmboy from Saskatchewan. I had such a crush on him 1990-1993 or so... he was so handsome, so gentle and so wonderfully expressive. Nothing ever came of my infatuation. He died in 1994. I still picture him so clearly although I confess there are days I can no longer remember his name.

That's part of why I go back every time I can. If we can't remember the whole person any longer because of the passage of time and the fading of memory, we should at least remember their names and that they were here once.

Comments

[trawnapanda.livejournal.com]

you're arriving in trawna, I'm in the process of leaving - off to the UK for three weeks this evening (one week holiday, two weeks waving rainbow flags at bishops)

ships that pass in the night, and all that

hugs

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

Didn't that happen the last time I was here too? Bloody figues.

[ohwolfman.livejournal.com]

Darling, not to make light of an otherwise touching post, but you don't need the AIDS quilt to remember your past 'infatuations.' You need at least an Access Database, Crystal Reports and a crack team of National Geographic photographers.

Just sayin'....