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AIDS has touched many lives
I miss My friend Rick. Although he was always very careful, Rick was gay and had contracted HIV in the mid-1980s when not many people were aware the virus really existed. Rick and I used to hang out a lot together when I was in my 20s. We'd go out drinking or he'd bring me to the hair salon where he worked and give me a make-over. He had a beautiful condo with an awesome view where I spent a couple of nights standing by his huge window, our arms around each other, looking at the Toronto skyline. He was one of the sweetest guys I've ever known.  Rick had no idea he was infected with HIV until it actually became full-blown AIDS. He found out when a tooth he'd had pulled wasn't healing. He couldn't understand why and went to his doctor, who gave him a blood test and the bad news that not only was he HIV positive, but it had progressed into the AIDS virus and only had about 6 months to live. He was only 25 or 26 at the time.
I remember one of the last times I saw him, he was very depressed and I asked him what was wrong. He told me he'd quit his job and his tooth had been really bothering him. I noticed he looked a little gaunt and told him he should be eating more. "But I've got to keep my fabulous body, girlfriend," he'd said. I didn't find out he had AIDS until a few weeks later. When Rick called me to tell me the bad news and explained to me, over the phone, that he wanted me to remember him as he was, young and pretty, I remember hanging up the phone and crying for hours. I couldn't believe I would never see him again. It was hard, but I honoured his wish. A couple of months later, a mutual friend told me he had died. I wish I had more pictures of Rick. The one on this page (from a flyer for a band he was in, he loved singing) is the only one I have. Everytime I see it, it brings tears to my eyes. I like to think of him now, wherever he is, listening to Elton John and drinking a pitcher of beer with Truman Capote and Freddy Mercury. It makes me smile to imagine it.
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