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Show n if PINION 2 the forum fj Mow AIDS Marianne Day Forum Staff Writer by l.5: r V' 'filWWeww I; K On a cold night, when Im walking outside, there are times when I can still feel his hand in mine. I used to never wear gloves. It drove him nuts. He would take off his right hand glove and with puffs of white breath tell me to put it on. Then he would hold my left hand and we would keep each other warm as we walked to wherever we were headed in the cold frosty air. When my friend Maria called last August to tell me that En had died, I felt a heavy weight of guilt in the center of my chest. She said, How well did you know En? Did you know that he had AIDS? Yes, I knew. En and I had parted ways two years earlier. I was angry with him because I didnt approve of the way he lived his life. I knew that has touched my life En had AIDS and I was terrified for him. My anger over some differences of opinion and lifestyle were so important to me, that I chose never to speak to him again. In fact I had not spoken to Jay, his companion, cither until I got the news. En was dead. I wrote Jay a letter of condolence and sent it Federal Express. The next day, Jay got the letter and I was surprised at how quickly he called me back. I had told Jay in the letter that I wanted to return to Seattle as soon as possible to attend Ens services. When Jay called, his voice was raspy and weak like a childs. He said there wouldnt be any services because En had never told anyone he had AIDS, and even in death En wanted no one to know. A few months earlier, En had told his mother he had leukemia, and Jay did not have the heart to tell her different. I asked how Maria knew about En. Jay said En had suffered a triple stroke and a severe seizure which left him semi- - comatose in the hospital. His doctor said En had developed a brain cancer which causes dementia. Within a week, his health deteriorated so rapidly that when Jay told our friend Maria the truth, En no longer knew who she was. En was cremated. Jay said he needed to get away from it all and was coming to Salt Lake. He asked if I could spend some time with him. I was elated to see him but terrified that he would get some virus from me or my son. I cleaned and sanitized every inch of my apartment. I had imagined that Jay would be rack thin, coughing and covered with those sores that they say people with AIDS have. When Jay arrived he looked better than I had ever known him to look during the seven years of our But appearances are friendship. deceiving because Jays white blood cell count was less than 100. Normal is 1,000 or greater. Jay still smoked a pack of cigarettes a day. He said he was going to die anyway and he might as well do what he liked. We went to Bad for dinner and, as always, Jay was a perfect gentlemen. We dined. We laughed. We talked about Ens last moments in life. Jay showed me a watch and scarf of Ens he was wearing. He said it was as if En were still with him. As I looked at the watch, my by Brooke Gallegos Westminster College Democrats would like to take the opportunity to educate the Westminster College community about the harms of the Republican Contract with America as related to financial aid in the future. This so called contract will cut federal loans by $2.87 billion which means many students will be unable to finish or even start their post high school or graduate schooling. The contract would eliminate $1.4 billion in campus based student aid (Perkins loans. Work Study, and Supplemental I one-tim- "r- - Westminster College of Salt Lake City Editor: David Neisler Copy Editor: Monica Sanchez Production Manager: Mat White Photo Editor: Amy Friberg BusinessAd Manager: Mathew B. White Faculty Advisor: Fred Fogo Forum Staff: Alan Blain, Brett Boberg, Johna Brems, Marianne Day, Janaya Hawkins, Shawn Kuennen, I Brice Laris, Angela Larson, Brent Larson, Kimi Michel, Stephanie Mommsen, Terresa Newport, Irma Noriega, Christopher Thomas, Missy Tibbitts, John Wells Photo Staff: Jason Bringard, Alex Ferguson, Paul Jones, Jake Kilgrow, Curtis Mitchell The Forum is published every Tuesday. The editorial staff encourages letters from students (please include your major), faculty and all other readers. Address all letters to: The Forum, Westminster College, 1840 So. 1300 E., Salt Lake City, UT 84105. Submissions must be received one week prior to publication. Due to limited space, the Forum editors reserve the right to edit all submissions. Opinions expressed on the editorial or commentary pages are those of the writers and are not to be construed as those of the Students of Forum, Associated Westminster College, the College administration, faculty or staff. Mail subscriptions are 20$ a pear - AS A 4WA unplug the machines which were keeping him alive. I think often about En and Jay. Their deaths happened about three months ago. Now that Christmas is grant. Currently, the poorest students often receive campus based aid in addition to Pell grant monies, so they would not benefit from the year institutions which are the biggest recipients of campus-base- d schools aid to proprietary.and which rely more heavily on Pell shift in funds. Many schools (ours included) rely heavily on work study funds to fill clerical and other positions on campus. Terminating this program would cause vacancies in many of these positions or force tuition increases to cover these expenses. The proposal would also shift Federal student aid away from 4- - grants. I urge you to write to our representatives and let them know that this is unacceptable. (Much of the information in this letter is from the College Democrats of America, budget numbers are from the to. At least I can say I comforted Jay when he needed me and that for him I was not too late. Jay died one and a half weeks after he returned to Seattle. Jay had Pnemocystis Carinii Pneumonia, a disease many AIDS patients get. He was on a respirator, and his family chose to Dear Editor, one of us. HIVAIDS the forum ' coming, my memories of this experience are even more poignant. As a Christian, I thought charity meant giving to the poor, and stuff like that. Now, Im not so certain. Sure, those things are great, but perhaps charity is more than that. Charity is opening your hearts to those youre angry with, to those you disagree with and to those whose lives are very different from our own. Perhaps, charity is forgiving someone even when what they have done seems unforgivable. I dont know what the answers are to the dilemmas of AIDS. But I know there are many who are suffering. According to the Utah Aids Foundation, out of the 992 Utahns who have been diagnosed with AIDS 566 have died. And, viewing the AIDS quilt panels, which have been on display in Shaw and Jewett during AIDS Awareness Week, has helped me to see that the stories behind the quilts of the dead are as varied as are the number of panels. I have also learned that En did not deserve to die, ashamed, without the comfort of his friends and family. Now, when I remember En I dont remember the anger and the disagreements, I remember how he held my hand when it was cold and kept me warm. ibility to respond to unique student needs and high tuition costs. Eliminating this form of student aid would likely result in many students with special circumstances not being able to attend college. On the other hand, since Pell is a quasientitlement that serves all eligible students, shifting these funds to Pell would increase the maximum Pell grant from $2,300 to $2,500, with only a marginal increase in the number of students receiving a am writing this letter to recognize all those who committed their time, and energy to help facilitate an amazing week of programming. Two months ago a committee was formed to help students become more involved in prevention programming. This phenomenal group of students decided that they wanted to concentrate the majority of their efforts on AIDS Awareness. For two months, Jennifer Hogan, MaryBeth Brooks, Jessica Hughes, Ashley Bittle, Jonathan Jemming, Kirsten Dyk, and Heather McGinley met weekly to coordinate an event that rocked our campus. These students spent an infinite amount of hours organizing, facilitating and participating in a week long campus wide observance of a deadly virus that affects each and every I &S hand felt warm. I imagined the gentle pressure of Ens fingers holding mine. It was at that moment I remembered those cold evenings with En and what a wonderful person and friend he had been. Ens death woke me with a cold blast. Yes, I was angry with him, but now that En was gone I wasnt so certain my silence had been such a good thing. Jay told me I was the only one En had confided in about his HIVAIDS infection. En spent his last few months alone. He was too sick to leave his home and too ashamed to tell anyone why he couldnt come to visit them. He died alone, and I would give thing to have broken my angry silence to be there and let him know that despite our differences he was worth loving and speaking Republican Contract endangers financial aid Educational Opportunity Grants) and redirect half of the savings to Pell grants which would eliminate Federal aid for two million students. The Perkins loan program is a revolving fund that collects repayments from graduates and makes additional loans to new students. Eliminating this program and shifting half of the savings to Pell is a net loser for the taxpayers, since e Pell grants would replace the new Perkins capital that is currently lent several times over to assist many more additional students. Campus based aid gives the school financial aid officers the Hex- - A . sub-for-san- ta, Republican FY 1994 & 1995 budgets prepared by the House Budget Committee Republican staff.) about what we can do to STOP disease that is lives millions of of people claiming in our country. Students need to be educated about how to SAVE lives. AIDS is now the leading cause of death among men ages in Salt to forty-fiv- e twenty-fiv- e incidence of Lake City, and the HIVAIDS among women and teens is increasing. Over 1,700 Utahns are known to have contracted HIVAIDS thus far, and is a current estimates suggest that between 4,500 and 6,500 are undiagnosed. Students typically feel immortal, and this feeling keeps them in the dark about how to prevent this disease from spreading. From November 2, the Westminster College Prevention Program and ASWC sponsored numerous programs to help shine some light upon our community, which allows us to learn more this disease. Many faculty, staff and students have mentioned that the AIDS awareness week was extraordinary. The entire ambience of the Shaw Center changed when the Utah Names Project Quilt Panels were displayed. The Westminster community came together to help celebrate life and mourn the death of loved ones, during the candle-ligvigil on World AIDS Day in the Tanner Plaza. We had an amazing turnout of over 100 people combined, during the two Persons With AIDS panels. The AIDS Awareness Committee challenged Westminster College to become better educated about this disease, and the students, staff and faculty rose to the occasion. ht .Pamela S. Rosen, VISTA Volunteer Center |
