Memorial for AIDS Victims

Last year, a few days before her 30th birthday, my friend Lisa died of cancer. During the last nine months of her life she suffered many indignities and difficulties: insensitive treatment by medical personnel, rejection by former friends who were repulsed by her illness, excruciatingly long delays by the insurance company that kept reviewing and re-reviewing her claims, inability to handle her own financial and personal affairs, loss of income, the gradual wasting away of her body and loss of normal functioning, and the nightmare of her own irrational fear that the illness was somehow her own fault, a punishment for her sins. Those of us who stayed by her during that time were deeply affected by her struggle, and we still grieve for her.

Every disease that takes a life so young is tragic. The grief of Lisa’s family and friends, the loss to the world of her special talents, is no less than that of any AIDS victim. Why not build a memorial for all who have died of incurable or untreatable diseases?

ROSEMARY WEST

Granada Hills