Memorial to the Victims of AIDS: Wood, Canvas Cemented by Sadness

She stood weeping behind the newly erected AIDS memorial. Dressed elegantly in a black skirt and blouse with a strand of pearls and a patent leather handbag, the middle-age woman was hiding from the cameras. Eventually, when the fanfare subsided, she would add to the memorial the name of a relative she had lost to the disease.

“My God. So many have died,” she said in accented English. “There are such sad memories.”

The woman was one of dozens of relatives, lovers and friends of AIDS victims who gathered on a hillside in Elysian Park on Thursday to unveil a three-day memorial to those whose lives have been claimed by acquired immune deficiency syndrome.

Names of the Dead

Using colorful markers and pens, they drew the names of the dead on the monument, a huge A-shaped wood-and-white-canvas structure. Hundreds of names. Full names, first names only, nicknames and initials, in row after row.

Mike. Steve. Stan. BoBo. Miss C. To Those Who Died Alone. The Children.

According to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, 99,936 AIDS cases had been reported nationally as of June 30. There have been 58,014 deaths, including 920 children.

Builders of the monument point out that the AIDS death toll nationwide now surpasses the number of Americans killed in the Vietnam War. In an effort to dramatize the number of victims, the sponsors of the AIDS memorial liken it to the black-granite Vietnam Memorial in Washington, shaped in a fallen V and covered with the names of war dead.

“We have chosen to bring this fact to life to emphasize in human terms the devastation of this epidemic,” said Michael Weinstein, president of the AIDS Hospice Foundation, one of several groups that organized the tribute.

“We inscribe this A with the names of persons lost in the war against AIDS, but we have no . . . consolation (that) the dying has stopped.”

Erected in front of the park’s Chris Brownlie Hospice for AIDS sufferers, the eight-foot-high canvas memorial will remain standing during a vigil that is scheduled to end Saturday afternoon.

“This memorial has been erected mid-war,” said Sally Fisher, founder of AIDS Mastery, a group that helps people learn to live with the disease. She was one of several speakers at a press conference marking the unveiling of the memorial and launching of the vigil.

“I feel for you, and I’m proud of you,” Sue Caves, whose son died of AIDS three years ago, told those gathered, many of whom sat under an awning to escape the mid-morning sun.

“Pride is what this memorial is all about. We remember the might-have-been. We remember the songs not sung, the dances not danced,” Caves said.

The ceremony was emotional. People wept, embraced, held hands. Several AIDS patients, weak and in wheelchairs, also attended.

Kent Smith, a registered nurse, sat at the back of the audience. He wiped away a tear during a song that implored listeners to “remember the names.” He then rose to write the names of about a dozen friends he said he has lost to AIDS.

“God knows, my name may be up there someday,” said Smith, 29. He said he has been diagnosed as having AIDS-related complex.

“But God knows, I can’t just stand by and watch.”