A question that has haunted me for more than twenty years: Saying Goodbye to a Teacher

[Mike 03]

I had a teacher who was diagnosed with AIDS back in the mid 80s when AIDS was poorly understood and something to be "shocked about" and hidden away. He was one of the best teachers I have ever, ever had, and I have never gotten the chance to honor him. He was an incredible teacher. Even when he knew he was dying, he was an incredible teacher. But we students had no clue he was ill.

At some point, during the next semester, at the unversity I attended, he was just sort of shunned away to nowhereland. Rumors began to spread that he was dying, but there was no way to reach him. It hurt so bad, because he helped me so much as a writer and a human being.

A few months later we students were told he had died.

And I did checks on the quilt to see if he was on the AIDS quilt, but all my searches turned up negative.

Does anyone know any ANY way to try to track down what happened to those wonderful people who were diagnosed and died from AIDS in the early to mid 1980s, some way to pay our respects?

This has haunted me for many years. It would mean a lot to me if there were some way to find out more about what happened to him or how I could pay my respects to him.

[dsc]

1. Maybe you could try to add him to the quilt

or donate to an AIDS charity in his name.

[Mike 03]

2. I didn't know you could still add to the quilt. Thanks for the info

I will look into that.

As long as it doesn't violate his privacy.


We were told his mother didn't want us to know he had died this way.

[crim son]

3. That is a question I've asked myself many times.

I've known that friends have died, and the "common knowledge" was that they had died of AIDS, but in the eighties it simply was not openly discussed. Now the stigma is gone and I'm not positive it matters any more, how they died, because we no longer pretend the disease doesn't exist, not to the same degree anyway, and nothing I can do will bring back those dear people. If nothing else, pay homage to your teacher in your heart and mind. If the purpose is to honor him, he may well hear you. If it's to bring you peace, you might be abe to find it without the evidence you believe you need right now. :hug:

Damn that disease, goddamnit. Of course it matters how my friends died, and yours but it hurts to think of it. Goddamn.

[donco6]

4. You can search the quilt names

here:

http://64.32.160.70:591/FMRes/FMPro?-db=search%20the%20quilt.fp5&-sortfield=block%20number&PMDB%20Online%3a%3aPanel%20Listing=jim&-format=ZSearch.htm&-lay=Search&-max=1&-token=25&-view

If he has a panel, it should be listed.

[LeftyMom]

6. Thanks. Neither my uncle nor his partner have one.

I should ask family if they'd like me to put one together.

They've both been gone almost 20 years now. They were so young and so good looking- my uncle always looked like a dashing leading man from an old movie, he was just devastatingly handsome- and they'd be gray old men now had they lived. I can't even imagine. :(

[norepubsin08]

5. I sang for a friends funeral

who was the first person in Washington to die from AIDS via a blood transfusion...also had a 7th grade teacher at a Roman Catholic School in Tacoma who everybody rumored to have died from AIDS (back then nobody spoke about it)

[Jamastiene]

7. I'd like to see a portion of the AIDS quilt just for people who

died and local community culture in some way made their death a quiet lonely journey for them...just to try to somehow take away their loneliness posthumously. It's so sad that so many people have suffered in silence through the years. :cry:

[Raster]

8. Hi Mike. Sadly your story resembles many during the early days of the plague...

when AIDS was a gay disease and our own President Raygun wouldn't even utter the word, much less take action to stop the tide of death.

Bless your heart for wanting to honor your teacher. So many beautiful, wonderful, young lives filled with potential and purpose were ended long before their time, and many times the circumstances were quiet, shameful desolation.

I fervently hope you find the information you seek, and that you can find a way to honor this person that has obviously touched your life in such a positive fashion.

Again, bless your heart. And thank you.

[wildflowergardener]

9. relatives via facebook?

I had a gradeschool friend who'd moved away 14 years ago contact me via facebook - a complete surprise. I wonder if there might be a way of tracking down any of his relative through that - if you know his name and where they might be living?

I started trying to hunt down some of my college, high school friends, and relatives after that and found some of them.

Meg