12/01/2025
World AIDS Day: Honoring the Lives That Shaped Us
Every year on December 1st, the world pauses to recognize World AIDS Day - a day devoted to remembrance, awareness, and continued action in the fight against HIV/AIDS. For millions of families, this day is more than a moment on the calendar. It’s a deeply personal reminder of the loved ones we’ve lost too soon.
For me, World AIDS Day carries a weight and a warmth of memory. I lost my mom to AIDS on December 28, 1995, a date etched permanently into my heart. Even after all these years, the emotions of that time are still alive - some soft, some sharp, all still somehow teaching me something new.
My mother was so much more than her illness. She was strength, laughter, softness, guidance, and love. The world often reduces people with AIDS to statistics or headlines, but those of us who have lived through it know the truth: behind every number is a person whose story deserves to be told.
World AIDS Day gives us a moment to honor those stories. To speak their names. To remember their impact. To continue loving them forward.
Since the mid-1990s, the era my mom lived through, the progress in treatment, prevention, and understanding of HIV/AIDS has been nothing short of remarkable. What was once a devastating and often fatal diagnosis is now, for many, a chronic and manageable condition.
But World AIDS Day reminds us that progress doesn’t mean the mission is over. Millions still live with HIV today, many without access to proper care, support, or education. Stigma still exists. Resources still fall short. Change is still needed.
World AIDS Day is not only about remembering those we lost. It’s also about creating a future where fewer families ever feel the pain of losing someone they love to this disease.
Awareness matters because:
- Stigma still prevents people from seeking care.
- Education saves lives.
- Compassion creates safer, healthier communities.
- Honoring the past helps guide the progress of tomorrow.
Losing a parent changes the shape of your entire world. Yet the love they gave us, the lessons they offered, and the memories they left behind become the quiet fuel that keeps us moving forward.
On World AIDS Day, I honor my mom by speaking about her openly - without shame, without stigma, without fear. Her story is part of mine, just as so many other families carry the legacies of loved ones lost.
If you’ve lost someone to AIDS, or if you’re supporting someone living with HIV today, please know you’re not alone. Your story matters. Your voice matters. And your loved one’s memory matters.
As we mark World AIDS Day, let’s remember those we lost, uplift those still fighting, and commit to a world where HIV is not only manageable, but fully erased.
For my mom, and for every mother, father, sister, brother, friend, and child taken too soon, today is for you.
Your light continues in the lives you touched.
Your story lives on in the people who carry your memory forward.
Your love endures, always.
