I’m raising money through AIDS Walk SF this year for the National AIDS Memorial. If you didn’t know, I’ve been volunteering at this organization since 2008 when I led a group of volunteers from Bank of America and now, 17 years later, I work here. Besides the historical significance of the Grove and the Quilt, the Memorial has meant even something more deeply personal as it has served as one of the main conduits through which I built community. But that is not by accident, it is in the DNA of the Memorial.

Both the Grove and the Quilt were formed as community responses to a government and a general societal attitude of both disdain and indifference towards the people that were infected. Whether the stigma was rooted in race, health status, socioeconomics, gender, or sexual orientation it was clear that AIDS was politicized as a wedge issue that would separate the undesirable them from the virtuous us. The epidemic never had to be as bad as it was. Approximately 42.3 million people have died from AIDS-related illnesses since the start of the epidemic because it was more convenient to ignore the problem and blame the victims instead of coming up with solutions.

In 1987 the Quilt was started as a way to remind the public that people with AIDS and people dying of AIDS were parts of their communities, had families that loved them, were sons, daughters, siblings, brothers, sisters, neighbors, and co-workers. It was proof that there was no us and them, only a disease and our own efforts to respond or not. Each panel the size of a grave to place in the state capitol as an unforgettable display of the horrific scope of the consequences of division. These are the dead that were murdered through inaction. And this display was not the result of propaganda or misdirection but the visceral embodiment of the voices of our communities, families and friends who had lost loved ones.

Four years later in 1991 the Grove site renovation began. If the Quilt was to remind other people of our humanity then the Grove was to remind us that we were loved. In a different kind of way to commemorate those we lost, the Grove was created as a space for healing and hope. With a need to mourn the lives lost and celebrate the lives lived, our community was not satisfied with idle hands so we nurtured and grew a space that was formed just as much with hands as it was with hearts. The Grove may be a physical space but it is a spiritual connection that recognizes our interconnectedness and the power of coming together to build something beautiful, even in the face of overwhelming despair. Every workday highlights the reality of that connection.

So, for this I have volunteered for 17 years, even now as I work here. It is so easy to build community with a place that centers that connection. In a world inundated with memetic images and phrases that fan our torpor through indifference, the Memorial provides a reality of dirt and thread, blood, flesh, and sweat all unified in holding on to our humanity as tightly as possible. We only have each other, so we should hold each other as precious.

This is why I walk.