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

[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.