Survivors of 1980s AIDS crisis reveal what happened to them

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9. Thank you for sharing this with us.

Brought back to me just how awful the treatment was of our brothers. My love and I had moved from Rochester in mid-1980 to the country. We still subscribed to the Empty Closet out of Rochester and began reading the stories that were coming out. We were fairly isolated at that point, even to the non-gay neighbors around us. We read in the paper of someone who came back from NYC and shortly passed away. My love recognized the name and said he was gay. The paper reported him as dying from a short-term illness, unspecified. A lady friend down the street worked part-time for Public Health and tipped us off to three others who had died or were in the process. While we were grateful that by luck, we had removed ourselves from the possibility, we also realized our commitment to our community and joined the NENY Aids Council and served in the local area. Have still done work with the council since then.