My book giveaway was surprisingly successful (given that even I couldn't find it without the link). Nearly 400 people entered the draw that ended on December 1, World AIDS Day.

George Carlin, speaking about the drug culture of the 60s, once observed that if you remember the 1960s, you weren't there. For many of us, the late 80s and early 90s became a blur, not from intoxicants but from grappling with the pain and sorrow of the relentless loss of so many people so fast. Instead of forging ahead along our professional paths, we found ourselves ensnared in a relentless cycle of attending funerals, navigating through the grieving process, and bearing witness to the abrupt and heartbreaking loss of friends, individuals with whom we had envisioned traversing the journey of life.

As in the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic that plagues our present, the death tolls during the initial years of the AIDS pandemic happened alongside the normal daily challenges of life The AIDS crisis intertwined pre-existing prejudices, discrimination, and widespread ignorance, amplifying the sorrow and deepening the grief endured by the survivors, the friends and families of our lost loved ones.