Just over 25 years ago, an activist in San Francisco named Cleve Jones was anxious to create some sort of memorial by which the thousands of people who had lost their lives to AIDS could be named and remembered. At a S.F. event honoring the memory of the late Harvey Milk (for whom Jones had worked as an intern), he saw what amounted to an enormous collage of homemade posters and flyers which people had created in tribute to Milk and his work on behalf of gay rights. Something about that riot of colors and textures made Jones think of a crazy quilt of widely varied fabric panels… and that’s where he got the idea of a huge fabric quilt which would consist of panels made by ordinary people to memorialize a loved one who had died of AIDS. He even imagined the quilt eventually growing so large that it would all but fill the National Mall in Washington D.C. It was an amazing idea, and plenty of people either doubted it could be done or simply couldn’t understand the idea. But Jones persevered and all of you know what happened; the quilt became exactly what he had envisioned it to be- a living, growing, and (eventually) enormous work of art paying tribute to, by now, almost one hundred thousand men, women and children who have died of AIDS.
For the last two weeks, twelve panels of the quilt were on display at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, and to help highlight the visit, I was able (with the help of my brother Steve) to arrange a phone interview with Cleve Jones – and I think what I remember most from our conversation was when he said that he liked the idea of of memorial quilt rather than some other artistic object (a memorial mosaic, or a series of tie-dyed t-shirts) was that there was something so warm, inviting and non-threatening about a
Quilt . . . the kind of thing that evokes images of a loving home, a shelter from the cold, and of remembrance of past generations. As he said that, I found my heart just cracking open – because what he was also saying, if not in so many words, was that one of the harshest and most painful facets of the AIDS epidemic, especially in its earliest days, was that so many victims were dealt a brutal double blow: stricken both by a health-ruining, life-threatening disease-and ostracism of family and friends who would otherwise have offered love and support and encouragement, had the person been suffering from almost anything else. And to be perfectly fair to some of those people who we might be tempted to label uncaring or hateful, in many cases people were learning in one fell swoop that their child was gay and suffering from this terrible, mysterious thing called AIDS; it’s little wonder that some just couldn’t take it all in. I think one reason Cleve Jones was so strongly drawn to the idea of a memorial quilt was that he saw its potential to be a beautiful bridge of understanding. Picture the typical Midwestern mom, trying to come to grips with the death of her son from AIDS. I think he rightly believed that constructing a quilt panel would be an ideal vehicle by which to try and make sense of one’s love and loss and bewilderment and anger.
That’s why when I stood in front of these quilt panels at UW- Parkside Sunday afternoon, I found myself thinking as much about the grieving friends and families who constructed the panels as I did about the people actually memorialized in them. I thought about the parents, siblings, spouses, children, friends, coworkers, teammates, cast mates, neighbors. . . and of the collective loss we are talking about when we think about the tens of thousands of quilt panels that have been created over the last quarter of a century. I found myself thinking about what it would feel like to try and sum up the unique wonderfulness of a given person in a single quilt square. How many of these quilt panels were the result of long, heartfelt discussion around someone’s dining room table about what exactly to do? And how many of them were perhaps the solitary work of one person, alone in their grief? How many people threw away their first effort to start over, in an effort to get it just right? And I thought about how many people are just now coming to the emotional place where they can do this on behalf of someone who died of AIDS long ago? Three such new quilt panels were on display at Parkside with a brief word of explanation about each one. By now, they may already be on their way to the NAMES Project in Atlanta, Georgia, to be joined with the thousands of other panels that have already been made. And I think about the people who still cannot comprehend the loss of their loved one- or who cannot step beyond their own prejudice and fear to properly mourn their loss.
And I thought about the many people who have died of AIDS and how tempting it is to think of them in the context of sweeping generalities- of the thousands of people who have died of AIDS. For as staggering as the numbers are, there is a strange sort of comfort when one looks only at the big picture- at the entire quilt, as it were. But it is when you look more closely at each panel that you realized that each one represents a precious human life – someone who meant the whole world to someone and whose untimely death brought unimaginable sorrow to someone. And of course, these are people, by and large, I never knew and never will.
But among that throng of thousands is a panel for someone named Mitch Spencer, who lit up his little corner of the world and the lives of everyone who knew him. I knew Mitch from Luther Valley Lutheran Church, where he and his family were members – and I still vividly remember the first time I laid eyes on Mitch. The first December we lived there, we were socked by a huge blizzard, and Mitch (and one of his brothers, I think) came over to help shovel us out. There he stood at our door, tall and strapping (he was a wrestler in high school) and smiling with that one-of-a-kind smile of his and that twinkle in his eye which saw the fun even in shoveling snow. Kathy knew him because they were the dearest of friends at Carthage, where they both sang in the Carthage Choir. (He was a fine tenor.) And it was at Mitch’s funeral that Kathy and I met for the first time in the briefest of encounters; I was the organist for the service and she had helped gather the group of choir friends who were there to sing Rutter’s “The Lord Bless You and Keep You” – and she managed to track me down to see if I would be willing to play piano for them, which of course I did. By that time, Mitch’s younger brother Matt was part of our family, as my sister Randi’s future husband, and he and I sang for the service one of Mitch’s favorite songs, “Little Flowers” – which speaks of how there is no growth, no life, without rain – without loss- without pain. Actually, it was supposed to be a solo for Matt, but as he introduced the song he started to cry- so as he sat down on the stairs next to the piano, I just started singing the song by myself, as best I could. It was somewhere in the middle of the second verse that I suddenly realized that Matt had regained his composure and was singing with me – and by the end, I had pretty much backed out and let Matt take over, singing so beautifully and expressively to honor his beloved brother.
That’s just the story of Mitch Spencer . . . one small panel among thousands.
There are so many important messages here, it’s hard to know where to begin. One of them is that AIDS is still with us- causing tremendous pain in the lives of so many. None of us should think of it as a chapter from the past. It’s a scourge that is especially severe on the continent of Africa, and the Parkside exhibit included several quilt panels that memorialized African victims, reminding us that this is a global problem. And Cleve Jones said so eloquently in our interview that because there was so much silence – especially “official silence” – surrounding AIDS, and because so many other people gave into fear and bias at a time when compassion was called for, that’s one reason why AIDS was not stamped out like it otherwise might have been. The message is that Love Is Always A Better Idea Than Hate. Always always always. And I say that as someone with a confession to make: When I found out that my brother Steve was gay, I was anything but an open-armed figure of compassion and acceptance. I actually found out about my brother during a break during the school year when we were both home from Luther. I came across a letter that someone I knew at Luther had written to Steve. (Let’s be frank- I was snooping.) I was really taken aback and I suppose also miffed that I found out about it in this way and not directly from him. I ultimately confronted him about it late one evening, when he and I had gone to bed and the lights were out. (I suppose like a good Lutheran I was averse enough to uncomfortable conversations that I didn’t want to be sitting across from Steve to ask him about this.) I don’t remember everything about that talk we had in the dark, except that my tone was certainly was more accusatory than compassionate – and I also remember our conversation ending without me saying “I love you, Steve” or anything that would have been truly reassuring to him. I look back now on that moment and cringe at my own insensitivity and self-centeredness . . . and almost weep when I think about what my brother had to have felt in that moment. He and I had always had a tricky relationship, so I guess it’s no surprise that this moment should have been far from easy. It became easier, of course, and ultimately I came to follow the lead of my parents and siblings, including my mother, who was raised in the conservative faith of the Missouri Synod. I know she swallowed hard when Steve first came out to her and dad, but almost from the first moment, it was all about love. It had to be.
That’s what that quilt continues to say to the world . . . more eloquently than a thousand books of poetry ever could.
It’s about Love.
It has to be.
pictured above: Some of the quilt panels on display at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside. The two week exhibition included several lectures, as well as several performances of a new play called “Voices from the Quilt” by Parkside’s own Dean Yohnk. There was also a performance of excerpts from the AIDS Quilt Songbook, featuring baritone Kurt Ollman, who was part of its world premiere twenty years ago.