Presume that you have died in the next AIDS-type epidemic event (don’t get hung up on details). What do you want your friends and family to put on your quilt panel? What would make the best argument that you should have lived?
Ugh this assignment is so awful and I definitely have to resent Derek a little bit for making me think about it. I guess the things about me I would want to see on my panel would be a lot of relational things- sister, daughter, girlfriend, lover, friend, even teacher... but I would definitely also would want stuff like learner, rugby player, activist, etc. etc. I would want to be remembered as I was and that should be argument enough that I lived. I don't know, I think that while the AIDS Quilt is an awesome display of direct action and a good way to demonstrate the number of people who died from AIDS (and even larger, the number of people affected which includes the loved ones of those who died), but really, the most important part of doing a quilt like that, at least to me, is what it does for the people left behind. Like we watched in class on Wednesday, working on a quilt square for her son allowed one mother to laugh again, to think about her son as he was, not just as a victim of a horrible disease, and she almost even kind of got over it. This kind of action specific to reacting to en masse death that is half grief, half solemnity is good for those doing it most importantly.
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