I lost relatives to AIDS, a couple of my closest cousins. I lost friends to AIDS, high-school friends who never even made it to their 21st birthdays in the '80s. When it's that close to you, you can't really deny it, and you can't run from it.
“The first attempt at a response: there must have been a fall, a decline, and the road to salvation can only be the return of the sensible finite into the intelligible infinite.”