“Death was Never Meant to Be a Constant Companion in Your Twenties.”

Photo Credit: Dalton DeHart

As we recognize World AIDS Day today, we hear a moving and powerful perspective from one of our members, Lee Ingalls. He was deeply impacted by the AIDS crisis, and his words of reflection remind us why honoring those we’ve lost and continue to fight to eradicate HIV is critically important today.

For those of us who lived through the height of the epidemic and are fortunate enough to still be here, the memories are not distant history, they are a part of who we are. I was in my 20s, losing close friends at a pace that felt impossible to comprehend. At that age, you’re supposed to be planning your future, not attending memorial service after memorial service. Death was never meant to be a constant companion in your twenties.

The harshest truth was not just the virus itself, but the silence around it. Those of us in the high-risk communities saw firsthand how comfortable society was with our suffering. We watched as entire networks of friends and families were erased, while many looked away, held back resources, or acted as if our lives were disposable.

And yet, in the darkest years, something remarkable happened. Our community rose up. We built our own systems of care, our own networks of support. We fought for treatment, research, compassion, and visibility. And I will never be able to thank our lesbian sisters enough; they cared for our sick when few others would. They showed up when hospitals, families, and policy makers did not. Their strength and humanity rewrote the ending of countless lives.

I know this all sounds bleak. Let me be clear: it was more than bleak, it was devastating. But those of us who survived carry the responsibility of our memories. We are the living testimony of an era that stole so much and reshaped everything.

The song I chose for this post is “Somewhere” by Barbra Streisand. I heard it at so many memorial services during the peak of the crisis. When she sings “There’s a place for us… a time for us,” many of us held onto those words like a lifeline. We knew we were living in the wrong time, fighting to survive in a world that didn’t want us, but we also believed that someday, there would be a place for us.

And today, I remember them. I honor them.

I will always miss those we lost.

Lee Ingalls is a member, along with his husband, Brett Cullum, of the Greater Houston LGBTQ+ Chamber of Commerce. Lee is also a member of the Ingalls family that was the subject of The Little House on the Prairie family books, continuing to tell the stories of our lives. He penned a book about the family. Learn more in this OutSmart Magazine profile of Lee.

About World AIDS Day

World AIDS Day, designated on 1 December every year since 1988, is an international day dedicated to raising awareness of the AIDS pandemic caused by the spread of HIV infection and mourning those who have died of the disease.

Read the blog post from the Chamber team earlier this year on "Fighting HIV Stigma Starts in the Workplace — How B/ERG Groups Can Lead the Way".

Learn more about how the Chamber is partnering with the U.S. Business Action to End HIV here.