We are living through extreme times, a new dire threat seemingly every month, the heat

waves and the active shooters, one new COVID strain after another each more infectious than

the last.

Now we got monkey pox.

As our editor Karen Froman put it in a meeting recently, it feels like we're all being

constantly chaste.

But truthfully, some communities have faced this kind of strain before.

Some of us have faced down the worst case scenario and even amid horror, found ways to maintain

the little joys that, a lot of times, we fought hard to get in the first place.

Karen has actually seen this up close herself.

She was here in New York in the early days of the HIV epidemic in the 80s at a time

when a diagnosis with this mysterious illness was essentially a death sentence.

One often handed down to young people in the prime of their lives.

Well, I volunteered for a small agency to go in and to clean and to bring food.

And so I remember going and meeting this young man.

His name was John and when I first started to care for him, I felt like I was taking

care of someone my brother's age.

And then within a few weeks, I mean, this young man aged like before my eyes and I mean,

he was gone in three and a half months and it is so frightening to see life just slip

just slip away.

And the experience made Karen want to document those lives, not the deaths, but the lives.

She had a recording she made during that time in a previous episode.

...