Remembering Papa on World AIDS Day

I called him Papa.

He was born Floyd Edward Engle in Mount Holly, New Jersey on a dairy farm. That really didn't suit him, so despite being the eldest son, he packed up his stuff at the end of high school and made the trek to New England to enroll at Harvard. Class of '58. The Class. (Erich Segal novel...)

He had a lot of adventures in life before I came along - intelligence work in the Air Force, stationed in Taiwan listening to Chinese radio, traveling the world. He was married before he met my mother.

The truth is, I don't know my father that well. It has been 14 years since he died, and I was only 15 when it happened. I loved him and had a lot in common with him. But one day while I was home on break from Exeter, I got a call from a friend of his. He was very ill in the hospital after an experimental medication. He had AIDS.

What a blow. We had no idea. The questions. If I ever dare to tell anyone that Papa had AIDS, without fail, the first question is "How did he get it?" I have to say, it really pisses me off. Does it matter? I actually don't know the answer. He was a very private person, very steeped in his Presbyterian church dignified ways. So I may never know.

What I do know is that AIDS tears families apart. Losing the father I loved, then growing up without a father is not easy. I still struggle with the feeling that I don't have a real family. (And of course losing Hannah has compounded that problem.) AIDS needs to be stopped.