My leaf Roger........aka when AIDS had a name and a face attached to it.

A leaf that dropped.......

     The first time I remember being friends with Roger I was 19 years old.  He was 21 years old.  I had known who he was because we lived in the same town and we attended the same junior and senior high schools.  We belonged to the same church.  Even though we were not close friends because of our age difference I did know who he and his brothers were.

     When I was 19 I came home from New York City.  I had been employed as a nanny for nine months.  At about the same time Roger came home from a 2 year mission for the Latter Day Saint church.

     Right about this time, a new church program was being put into place called the Young Adult program.  Young adults from the ages of 18 until about 29 met together on Sundays for our church meetings and than we would get together a few times a month for fun activities.

     Roger was fun.  His happy and positive attitude was contagious.  He was a very talented young man.  He had a lot of musical ability and he shared it with people.  Everyone loved being around Roger.  He is the type of person who couldn't have a single enemy in the world.

     One thing I remember about Roger was the way he made you feel.  He made you feel like you were the most important person in his world.  The second thing I remember about Roger was he loved to dance. The movie Saturday Night Fever with John Travolta had just come out.  Disco dancing was the rage.  Roger knew all the dance moves.  We would meet together at the church and blare the radio and learn how to do all John Travolta's moves.  It was so much fun!  The last thing I remember about Roger was dancing the night away with him at a church activity.  I didn't even know how to dance, but, with Roger you really didn't have to know.  He made you feel like you could do anything on the dance floor with him as your partner.

     A few years later all of our lives had moved on.  A lot of us were married now.  Some of us had children.  Roger had moved to San Francisco to work.  I had lost contact with him.  In fact, it would be nine years before we would hear about Roger.

     One day our phone rang.  My husband had been close friends with Roger throughout their childhood and teenage years.  It was Rogers mom.  She was calling to tell us that Roger had died of aids.  He had been terribly sick and he suffered immensely.  Before he died, he helped plan his funeral and he wanted my husband to be one of the speakers.  It came as a complete shock to us.  Roger was only 32 years old and he was gone.

     The aids epidemic was in the news every day at the time.  Famous people like Magic Johnson, Rudolf Nureyev and Liberace had aids.  Common people like Roger had aids.  It is a terrible disease that has taken many innocent lives as well as lives from people abusings drugs and abusing their bodies.

    At the time, all I cared about was, it had taken my friend Roger.  One of God's sons and one of my best leaves (aka friends ).  It was a sad day for all of us who knew and loved Roger.

     It was hard for me to wrap my mind around the fact that someone I knew and loved died of such a vicious disease and that he suffered doing it. It has been 25 years now since Roger has died.  Twenty five years that I have had to live.

  I think about Roger often.  I don't judge him or his lifestyle or the choices he made that helped lead to his death.  I miss him and I miss what could have been.  There is only one Roger.  Just like there is only one you and only one me.  We were each place on this earth to make a difference.  Hopefully, we are making a difference in someone elses life.

     Thank you Roger for making a difference in mine.  Love ya fallen leaf!