Repère incontournable pour les amateurs de beauté ou de nourriture, Instagram peut aussi devenir le lieu où certains rendent hommage et font connaître des personnes qui ont mené des combats difficiles. C’est le cas de The Aids Memorial, un compte où sont mis en avant des portraits sans artifices mais riches en émotion de personnes mortes du sida. Une belle action qui rappelle que le combat continue afin de ne pas oublier ceux qui l’ont vécu.
Lancé en mars 2016 par Stuart , un écossais de 42 ans, the_Aids_memorial est comme un sanctuaire où est racontée en histoire et en photos, la vie de personnes disparues et victimes du sida . Son créateur l’a lancé car selon lui, ceux qui sont morts de cette maladie ont pour beaucoup été oubliés. Personne n’en parle, alors que comme les autres, il s’agissait de personnes exceptionnelles, battantes, souriantes et qui malgré la maladie, ont elles aussi eu une vie.
« Les personnes plus âgées ne veulent pas trop parler du SIDA car cela était déjà assez difficile à traverser, et la jeune génération ne veut pas en savoir plus. Alors j’ai pensé qu’il était temps de faire quelque chose. Et cette page Instagram m’a prouvé que c’était faux, ce qui est merveilleux. C’était le moyen idéal pour documenter la vie de ceux qui sont morts. Je veux juste que plus de gens écoutent les histoires et se souviennent ».
La force de the_Aids_mermorial est qu’il présente la vie et les sourires de nombreuses personnes et ce, qu’il s’agisse de célébrités ou d’anonymes. Le champion de natation Greg Louganis, le chanteur Klaus Nomi, l’acteur Wade Nichols ou simplement Zora, Barry et Jerome , autant de noms qui grâce à Instagram continuent de vivre. Ils nous rappellent également à quel point la recherche a fait des progrès dans ce domaine, permettant aux séropositifs de retrouver une certaine qualité de vie.
#HenriquedeSouza (5 February 1944 – 4 January 1988), commonly known as #Henfil, was a #Braziliancartoonist, #caricaturist, #journalist and #writer, born in #RibeirãodasNeves, #MinasGerais. He was a contributor to the satirical newspaper #OPasquim! which began publication in response to press censorship in #Brazil following the military crackdown of December, 1968. In 1970 he published the comic book #OsFradinhos (The Friars), starring his most acclaimed characters. It was the first #Brazilian #comicbook to be published in other countries. Henfil also worked in theater, film, television and literature, but #politicalactivism was his hallmark, creating fictional characters that made acerbic criticisms of the Brazilian political institutions of the time. A #haemophiliac, Henfil’s gained attention in Brazil because he and his two brothers, Heberto and Francisco, contracted #HIV after blood transfusions. Both of his brothers were also hemophiliacs. Henfil’s brother Heberto was the first Brazilian to admit publicly that he had contracted AIDS. He later led a movement to put pressure on the Health Ministry to require screening of blood supplies used by the country’s hospitals and clinics. Henfil, died i. #RiodeJaneiro from #pneumonia and other #AIDS-related complications. He was 43. #WhatisRememberedLives #theaidsmemorial #aidsmemorial #neverforget #endaids
Une photo publiée par The AIDS Memorial (@the_aids_memorial) le 6 Févr. 2017 à 13h33 PST
« Remembering my former partner Ivor Marsh who passed from this life on the 24 Jan 91. In the Late 70s we met and I fell in love with this handsome curate who was training to become a Church of England Priest! All seemed to go very well for a few years, till I he asked me to move in with him when he became a Priest. Living in public with a same sex partner in 1979, proved to be a great mental strain causing our relationship to break down with Homophobic remarks and Ivor’s own self loathing! I left and moved into my own house and became close to a woman who wanted to move in with me ! I did consider this, but living a double life was not for me!! Now I was on my own but I had my own Space I could be my true self!! Ivor tried to take his life in the 80s and was removed from the parish to recover! We again become friends, but not lovers and friendship lasted another 10 yrs. Ivor was moved to a country parish and appeared Happy! Then a few years later he was giving up everything to become Monk – which lasted 6 mths – I knew it would be a disaster! Ivor always wrote and was a an inspiration and Support to me in 1986, when I diagnosed with HIV. He was so strong giving me reason to go on! IVOR resettled and had a parish in Oxford, but after a visit to the USA became strangely ill in 1989! A few months later after being in denial, he said « yes I have the same as you! ». Ivor was very ill and it difficult to support him as he lived 200 miles away! I worked as a photographer but always had two days off together! Being a Priest with AIDS brings a lot bigotry, judgement and his illness had of course to be something else! My time with IVOR was very sad but a time of healing like when he asked me to walk to bathroom with his drip and bathe his emaciated body. My next visit found Ivor in Hospital, he was in deep sleep, the nurses informed me that I should prepare for his passing – he wants to go! They were so kind allowing me to stay and sleep in same room. Ivor woke up, mouthed » I Love You » and left me 3 days later, Forever in my heart! » – by Kevin Kelland @kellandkevin #whatisrememberedlives #theaidsmemorial #aidsmemorial #neverforget #endaids
Une photo publiée par The AIDS Memorial (@the_aids_memorial) le 5 Févr. 2017 à 11h14 PST
« I was working in the mail room of a company I worked for, and they “NEW” guy (pictured left with me on the right) was starting that day. In walked the most beautiful man I had ever see. His name was Duane. I was in love by lunch. We spent all of our time together. We never ran out of things to talk about. #GMHC was having free #AIDS testing one day and we thought what the hell, let’s get tested. A week later we came back for our results. I was negative, but I heard his voice in the counselor’s office crying. I burst in, took him in my arms, (I’m 6’2” and Duane was 5’5”) picked him up, and cradled him in my arms telling him that he’s not alone because I will always be there. We spent the next 5 years with him going through some of the most awful treatments. One of them was aerosol pentamidine where because the vapor was so toxic he had to sit alone in a booth and breathe in this poison. #AZT was still a year away at this point. One day he collapsed at work, and I was 6 inches from the bumper of the ambulance the whole way. Then both of his lungs collapsed, and #pneumocystispneumonia. His beautiful muscular skin then started to show #kaposissarcoma. His body was shutting down. I stayed at his bedside, even though he was awake but couldn’t talk, I could read in his eyes he wanted to say he loved me and I answered for him. I told him that no words were needed, he still mouthed “I love you Mario” I told him I love you too, I always have and I always will till the end of time. My minister urged me to go home and shower and change and come back because I had been there at his bedside for 8 days at that point. As soon as I opened the door, the phone rang. Duane was dead. We had his service at our church, and I drove out to Ohio for him to be buried next to his brother, and back again in November when the headstone was placed. This is the 25th year of the anniversary of his death this May, and I’ll be there, and one day we’ll be together again. Once in a while he comes to me in my dreams and hugs and holds me, and I grieve again. I’m still negative, and I feel guilt. » – by Mario Troncarrelli @Mr_matrelli #whatisremembered #theaidsmemorial #neverforget #endaids
Une photo publiée par The AIDS Memorial (@the_aids_memorial) le 3 Févr. 2017 à 17h48 PST
« This is the gorgeous, talented and wicked funny, #RustyWalles. Dead at 33. If you want to understand why so many of us gay people scream and yell and FIGHT for our rights watch #TheNormal Heart you’ll also see how it hurt so terribly (and politicized me and millions of others for life) to watch young men like Rusty Walles and #JayFunk (to name and memorialize two of my closest friends who died unspeakably early deaths) suffer and be snuffed out as arch-villain-with-blood-on-his-hands-for-all-eternity, #RonaldReagan, led the nation and world in not doing a f**king thing about the epidemic—-not even saying the word, AIDS, until 7 years into his putrid presidency. Because, you see, it was but a ‘gay thing’ (or so he, apparently, thought. As in so many, many other things, Wrong, Ronnie, wrong, a**hole.). In 2008 and then 2010 I lost two more best friends, #PaulMulder and #GuyMaitta to #AIDS. It isn’t over. Watch #TheNormalHeart it hurts, but it heals » – by Brantley Bardin #whatisrememberedlives #theaidsmemorial #aidsmemorial #neverforget #endaids
Une photo publiée par The AIDS Memorial (@the_aids_memorial) le 30 Janv. 2017 à 9h28 PST
« On New Years Eve in 2001 my mother whispered into my ear that « there was something in my blood that would eventually kill me and her » I was 9 years old and had no idea what that meant. For 23 years I’ve endured hate, love, ignorance and embarrassment. Living with HIV is one of the hardest things I’ve had to adapt too. It’s something I’ve learned how to manage and cope with as the years have gone by. I’ve been lost and felt alone. Sad and angry. But I’ve managed to work up enough courage to remain strong and open as possible when it comes to living with HIV. Every year on World AIDS Day, the tears come streaming down my face (as hard as that is for any of you to imagine). Please, get tested, make the right choices and get educated so you don’t end up with something you didn’t ask for. Do it for yourselves, for a loved one or someone you may know. Prevention is the best cure for a disease that has no cure. ▫▫I wish for nothing more than just one more day, for I would give it all just to hear you say. It’s funny how in life it seems you take for granted the most important things. If you could come back, if only for one day, I’d make sure that I’d listen to all you had to say. And now that it’s too late, you cannot speak anymore. I finally realised, I should have heard you before. If I could do it over, I’d only change one thing. I’d tell you that I love you and how much joy you bring to me. No one will ever know, quite how I feel inside. And on that day you left, you weren’t the only one who died. Rest easy Mom, the years have been long. In my heart you hold a place, no one else can ever fill » – by Bob Dillon #whatisrememberedlives #theaidsmemorial #neverforget #endaids #aidsmemorial
Une photo publiée par The AIDS Memorial (@the_aids_memorial) le 31 Déc. 2016 à 8h04 PST
« This is my story. This a picture taken with my cousin, David, in the pool he shared with his partner, Casey. They had a beautiful home. My husband had died the month before, and I had come down for a visit. I was so frail and thin that my Aunt Isabelle said if a big #Texas wind came up I would just blow down the road like a tumbleweed. David and Casey treated me like a queen. We got in their beautiful #Mustangconvertible to drive up to the « Mountain shack » I think they called it, a cabin in the hills on a river. I remember driving through #Houston at that time of evening when the sky is blue/purple/golden, and the mighty citadel is aglow with a metallic light. David always made me laugh. It was like I was dressed in gossamer and taffeta in a beautiful car with two handsome men who enjoyed life with grace and charm. When we got to the cabin they both sat down at the edge of the bed, and fell back in exhaustion, and I was immediately concerned. They fessed up that they were both #HIVpositive, and I said they should tell David’s parents. I went out on the porch, and felt a chill all around me. That was April, 1993, and on June 5th, 1994, David died. On that day, I was at my brother Nick’s house in #Massachusetts for my niece’s birthday party. It was about 1:15 in the afternoon, and I told Nick that something was wrong in the family, something « irrevocable ». I drove back to #theBerkshires with my parents. My Dad answered the phone to hear my Uncle Jim tell him that David was gone. He had passed away around noon #Texas time. That night I dreamed that David was a little boy again, and I saw him embraced by our Aunt Anne who had passed away in December, 1976. Unknown to me David had told my Aunt Sarah that the first person he would see in heaven would be Anne. Casey died a year or so later. My cousin, Jim, David’s older brother has been living with #HIV for 20 years. Beloved cousins. I love you » – by Deirdre Flynn Sullivan #whatisrememberedlives #theaidsmemorial #aidsmemorial #neverforget #endaids
Une photo publiée par The AIDS Memorial (@the_aids_memorial) le 6 Févr. 2017 à 7h59 PST
« My beautiful mother died from AIDS in 1996 at the age of only 48. She was a heterosexual, married, monogamous, white female, which left her out of the main focus groups who normally contract HIV/AIDS – yet, it still happened. My mother shared her story in public talks and did her best to help educate people to try and help prevent the same thing from happening to them as we watched her suffer and decline from a beautiful, vibrant and spunky little fireball into a lifeless person. Today, and everyday, she is remembered, loved, admired and missed terribly. » « Dare to reach out in to the darkness to pull another hand in to the light »~Norman B. Rice » – by Rachael Charlton Allison #whatisrememberedlives #neverforget #theaidsmemorial #endaids
Une photo publiée par The AIDS Memorial (@the_aids_memorial) le 30 Déc. 2016 à 14h03 PST
Pour rappel, le SIDA a tué en seulement 30 ans plus de 40 millions de personnes dans le monde. Si les chercheurs font tout pour soigner cette maladie, ce compte Instagram permet au public de prendre plus facilement conscience de ce qu’elle représente pour les victimes, leurs familles et les personnes touchées par le SIDA à travers le monde. Comme une grande fresque, elle invite à la tolérance, au respect et à la réflexion sur la maladie. Elle permet également aux familles de victimes de partager leur douleur et de faire revivre grâce au réseau social celles et ceux qu’ils ont aimé. Pour découvrir tous ces hommes et femmes au courage inouï, n’hésitez pas à vous rendre sur le compte Instagram de The AIDS Memorial
