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Speeches made during Bruce House's Annual General Meeting in memory of our losses

These few minutes are an opportunity to remember our friends, to bear witness to the toll of HIV illness. We come to reflect and to re-dedicate ourselves to this work. In our world of wondrous medications, counts going up in the right places and undetectable in others, we have been lead to believe that the AIDS crisis is almost over. Well it is not true for the millions in Africa or Asia. It isn’t even true in Canada. Here there is a crisis of a different sort. This summer the political leader of this country chose not to extend a welcome to the global HIV/AIDS community gathered in Toronto. His silence was indicative of the lack of political will in this world to apply the necessary education, prevention and treatment measures to put an end to HIV/AIDS. So, through our shame we are here to say that each life matters. Not just the face or life that looks like yours or mine. It may not be the life you or I would choose but the worth is not for us to decide.

With no real end in sight we light a candle for all those who have died of disease and a lack of political will. And of course we light it for those still living with HIV. It is our hope that this may be a tiny light in a seemingly endless darkness.

We especially remember -
• Maynard B.
• Cindy C.
• Mark C.
• Sherry Lee C.
• Denis L.
• Ron S.

We conclude this meeting as we have others by lighting a candle, by taking a few moments to remember, to give thanks for the time we had together, to reflect and to re-dedicate ourselves to our work.

Tony Kushner’s Angels in America concludes:

The fountain’s not flowing now, they turn it off in the winter, ice in the pipes. But in the summer it’s a sight to see. I want to be around to see it. I plan to be. I hope to be.

This disease will be the end of many of us, but not nearly all, and the dead will be commemorated and will struggle on with the living, and we are not going away.

We won’t die secret deaths anymore. The world only spins forward. We will be citizens. That time has come.

Bye now.

You are fabulous creatures, each and every one.

And I bless you: More Life.

The Great Work Begins.

It is with profound sadness that we remember old friends -
• Collin
• Gail
• Leslie
• Peter Robinson
• Stan
• Tony

Each year as we conclude this meeting, we invoke the spirits of those who have passed on and the debt we owe them. As well, it is an opportunity to pray for the health and safety of those living with HIV and re-dedicate ourselves to the tasks before us.

This year we remember -
• Craig
• Dennis
• Mark
• Rick
• Ron

And we remember XXXX who died on Good Friday. We remember him as a XXXX, a man devoted to his family and friends as they were devoted to him. We remember him fixing all the things that broke at Bruce House. We remember him battling his addiction. Most of all we remember that even on his worst day, he’d smile and tell you he was XXXX.

A friend recently passed me these anonymous words, that seems to fit:

Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body. It is rather, to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, while loudly proclaiming, “Wow, what a ride”.

Our thanks to all of those who’ve let us ride along if only for a while.

As I light this candle I ask you to take a moment, to remember these and all the others.

15 years now we have assembled at AGMs and there is still no end in sight.

We come here not just to recap the year, to review our achievements but to remember our neighbours, our friends, our family. We also come to testify and bear witness to the toll of HIV illness. We come with our tears and our laughter. We come with our hope and faith in a brighter day. Our hope and faith that one final day our work will be done and we will shut the doors for good.

Each year we conclude by a lighting a candle symbolizing those we have lost this year. It is a light that likewise fortifies and renews us for the tasks that sadly lay ahead. After I have read the names I welcome you to add any others.

We remember -
• Anne
• Beverly
• Christopher
• Gerard
• Gilles
• Julie
• Keaven
• Paul
• Sammy

We also remember Todd Armstrong, a gifted teacher and advocate, the first director of Bruce House.

Each year we end this meeting by remembering those who have passed on and the debt we owe them. As well, we pray for the health and safety of those living with HIV and re-dedicate ourselves to this journey.

The unionist Mother Jones said, “Pray for the dead, but fight like hell for the living.”

Sounds like the raison d'etre for Bruce House.

Who would have imagined that we'd still be doing this 14 years later, that we'd still be scrambling to keep the offices open and the beds available, still listening to the stories and offering a shoulder, still planning deep into the night, still doing the right thing. 14 years of hospitals and funerals. And in spite of all we have done and all we know now, there is still no real end in sight.

This year we lost:
• AJ 
• Francine
• Jackie
• James
• Justin
• Kerry
• Marilyn
• Mike
• Paul
• Rosie

We can only hope she was right when Helen Keller said, “Death... is no more than passing from one room into another. But there is a difference for me, you know. Because in that room I shall be able to see.”

C.S. Lewis wrote, “Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art, like the universe itself (for God did not need to create it). It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.”

Each year we conclude this meeting remembering those who have passed on, what we owe to them, pray for the health and safety of those living with HIV and re-dedicate ourselves to helping them.

This has been a particularly trying year at Bruce House.

We have lost so many dear friends. Colin, Stacey, Guy and Steve among them. The inimitable Bob Read.
Bernard, who was the first person to live in a Bruce House apartment.

John Purdie, who through the Ottawa Knights scrounged us furniture, food, money and clothes when few in this community had any use for Bruce House. He understood from the hop what Bruce House was about.

Bill McCullough, client, colleague, friend and mentor. He taught us all a thing about being just human, warts and all.

And Will Cox died last week. A few times in your life you are so struck by another’s death that you can’t believe it. That in spite of everything you know it can’t be true. He was our pal, our comrade in arms. He drove us crazy with his stubbornness. Mad with his choices. He was always true. Always stand up. He was an extraordinary family man. He was a totally out gay man, a totally out PHA when to be so put you at some risk. A very, very courageous man.

As I light this candle and play this tune I ask to think about these friends and all the others, to pray for them, for the living and for all of us.

Friends, each autumn we gather to recap the past year’s business and consider the future of the agency. It has also become an opportunity as a community to weigh the lessons we have learned, the gifts we have received and to re-dedicate ourselves to the tasks which still lay before us.

As a mutual friend lies in hospital, a colleague of mine told me the other day that she came to terms long ago with death by overdose...that relief or release from the unbearable pains of living, but she wondered how to deal with the erosion of lives, the whittling away of spirit and dignity that has always been the true scourge of HIV. Her question, the tremor in her voice, the weariness lapping at the edges got me to thinking.

I am frankly sick and tired of this candle & this bloom, year after year, symbolizing mystery, hope and the transitory nature of life. I want assurances. Now. Over a decade ago we were promised a cure. I still want them to pay off on the promise. I had hoped by now that Bruce House would simply be part of a past I had well integrated into the rest of my world, rather than the perplexing present it remains.

Bruce House it seems, is for all of us, a quixotic attempt to hold the wild dogs of fear and loathing at bay. Our efforts were never really about curing a virus or easing that passage to dust or a just reward, but holding fast against the marginalization, the stigmatization, the hideous soul murders of our brothers and our sisters. And it remains so today.

Bruce House is a tiny light in a distant window.
It is the hope of a brighter day.
Maybe that is all we really have to counter HIV.

So as I light this candle, take a moment to reflect, to grieve, to pray for those on whose shoulders we stand and for those who daily fight against the indignities of HIV. And pray that the day when our job will be done and we can get back to what remains of our lives is just around the corner.

Was one of your loved ones involved with Bruce House?
Would you like to add something about them to our memorial page?
Please contact us.