DECEMBER
The first World AIDS Day was held on December 1, 1988. The purpose was to raise awareness about HIV and AIDS, honor those affected by the epidemic, and show support for those living with HIV. The initiators were James W. Bunn and Thomas Netter, public information officers for the World Health Organization’s Global Programme on AIDS.
Bunn chose December 1 because he believed it would maximize coverage in the Western news media. World AIDS Day is the first global health day. It’s an opportunity for people and communities to unite in the fight against HIV, remember those who have died from AIDS-related illnesses, share experiences, and inspire leadership to create a future where HIV doesn’t stand in the way of anyone’s life.
Madonna published the following video on her YouTube channel on December 1, 2024.
Three days later, December 4, 2024, was the 40th anniversary of my first experience with Thaddeus, who died of AIDS in 1992.
Even though forty years had passed, it still felt like yesterday.
Three days later, I was awakened in the middle of the night by a vivid dream about a snake attempting to bite me. I spent the next day trying to interpret the dream. That evening, after a text conversation with a close friend, I figured out what the dream was trying to tell me.
After researching the sale history of the house I grew up in, I learned for the first time that my parents’ home, which was promised to me, was never sold to my sister, as I had been told. The house was signed over to my sister when she became the Power of Attorney in the mid-1980s. She took full possession five years later before our father was put in a nursing home, and the house was signed over to her daughter free and clear after that. The house was sold for the first time in 1999, nine months before my mother passed away.
The money from the 1999 sale was used to build a new home on my sister’s newly acquired 60-acre lot. I wondered if all this scheming was my sister’s way of getting back at our parents, since they had left her out of certain things when she was younger —a form of payback. Regardless, I was happy with the way things turned out. I would not have been able to go on my adventure if I had been tied down to that property. The betrayal, however, was what hurt most of all.
The next day, at 09:06 UTC on December 8, 2024, a major solar flare measuring X2.2 erupted from Active Region 3912. (The number 3912 felt like a confirmation and laid to rest that uncomfortable part of my story.)
My old friend, the hawk, visited me on December 19, 2024. He sat in a tree no more than ten feet off the ground. The sighting occurred during a period when I was feeling restless and uninspired. The hawk reminded me to stay grounded. Stay put. I focused on family and the holidays, which turned out to be very nice.
A major X1.1 solar flare erupted from Active Region 3936 at 07:18 UTC on December 29, 2024.
A major solar flare measuring X1.5 erupted from Active Region (AR) 3936 at 04:14 UTC on December 30, 2024. This event was followed by an impulsive X1.1 flare at 04:29 UTC.
