By MATTHEW VAN DUSEN, STAFF WRITER
NorthJersey.com, Friday, December 1, 2006 — If the red AIDS ribbon is a symbol of hope — for a cure, for longer life, for understanding — then the AIDS Memorial Quilt represents the reality of the disease, a still-growing tapestry of lives snuffed out.
Today, at least 10 schools, hospitals and private companies around North Jersey will display blocks of the quilt for World AIDS Day, and the Hackensack-based AIDS resource center Buddies of New Jersey Inc., will add a new panel to commemorate a member who died last year.
«Visitors look at the panels to the AIDS Quilt on display at the National Mall in Washington, D.C.(AP)
The displays are a reminder of the breathtaking scope of the disease, which has infected 39.5 million people worldwide, and which continues to hit groups as diverse as American men and women, African families, eastern Europeans and central Asians.
AIDS and HIV, the virus that causes the disease, have become manageable in the popular imagination and, to be sure, the 4,000 people in Bergen and Passaic counties who live with HIV/AIDS can now hope for longevity that was unimaginable before so-called drug cocktails became widely available.
"They say the deaths are slowing," said Susan Stoveken, a counselor at Buddies who runs an addiction support group for people with chronic illnesses including HIV/AIDS.
But she still sees so many people die.
Stoveken, who works with her counseling group to create quilt panels when a member succumbs, said she can't get them done quickly enough to keep up with the deaths. She only does panels for members of her small group because so many of the agency's clients die: 15 in 2005 and another 10 this year, though winter with its attendant illnesses has not yet arrived.
On Thursday, the group, which also includes people who do not have HIV/AIDS, saw for the first time the panel they designed for Mary Buongiorno, an AIDS patient who died of a heart attack in October 2005. Stoveken also unveiled a panel dedicated to the 10 Buddies clients who have died this year.
A member of the group from Hasbrouck Heights, who asked not to be identified because some people don't know she has AIDS, said she was nervous before the unveiling.
"It's very scary because when I present a panel I always think, 'My God, what's going to be on mine?'" she said.
Joe Kelly, a group member with AIDS, has already selected a lyric from rock group Lynyrd Skynyrd's song "Free Bird."
"All I want is one thing," Kelly said quoting the song: "If I leave here tomorrow, would you still remember me?"
Some group members held each other and stood back as Stoveken unfolded the panels.
The lavender cloth dedicated to Buongiorno bears a cut-out package of DTC Full Flavor 100s cigarettes, her favorite brand; a clothesline with clothespins to signify her love of laundry; and a picture of her with another member of the group who died soon after.
The patches often feature inside jokes or irreverent designs instead of polite remembrances because they are meant to be reflections of the individual's personality, said Bob Sorbanelli Jr., co-chairman of the NAMES Project of Northern New Jersey, which manages portions of the quilt for seven counties.
The quilt project was founded in 1987 and now comprises roughly 44,000 panels, according to the national NAMES Project Foundation. The last display of the entire quilt was in 1996 on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
Sorbanelli said the only requirement is that panels measure 3 by 6 feet, which is the size of a typical grave. The symbolism is clear.
"When you look at a block, you look at a panel, you're looking at people who have died," he said. "The beauty of the quilt is that they will live on forever and that family and friends care [about them]."
When Phyllis Rosa's husband, Edwin, died of complications from AIDS in January 2002, the couple's girls decided to sew his weathered jeans, leather jacket and cap to the cloth. Edwin Rosa was a heroin addict who rarely emerged from his room in the last two years of his life, and the quilt helped the family to preserve their happy memories of him.
"When we were done with it, we looked at it and said, 'Yup, that's him,'" said Phyllis Rosa, a Lyndhurst native.
The panels memorialize people who lived full lives and weren't just defined by the disease that took them, Stoveken said. They are also statements by families who put their names out there and refuse to be stigmatized.
Each panel represents an exhausting battle that has, over time, taken its toll on Stoveken. But, she said, "this is what God called me to do," and there's been a lot of progress.
In 1990, 509 people in Bergen and Passaic counties died of complications of HIV/AIDS. In 2004, the number of deaths fell to 21.
Still, the quilt gets bigger by the day.
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