Dear Friends,
in the beginning of my time in San Francisco, in 1987, I was introduced to an nursing assistant at Kaiser Hospital, Peggy Ferro Guinto.
Peggy was active in the Union, and she had worked hard for there to be an AIDS Ward at the hospital, and she had succeeded.
She told me she worked with HIV protection at the workplace, syringes for example.
It was Father Thomas Weston who took me to meet with Peggy, and he also introduced me to The AIDS Project in the East Bay, where he had been active.
I had heard about the NAMES Project, a big Quilt they were trying to do with names of people that had died of AIDS, and I had been told I just HAD to go there. When I came to see Peggy she told me that 19 people had died of Aids in the hospital, ( I think she referred to staff), and that their colleagues were now making so called Panels for them, 8 feet long and 2,5 feet wide – the size of an American grave, with their names on them.
I asked Peggy how come she got involved, and it had to do with that her friend Tom, that he got sick.
He had asked his friends to come in to his room, one by one, and he told them what he thought about them, and about their lives. Peggy said that they had learned a lot.
Peggy also said that he never leaves them, even though his physical presence is not there anymore. She got to grieve with him all the way, and said it helped her in her daily work with patients.
She told me I could come back to the hospital, and we could do an interview, and also meet up with an anonymous family, who were visiting their son.
That evening I met Peggy and her partner at a café for lesbians, Amelia´s. They needed someone to take care of their bird while they were on holiday, and I was happy to have somewhere to stay.