The Missing Plates

Several years ago a television spot featured a large family setting the table for one of their meals. The point was to say there was always room for more children within a loving family. I believe the sponsor of the commercial was a church, but I do not remember for sure. Today, as Christmas approaches, I think about children with AIDS who are still at the table and many who are not.

In 1996, I met two children as part of a RAIN (Regional Aids Interfaith Network) team I had joined. At the time they were five and six and had already lived all of their lives infected with the AIDS virus. They had evidently contacted the disease from their mother while she was pregnant. She did not know of her own condition until they were born. She used to say frequently to me, "I can understand why I have AIDS, but why did God allow my children to have it?" I had no answer to her question.

Some decade or so later, we have both good news and bad news relating to the fight against this disease. The good news is that the total number of cases worldwide is down to 33 million. The bad news is that this decrease is not necessarily a result of saving more people, but simply the result of originally overestimating the numbers.

The two children I got to know with AIDS have been among the fortunate ones. When diagnosed, they were able to get into a research program in Maryland. They have flown out from Oklahoma once a month for treatment. Today they are both flourishing due to the many new advances in drug cocktails that inhibit the virus. They are seemingly healthy teenagers, ages 16 and 17.

Many children in the world, especially developing countries, however are not so fortunate. We need to keep the AIDS fight on our agenda and not let it slip away to a once-a-year commemoration on Dec. 1--or many more families will not be able to set plates at the table any longer for their children.