My PowerBook 100 went everywhere with me, to the picture desk, to the White House, where ever there was a modem jack. It was a dog of a computer, of course, but at the time it was very slick. An Apple computer that I could take anywhere! Imagine! It helped to pass the time, but it was also a great source of information, and new people from all over the states were online at all hours of the day.

Which is where I met Debbi. As hard as I've tried, and I've really tried to recall, I can't remember exactly where we bumped into each other online, but it was in an AOL chat room, and it seems to me that it was either the "Friends Of Bill W" room or one of the "Carolinas" rooms, but we started talking online and she discovered that I was in DC. She was coming to DC the next month for an event with the AIDS quilt, and we made plans to meet up in DuPont Circle at a bookstore she was fond of.

In the ensuing weeks, we wrote back and forth to each other several times a day. She was struggling with her writing, trying to transform an early rough journal entry into a longer and deeper story, the story of her life, of her recent tragedy, and with her struggle with her family and her faith. We talked about writing, about journaling, about using the process of words to peel back the layers. And we talked about healing.

Debbi had just started working a few week-nights each week as on online BBS counselor for AIDS education and sexual awareness. She held online chats on a BBS in the Charlotte region on Tuesday and Thursday nights. At first, she was really taken aback by the sexual frankness of the questions and the discussions, as she was basically a shy person and the daughter of a retired conservative minister, and a lot of what was being talked about was startling to her.

But she took her faith very personally, and she saw her emerging role as an AIDS educator and counselor as being just a part of her Christian calling, and she learned to get over the directness of it all and to serve as a resource to people in North Carolina who really needed her help in times of crisis. Some nights, after the chats, she'd get on AOL to see if I was online, and she'd share the highlights of the evening with me. It was her way of decompressing, I think. It was also her way of not being alone. Her family had turned their backs on her, as their highly rigid conservative beliefs conflicted with her AIDS outreach and the decisions she had made about her own life. I was someone she was always happy to talk with, and I felt the same about her.

About a month went by and it was finally the week that Debbi was coming to DC. The day she got to town I was sent by Reuters to North Carolina to cover the Jesse Helms versus Harvey Gant race for Helms' Senate seat, and I spent the next week in Raleigh and Durham while Debbi was in Washington. That was the first time our paths crossed without meeting. We continued our daily exchanges of eMails and often, late at night, we'd chat online. She could be so very funny, and so sad, within moments of each other. Frequently, she was just so profound in what she had to say. Exchanges with her were exhilarating.

The next time she was scheduled to travel to DC, I was out of town again on a two-day photo assignment. I got back to DC the night that she traveled back to Charlotte. We missed hooking up again!

When I got back to DC, Debbi wrote to me that she finally had a first draft that she liked of her journal, she had turned it into what she called an "essay". Since I was a journalist, and since we'd talked so much about struggling with writing and re-writing and the creative process, she asked me if I'd please read her first draft and make suggestions. I told her that I was very honored for her to make that request of me, and I told her that I could not wait to see what she had written. She was very hesitant; I think it was all so raw and personal for her at the time, that it was like baring her soul to a stranger. She made me promise not to be "too rough" on her writing. I promised.

Late that night, online and chatting, she said she was ready and she sent me the draft as eMail. I went offline and read it, again and again. I think the sum total of my "editing" suggestions was to re-write one sentence, making it into two, and to move one particularly strong sentence up into the top of the piece. It was stunningly well written and I told her so. I swear, the glow from her joy shown through online.

It was really very good, and I suggested that she should submit it right away to Parade magazine, or The New York Times Sunday Magazine, or to some other national publication of merit. She was too shy to do that, she said. She wanted to find a home for it, but was afraid of the rejection that might come from the mega-monoliths of publishing. She thought it was "too personal" for them to publish. We disagreed, back and forth for days, maybe weeks, until one night she told me that an online "computer assisted ministries" wanted to publish it on their Web site and she thought that this was a good outlet for her at the time. I agreed with her, and was glad for her. I knew that as soon as it was published it would be recognized for what it was, and the feedback that would soon flood her mailbox would give her the affirmation that I had been trying to convey.

Not too much later, I drove from DC to South Carolina to visit family and passed through Charlotte, but Debbi was out of town attending a conference that week. We were both starting to wonder if we were ever going to meet up face-to-face, as events seemed to always keep us from being in the same place at the same time. We just kept our daily eMails, and kept track of each others lives and comings and goings. She got more and more involved with the BBS and online counseling, and the feedback from her essay gave her great strength.

Reuters launched Reuters NewMedia Inc. and I was off into Cyberspace, spending more of my time in Manhattan and not traveling on photo assignments any longer. Then my life moved more to New York, and finally a couple of years later to NYC full-time. Debbi and I stayed in touch, but we'd never managed to be in the same place at the same time. She talked about visiting me in New York City sometime, and I encouraged her to do that.

As it turned out, I soon left Manhattan for the San Francisco Bay area and found myself working for Rick Smolan and the early days of the "24 Hours In Cyberspace" project. The goal of the project was to show how the Internet and the online worlds had dramatically changed people's lives. Before we got into the technology stages of building the project, we had to build an editorial database of people and their personal stories from all over the world that illustrated the direct impact of the Internet on their lives.

When I started working with the team of assignment editors and story researchers, one of the stories I suggested was my friend, Debbi Hood Johnson, who was in the process of building an AIDS outreach ministry and sexual awareness counseling center online from her base in North Carolina. I called Debbi and asked if she would consent to being one of our story subjects. She was overwhelmed but said yes. It was a natural match for the project, and her story was quickly approved by the project editors. A photojournalist from The Charlotte Observer was recruited for event day, February 7th, 1996. Debbi was ecstatic.

On event day, hers was one of the first stories published live on the "24 Hours In Cyberspace" instant Web site. Because of her participation, and because The Charlotte Observer learned of her through their photographer's participation, the Observer also did a Page One story about her, and her being the subject of a global Internet photojournalism project, and about the online BBS and AIDS service she was running, and the world took a gigantic leap for Debbi literally overnight.

I must have had fifteen eMails from her the next day! Things could not have been better. The project, her own projects, the feedback from her online essay, all the positive affirmation only served to motivate Debbi to reconcile one of the outstanding issues in her life: her relationship with her estranged parents.

A few days after the Cyber24 project, she wrote me that she was going to drive from Charlotte to Knoxville, TN, on a weekend in a few weeks, to meet with her parents and talk with them for the first time in a long time. She wanted to reconcile; she wanted them to be a part of her life again. It was a very busy time for me at the Cyber24 project, closing up all the lose ends and trying to recover digital cameras and laptops and images on stored drives from gear spread all over the world. Debbi called one day while I was on the phone to a photographer in some far-flung rat hole, and we exchanged voice mails, never connecting that day.

On top of it all, I was spending hours each day on the phones with my parent's doctors in Maine and Massachusetts, as both Mom and Dad were quickly going downhill. It was winter, I was flying in and out of blizzards on the East coast each weekend at the hospitals, and life was still a sleep-deprived blur. Chrisse announced she was pregnant with Bethany, and I got to tell that to my father, who was astounded, and I told it to my mother, even though she was in a coma. I flew back West to finish up my project work for Smolan.

On the morning of February 24, 1996, I got up before dawn as usual and drove to my office in Sausalito. I was almost always the first person to arrive in the mornings. I turned on the computer and signed on to get my eMail. On the top of the list in the incoming box was the message BAD NEWS. I'd been getting a lot of bad news lately, not only about my parents but about missing cameras and missing computers and missing hard drives all over the world, so I was not too surprised. Until I opened it. It was from the photographer at The Charlotte Observer. He was sorry to have to tell me, but Debbi was dead.

It happened while she was driving to the meeting with her parents. About half way there on the Saturday morning of their meeting she pulled off a right-handed descending exit ramp from the freeway to make a rest stop. A semi tractor-trailer going faster than her small car plowed into her from the rear, crushing the car and trapping and killing her. She probably never knew exactly what happened.

I laid down on the floor of my office, still wearing my brown leather winter coat, and cried and cried and cried. It seemed like forever before I was able to try to stop crying. I think I went into shock. I was freezing and cound not stop shaking. I don't remember much of anything after that for the rest of the day. I remember trying to arrange work duties so that I could fly to North Carolina for her funeral, but it was impossible that week. I needed to get everything wrapped up, so that I could go East and take care of my parents. It was only three mornings later when my phone rang at 4 a.m. with a call from Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. My mother died without ever regaining consciousness.

February 24th marks the day that I remember Debbi and I re-read her essay once again, remembering the night I read it for the first time. Aside from being a "Southern Girl" and her accent, a lot of things about Debbi reminded me of my mother. One of those things was her courage, the way she faced her life head-on. My mother was like that too. Strong, determined, but oh so compassionate.

In remembrance of that compassion, please read Debbi's heartfelt words:

by Debbi Hood Johnson

People often ask me why I wear a Red Ribbon. Some people ask the question simply to find out what the ribbon means, but other people are really asking a hidden question: they wonder what experience in life has moved me so that I would want to wear a Red Ribbon, a visible reminder to all who see me of the continuing battle against HIV and AIDS. They are asking why I, a white heterosexual female in the heart of the conservative South, would choose to take an often unpopular stand, instead of quietly going about my life. Unknowingly, they are asking about my husband, BJ.

BJ made me his wife, but AIDS made me his widow.

He died in my arms at 1:45 a.m. on Monday, May 17, 1993, in the little white house we had moved into only two days earlier. Surrounded by packed boxes filled with our books, our music, our photographs, and other mementos of our life together, we lay in the dark on the hospital bed provided by Hospice. Consumed, at this point, by massive brain lesions caused by PML (Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy), Beej had lapsed into a coma hours before.

Earlier that day his wonderful parents and our supportive friends, our "family of choice" had come, encircling his bed to say their soft good-byes, kiss his cheek gently, and whisper final messages into his ears as the room began to fill with the loud, bone-chilling sound of fluids collecting in his lungs as he struggled to breathe.

In our private final hours, I sang to him, prayed over him, and recited the 23rd Psalm over and over as I carefully brushed his long hair. I reminisced aloud about how we met and some of our favorite "heart snapshots" -- those special memories and private jokes and tender moments we had shared for so long. I chose to believe BJ could still hear me through the curtains of his coma.

As I sang one of our most special songs to him, I suddenly noticed my voice was no longer competing with the loud gurgling death rattle of BJ's breathing. I sat up on the bed and saw that his eyes were open-- he was looking at me. I knew he could really see me once again and that he could see that I was truly with him until the end. His face looked so serene, with a slightly lopsided grin.

"Go ahead, sweetie," I whispered hoarsely as I held him, "it's okay to let go now". As I kissed his lips for the last time and felt his life leave his body, my hand stayed on his chest, where his body heat remained the longest. I sobbed as I felt the chill spread; the warm spot over his heart grew smaller until it was no more. Another brave warrior in the fight against AIDS had fallen.

Why do I wear the Red Ribbon? I wear it because I CAN. I am still alive, still able to carry the message about the reality and urgency of AIDS and how HIV can be prevented. I carry this message for those whose voices can no longer be heard but whose presence can still be felt. What message is that? I carry the message-- to all who will hear AND listen-- that HIV/AIDS is, at this point, 100% FATAL... but it is also 100% PREVENTABLE.

I carry the message that Persons Living with AIDS (PLWAs), or-- as I heard recently from a feisty long-term survivor-- PLISOAs (Persons Living In Spite of AIDS) are PERSONS first and foremost:

Persons who have families and loved ones,

Persons who have dreams and hopes and fears,

Persons who laugh and cry,

Persons who deserve the same respect as you and I.

The gay community, for more than a decade, has shown us an incredible example of what unconditional love and honest, unflinching AIDS prevention education can accomplish. What about the rest of us? Where are the mainstream churches? I have been dismayed by stories of persons picketing AIDS funerals with hateful signs or quietly asking HIV-infected families to leave their congregations so that the tithes and offerings won't diminish.

I know that these hurtful actions are not the only witness of churches. Others have heeded Jesus' message in Matthew 25:35-45 ("... I was sick and you visited me...").

When I wear the Red Ribbon, I am demonstrating my compassion and care for people living with HIV/AIDS, my determination that those who have already died from AIDS-related causes will not be forgotten, my support for the ongoing efforts of all AIDS service organizations and researchers, my respect for the dedicated caregivers, and my desire to educate others about how to halt the spread of this obscene plague.

I can think of many other reasons to proudly wear the Red Ribbon, and these reasons have names and faces:

Bill, the first PLWA I knowingly met and for whom I became one of Charlotte's first volunteer AIDS Buddies;

David, the quiet man whose face had become a macabre mask of purple Kaposi's Sarcoma lesions;

Daphne, the woman who fretted about who would care for her children after she had died;

Tony, the entertainer who hung himself in desperation, afraid of how AIDS would continue to ravage his mind and body;

Curtis, the proud African American who had such a big heart and tried to alert his community to its risks before his life was cut short one Christmas;

Little Jessica, whose panel in The NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt haunts me to this day with its stuffed animals and baby blanket;

Ryan White, whose unyielding courage showed the world that AIDS might sap his strength but never bend his spirit;

Ron, whose independent streak continued until he drew his last breath in his apartment, surrounded by his friends and beloved cat; and

BJ, my sweet, gentle husband, who never passed up an opportunity to speak to groups to educate them and to "put a face on AIDS" finally robbed him of his speech, his mobility, his bodily functions, his smile -- but never his dignity.

There are those who believe the Red Ribbon has lost its meaning, that it's only an empty symbol now. I disagree! As long as my Red Ribbon gives someone the opportunity to ask me a question about AIDS, or gives someone the strength to go through another day encouraged by this small sign of support and solidarity, then its message is very clear:

The Red Ribbon simply means that I care.

Copyright ©1994 by Debbi Hood Johnson. May be reproduced in its entirety with copyright notice and author's name as long as no income is made from it, except in the case of fund-raisers for HIV/AIDS programs/projects.

January 22, 1954 - February 24, 1996

About Debbi - Her Life and Death Debbi originally wrote "I Wear a Red Ribbon" to share on CAM in 1994. Health and Welfare Ministries was proud to publish it in one of its focus papers and distribute it electronically through AEGIS, the Centers for Disease Control National AIDS Clearinghouse Bulletin Board and elsewhere. She received letters of appreciation from all over the world. After the article was posted on CAM, she received many more letters, for we had set it up so that people could send her eMail directly from the CAM page. Debbi lived in Charlotte, North Carolina, where she was an AIDS educator/counselor for about ten years. She was the daughter of a former Wesleyan Methodist minister. In Spring 1995, she found out that she had sero-converted and became HIV positive. We expected that AIDS would take her one day, but instead she was killed in a car accident in North Carolina on February 24, 1996, at a time when some things seemed to be going her way. She was very excited that only two weeks before her death she had been included in the "24 Hours in Cyberspace" event. A photographer from The Charlotte Observer took over 350 pictures of her that day.

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