"See it and understand"

[This began as a comment to be posted at Shakespeare's Sister, but it kind of got out of hand, so I'm posting it here.]

I first saw the AIDS quilt when it came to Portland on tour (1995-ish?)--or part of it did, since by then it was already way to big to show all in one place. Even so, it took up all the floor in that part of the convention center.

What I was struck by--I mean, like a baseball bat--was the realization of how relentlessly ordinary were the interrupted lives commemorated on the panels. Here were images of bowling pins and score sheets from someone's bowling team. Here was someone's favorite stuffed animal. Over here were embroidered remembrances from someone's classmates. That one over there had reminders of someone's favorite hobby. On and on. Row after row after row. Until your head began to spin.

At the center of it all was a stage where volunteers were reading the names of the people remembered in each part of the quilt. I signed up and read 20 names or so, while another volunteer beside me signed the names from the same list. I had this overwhelming, if idiotically unworkable and out of proportion to the problem, impulse to find the families of all 20 people and talk to them.

It was the mid-1990s, a long time after the years of shameful silence during the Reagan administration. I thought I "got it." Hah. I have a button from the exhibit, pinned to the corkboard by my desk as I write. "The Quilt. See it and understand." Yeah, no shit.