So, Joe Sonnabend who died today saved my life. He tried to save the life of my cousin Carl too and numerous other gay men in his practice in the 70s, 80s, 90s in NYC's Greenwich Village. 1/

Because he was the "clap," STI doc in Manhattan, he saw HIV emerge earlier than many. 2/

But he was also a researcher at the time working on interferon--one of his interferon colleagues was Mathilde Krim--they'd go on to found what became the American Foundation for AIDS Research. 3/

With his patients Richard Berkowitz and Michael Cullen, he came up with the idea for safer sex, written up in an early pamphlet, How to Have Sex in An Epidemic: One Approach. 4/

He also realized that gay men were dying of opportunistic infections that resembled those seen in other immunocompromised patients and started his own patients on drugs to prevent PCP pneumonia including aerosolized pentamidine and Bactrim. 5/

He started the Community Research Initiative on AIDS in Manhattan to study these things early on. 6/

He had some crazy ideas about the pathogenesis of AIDS before the discovery of the virus, which presaged more contemporary notions that the immune system's response to a pathogen could be the thing that did the damage to our bodies. 7/

He pushed us to think about these issues, the basic science of HIV, virology and immunology as activists as there were few treatments on the horizon back then against the virus. Back to basics. 8/

But more than anything he was a superb, caring clinician. I remember being in his tiny office jammed with people, with whom he'd take far too long to talk with, examine. He was thorough. Told you the truth. Didn't treat you as a patient but as a colleague, friend, equal. 9/

The day I found out I was HIV+, he called me. He said he was coming over. I thought to myself, this can't be a good sign. But he didn't want to tell me over the phone about my diagnosis. 10/

He was treated unfairly. He always talked about this. Forced out of AmFAR in his mind, never given credit for his insights, ending up doing what he was best at in the end, taking care of patients right up until the end. 11/

I remember when my ex-partner's ex-partner (we were all very close back then) was almost dead. Joe again came over to Jay's apartment to give him one last dose of a drug to treat the opportunistic infection that would kill him. Joe was doing it for us, those already grieving. 12/

Joe ended going back to London to be with his sister in the UK, taking care of her when her own health failed. I haven't seen him in years, but saw his posts about his new musical journeys, composing classical music, performing for friends. 13/

A few of his comrades from the NYC AIDS days kept in touch, Simon Watney, the British AIDS activist and writer kept tabs on him in his later years. This past week, we heard Joe had had a heart attack. 14/

It was clear this was the end. But nothing really prepares you for these moments. 15/

His generation, 30 years older than me, paved the way for the rest of us like Larry Kramer, who died last year also in his 80s. I tell Joe's story because we take it all for granted. 16/

We take it all for granted that we survived a plague, the HIV epidemic. That it didn't take the blood, sweat and tears of many men and women who fought so we could be free. We take their sacrifices for granted. 17/

And today, with another plague, we hear the same bullshit from the peanut gallery, shitting on healthcare workers, public health officials, who will get us through this despite the politicians who once again want to see us dead. 18/

Joe grew up in Zimbabwe, went to the University of Witswatersrand in Johannesburg. So here is a comrade's farewell in Xhosa. Hamba Kahle Dr. Sonnabend. Your patients, your friends will never forget you. end/

L to R: Michael Callen, Mathilde Krim, Joe Sonnabend.