Los Gatos Weekly-Times Photograph by George Sakkestad Joanna Rauh participated in the closing ceremony last week at the high school. Facing AIDS Names Project AIDS quilt brings home the human toll of a worldwide killer By Mary Ann Cook It's a room that's hard to absorb without a lump in the throat or the prickling of tears. The side walls are hung with decorated panels of names and symbols and the front wall displays one panel with a Los Gatos name on it. All the panels are coffin-sized. In the back of the room is a table covered with a large piece of fabric where visitors can write down their own reactions to the experience of the room, create their own quasi-quilt. On the TV is a videotape of people reading names. When the TV isn't on, somebody at the podium reads names. The AIDS quilt has come to Los Gatos High School. When parts of the quilt are put on display, the Names Project AIDS office in San Francisco tries to make sure the recipient of that section receives a piece of the quilt with local names on it. Its arrival in Los Gatos was the impetus for two new panel pieces. These two were dedicated when the quilt was on display last week. The quilt panel commemorating Jeff Yontz, a 1982 Los Gatos High School graduate, was made by his sister Cindy Sebastiani, a 1983 graduate, and his mother, Carol, and presented to the Names Project in a ceremony on Worlds AIDS Day, Dec. 1. The Yontzes had been intending to create a panel but kept putting it off, Carol said. When she heard the quilt was coming to Los Gatos, she said to her daughter, "Now we have a deadline to meet." And meet it they did when their panel was added to the other 80,000 names that are part of the Names Project. The entire quilt is now the size of 30 football fields and has been shown in its entirety only five times--in Washington, D.C.--with the most recent showing in 1996. The Jeff Yontz panel was created from a drawing Jeff made when he was 7. It shows his red-roofed home in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The hills are studded with evergreens and rainbow panels are showing through a "V" made by the hills. "That's exactly where the sun comes up at certain times of the year," points out John Yontz, Jeff's father. On the right side of the panel are the words from a song Jeff composed shortly before his death in 1996. The piece was set to music by his friend Christy Martin. The two had worked together at Boole and Babbage, Jeff's last employer. First Stanza of Jeff Yontz's Song "One more time to take a walk down Adam's road, One more hike to Castle Rock, to picnic in the sun, One more Super-Beetle drive down to the sea, One more time to kiss your cheek and wish a warm good-night. One more time, for change is in the air, One more time, before I go." At the presentation ceremony, Mary Anne Harman, Jeff's aunt, read a biographical tribute to Jeff, written by his sister. "I've read this many times, but I can never get through it without breaking down," Harman said at one point, her voice breaking. Jeff was outgoing, fun-loving and openly gay, said his sister's tribute. He earned a public relations degree from San Jose State University in 1989, worked for several public relations firms before being hired by Boole and Babbage. There, he won an award for Outstanding Marketing Performance, placing a piece about Boole and Babbage in Forbes magazine. He wrote the Happenings column for the newspaper, The Insider. When he learned he had AIDS, he was open about that, too, the tribute continued. He told his employers and co-workers--including the entire staff of 650 employees--why he was quitting. Later, he wrote an article for the Mountain Network News as a warning about the disease. Carol and John Yontz said that making the panel and participating in the World AIDS Day ceremony at the high school helped them. "It was a closure. And an affirmation," John said. "I feel we are carrying on his work. He was trying to spread the word about [the imperative of] safe sex. I think this can be a help. Students can see it could happen to them, that he was a student here just like they are." John is a materials manager for Spector Precision Engineering in San Jose. His wife, Carol, is a nurse at Forest Surgery Center in San Jose, and she said that attending ARIS parent groups and the Center for Living with Dying helped her cope with Jeff's illness and death. "Making the quilt panel, taking part in the ceremony, helped us," Carol said. Also presented as part of the project in closing ceremonies last Friday was a panel commemorating three children who had AIDS and were cared for by Lois and Peter Raap of Los Gatos. The Raaps have raised more than 40 foster children over the years. "So many we can't count them. Our oldest foster child is now 43, so you can tell how far back it goes," Lois Raap said. They have taken in about half a dozen children with AIDS--those three plus three who are now living with a member of their own family. The Raaps also have three natural daughters, now in their 20s, who attended Los Gatos High School--Rachel, Lalani and Sarah. "We think it was one of the best things we ever did for our daughters. They are very mature, have a sure sense of who they are, their life values. I credit this [foster care] with that," Lois says. "They know firsthand how devastating bad choices can be." The children the Raaps have nurtured through the years have been hard-to-place children--those with special needs, medically fragile--whom others would not accept. The children commemorated in the quilt panel are three who died in infancy or as toddlers. David Christopher died at 4 months, Derek Nathaniel at 21 months, Arianna Alexis at 28 months When the Raaps were approached to take their first AIDS baby, Derrick, they were already parenting seven children. Lois repeatedly turned down the request, but when the agency called and said no one would take the baby, she finally relented. "Our goal is to dwell on the life, to make the life so full, no matter how brief. So when they die it's extremely difficult to take, it's such an abrupt wake-up call. You can only handle so much death. It's so devastating. We have to pace ourselves [and not take on new children]. I can sense when we're emotionally fragile." About caring for AIDS babies: "We didn't realize how hard it would be socially." The babies were ostracized and the Raaps along with them. New friends had to be made. "That was 10 years ago. I think the stigma has lifted somewhat. People can put a face on the disease now, probably have known someone personally." The panel commemorating the Raaps' foster children was a group effort that included members of Wendy Cosgrove's LGHS sewing class. Scott Downs, an art teacher at the school, designed the panel, based on remembrances Lois Raap had written. Colored pictures of each are incorporated in the quilt. David, described as a gentle baby, is commemorated with a teddy bear and frog and the Biblical selection: "Let the little children come to me ... for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." Arianna's symbol is a flower, and the words chosen were from the Song of Solomon: " ... like a lily among the thorns so is my darling among the maidens." Lois says she was fun and carefree with eyes that sparkled. Derek had a sense of deep serenity, and the theme on his portion of the panel is the peaceable kingdom. Each child was from a different ethnic background--Irish American, Puerto Rican, American Indian. Members of Cosgrove's class who did the needlework on the Raap panel were Nindy Kemp, Jaime Strickland, Alexis Gardner, Libby Hunt, Marissa Yellenburg, Genoa Fox, Kristin Heckley and Vivian Tran. Volunteers from the community quilted at night while serving as guardians of the quilt. Other guardians were Kiwanis members who staffed the room for an entire day. Lions and Optimists also served quilt security duty, too, on other days. Each panel is 3 feet by 6 feet, and there were 32 panels on display at the school, besides the two presented that week. Students were invited to leave written comments as part of the experience of viewing the quilt. "I felt a chill upon entering but in a short time, the love showed through and warmed my heart," wrote Noreen Clark. "Never have my eyes been opened so widely as this," from Erin Caillouette. And, from Matthew Lee Greiner, "I never knew how powerful a quilt could be. It has definitely opened my eyes. My heart goes out to them and their families." Freshmen- and sophomore-aged girls are the ages now targeted for AIDS awareness and education. The fastest growing group of those infected with HIV are heterosexual women under 25. Women with AIDS die 33 percent faster than men with AIDS, and AIDS is spreading six times faster among women than men. As of June, 1998, the number of U.S. deaths from AIDS is 400,000. Some 32 million people worldwide are infected, and there have been 12 million deaths worldwide. Worldwide efforts to develop a vaccine are supported by the International Vaccine Initiative. The message of the quilt is that AIDS is an insidious killer that can happen to anyone, not just gays or drug users. Mary Ann Cook's daughter died of AIDS at 32 She was a heterosexual who contracted it from her husband, who had died four years earlier. [ Back to Contents Page | Los Gatos Weekly-Times Home Page | Archives ] This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, December 9, 1998. ©1998 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.