Grateful to Be Alive

Do unsettling truths bring harsh judgment? They do, but the price of denial is steep.

D.K. Sanz's story begins in the drug-infested New York City streets of Woodside, Queens, during the tumultuous HIV/AIDS pandemic of the Eighties and Nineties. It offers a glimpse into how a now often-overlooked pandemic impacted Sanz's nuclear family. From her earliest days, Sanz was the easily forgotten stranger, always a little out of sync with the rest of the world—a tough but naïve kid and aspiring wri...