Healing Through Nature at the National AIDS Memorial Grove

This story is part of the Bay Curious series “A Very Curious Walking Tour of Golden Gate Park.”

Visit the AIDS Memorial Grove at Golden Gate Park’s eastern end and you’ll see tall redwoods, green ferns, an open field and evidence of lots of loving care. Descending into the grove is like entering a different world, a calmer place than the hustle and bustle of the street above.

When Tom Jensen first came to the National AIDS Memorial Grove in 2002, he had no idea how much it would change his life.

“My plan was to come and work off [to] the sidelines,” Jensen said. “I didn’t really want to be with people.”

A self-described introvert, Jensen had just lost his longtime partner, Bobby Hilliard, to AIDS. He decided to volunteer at one of the Grove’s monthly work days. Jensen says that his grief was so strong he was worried he would “start calling in sick days if I didn’t make a move to engage in life and take my grief somewhere.”

Even though Jensen didn’t anticipate taking on a leadership role, he knew that he could contribute to the Grove. He grew up learning about plants from his father, and when Bobby started taking botany classes, Jensen went on field trips with him all over California.

Jensen proved so useful that first day he was asked to be on a committee. And the Grove and its community made such an impression on Jensen that he’s currently serving his second stint on the board of directors for the National AIDS Memorial, which includes the Grove, the AIDS Memorial Quilt (which will be displayed in Golden Gate Park on June 11-12 in Robin Williams Meadow) and numerous educational programs.

“This is just such a huge family,” said Jensen. “I was transformed by being here and by getting involved.”

San Francisco in the 1980s

Jensen moved to San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood in 1978. He described it as “a playland and a wonderland,” full of “freedom and liberation.” He felt like he was part of a community and a generation that could change the world.

But within four years, death was all around him as San Francisco’s gay community began to feel the impact of the AIDS epidemic. It was common to see people he worked out with at the gym looking like “emaciated old men” in a matter of weeks.

“They were covered with Kaposi’s sarcoma lesions and walking on canes and in wheelchairs,” he said.

Between 1981 and 1994, more than 15,000 San Franciscans died of AIDS. By 1988, the CDC had recorded more than 80,000 cases of AIDS in the United States. Of those, more than half were fatal.

The community advocates for and supports itself

San Francisco’s gay community was hit early and hard by the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, as were intravenous drug users and hemophiliacs who depended on blood transfusions. White gay men received the most media attention, but the disease has always disproportionately affected communities of color.

Homophobia and racism shaped how the federal government and public health institutions responded. President Ronald Reagan didn’t publicly mention the disease until 1985. Meanwhile his administration cut funding for federal public health organizations, including what was then known as the Centers for Disease Control, which published the first report on what would come to be known as AIDS in 1981. The media dubbed the disease the “gay plague,” and the White House spokesperson joked about it when reporters brought up the skyrocketing death rate in press conferences.

“Many of these people may not have died if our government and a majority of society had cared more about them,” said Steve Sagaser, a senior program manager with the National AIDS Memorial.

As a result, early in the epidemic, people with AIDS were largely left to fend for themselves.

“That’s how the response to AIDS in the first decade happened,” Jensen said. “People making food for their neighbors and having that grow into Project Open Hand. It’s just Ruth Brinker [founder of Project Open Hand] saying, ‘Everyone in my building has AIDS’ and making dinner for 12 units.”

Activists pushed the government to act faster, fund research and develop treatments, but it took years of in-your-face advocacy to get the federal government to act.

A different way to grieve

Sagaser says that in the 1980s many people in San Francisco were experiencing “loss after loss at such a rate that it was impossible to complete the grieving process for one person and you’d already lost another.”

In 1987, against this setting, a small group of San Francisco residents, including several with backgrounds in landscaping and architecture, started talking about the possibility of having a dedicated space to grieve those who died from AIDS.

The founders of the Grove envisioned “solace through life and plants,” said Jensen. They wanted an alternative to a cemetery or a church — something in nature, with life running through it.

In 1988, the group asked the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department for some land to use for the memorial. The city offered the de Laveaga Dell, a 7.5-acre bowl-like valley that budget cuts and neglect had led to degeneration into an overgrown, swampy mess. But the Grove’s founders saw potential there.

Landscape architects and designers volunteered their time to craft plans for the Grove. They aimed to create a space with the sanctity of a cathedral but that was welcoming to everyone. After a collaborative process the planners agreed on a design that highlighted the dramatic contrast of light and dark in the valley.

They also created spots in the Grove that lent themselves toward individual reflection but made sure the Grove could also accommodate groups. Plants and trees were chosen so there would always be something blooming, no matter the season.

Sagaser calls The Circle of Friends the “heart of the Grove.” It’s a circular flagstone area where close to 3,000 names are carved, spiraling outward. Close to 80% of the names are of individuals who died from AIDS, while others are people who have been affected by the disease. Sagaser says the Grove gets around 100 requests a year for new names to be carved.

On Sept. 21, 1991, volunteers broke ground on the Grove. It took them three years to remove trash. In 1996, Bill Clinton signed legislation, championed by Rep. Nancy Pelosi, granting the Grove national memorial status. It is the nation’s first and only federally designated memorial to those who have died of AIDS.

“It’s not just about remembering the [people] who have died, but remembering the activism that was associated with it,” Sagaser said. “The activism was necessary because [the] government wasn’t doing anything about it because it was hitting a group of people who were already demonized or stigmatized.”

Despite the federal designation as a national memorial, the Grove receives no federal funding. Its operating costs are covered by the National AIDS Memorial nonprofit.

Volunteers are the lifeblood of the Grove

The volunteer energy behind the Grove hasn’t dropped off since shovels started digging in 1991.

Every year, nearly 2,000 volunteers contribute about 4,500 hours of work, according to Phil Ginsburg, general manager of the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department. That adds up to over a quarter of a million volunteer hours in the Grove’s 31-year lifespan.

A significant portion of that labor occurs during the Grove’s work days. They happen every third Saturday and still follow the same format as the first one in 1991: Breakfast at 8:30, welcome and announcements at 9:00, several hours of work, and then a healing circle at noon.

To close out the day, everyone gathers at The Circle of Friends. They join hands, ring a Tibetan bell, “and then we say out loud the names of people we’ve lost to AIDS or people who just need that healing energy,” Sagaser said. “It’s our tradition. It’s been happening for 31 years. We never miss it.”

An ever-evolving space

The Grove has gradually grown from its original 7.5 acres to 10 and has added features to recognize the breadth of people affected by the epidemic. In 2017 the Hemophilia Circle was dedicated to honor those with the blood disease who have died from AIDS. Tainted blood transfusions were an early spreader of HIV.

The Grove is never complete, by design. Tending to the space is part of the healing process for volunteers. The work offers people a way to move through their grief.

And like the garden, the epidemic has changed over the years. Life-saving treatments now allow HIV-positive people to live long, full lives. But new cases still occur, and access to preventive drugs and treatment are unequal. Communities of color have always been most affected by the disease, and recent CDC numbers show that more than half of new cases are among Black and Latino people.

There’s still work to be done.