Michael Mugavero was buried on an unseasonably dark and dreary day in September 1995.
His friend John Lamar recalled that the congregation at the church was a little spooked when piped-in music that was halted to let the priest speak, suddenly started up again.
“We all said, ‘Oh, that’s Magoo,’ He was a great trickster,” Lamar said, referring to his friend by the nickname he acquired in childhood.
And as the mourners left the church, the sky cleared briefly and a rainbow appeared.
“We felt his presence there,” Lamar said.
And now, 13 years later, Mugavero, who was a local musician and disc jockey, is again making his presence felt.
To bring awareness to World AIDS Day, Dec. 1, Connecticut College brought to campus a section the AIDS Memorial Quilt. Mugavero’s panel, created out of his T-shirts soon after his death by Lamar and a dozen fellow DJs from WCNI radio at Conn, was one of a couple hundred on display at the college.
Mugavero’s panel included musical notes in honor of his band “Kat Thang,” which used to open for The Reducers. There was a can of “Hygienic condensed lobster soup” in honor of the Hygienic Arts Gallery; Stonehenge, a place Mugavero once visited. Mr. Bubbles surrounded by a string of plastic pearls also figures prominently on the 3- by-6-foot panel.
“Mr. Bubbles was the cutest little T-shirt he ever had,” Lamar said. “He saved up box tops to get that T-shirt. Pink was his favorite color.”
Claudia Highbaugh, dean of religious and spiritual life at Conn, brought the quilt to campus so students and the community could see a visual representation of the lives touched by AIDS. It was on display for one week at Crozier-Williams Student Center.
“The most important thing about the quilt is the whole idea of remembrance,” said Highbaugh. “From 1982 to 1990, entire populations of gay communities were wiped out.”
Maryann Lidestri, Mugavero’s sister, wasn’t involved in the making of the quilt, but had seen the finished piece back in 1996.
“It’s very overwhelming,” said Lidestri, who had small children and an ailing mother when her brother was sick.
She visited the quilt again at a reception at Conn where she met her brother’s friends.
“It’s kind of a way for all of us to still be connected. My brother was a people person and this would make him very happy,” she said.
The quilt idea was conceived in 1985 in San Francisco by gay rights activists to honor their friends who were dying from AIDS. Parts of the quilt are continuously on display throughout the United States. There are more than 46,000 panels contained in 5,748 sections of the quilt. The last time the quilt was on display was in 1996 when sections were placed end to end, covering the entire National Mall in Washington, D.C.
There are more than 91,000 names on the quilt, which includes 52 miles of fabric.
Lamar said the loss of his friend was devastating and sent him into a depression.
“Quite frankly, it destroyed me,” he said. “He died because he was poor and couldn’t afford all fancy new drugs. At the time, that was the very edge of the breakthroughs for treating AIDS. It was so sad—he didn’t have to die.”
But Lamar said working on the quilt was cathartic, and seeing it again at Conn College prompted a release of new emotion.
Although his friend’s death is remote, he said, he thinks about him every day.
“We wanted for Magoo’s panel to be happy and exuberant,” he said.
The back side of the quilt is a rainbow.
By Kathleen Edgecomb
Staff Writer