Click for larger view. ROB O'NEAL/The Citizen Candlelit bags bearing the names of 62 local victims of the AIDS virus adorn the Key West AIDS Memorial Monday evening for a World AIDS Day ceremony.

KEY WEST -- A man stepped gingerly between the rows of names carved in granite at the Key West AIDS Memorial. He lovingly placed a flower next to some of the names, but made sure not to step on any of them, or on the memory each represents.

During a ceremony marking World AIDS Day, flowers decorated the sidewalk memorial and volunteers lined up to recite the more than 1,000 names now inscribed there.

People bowed their heads and shifted their weight from one leg to another. They swiped at tears and looked abruptly into the Atlantic Ocean as a sliver of moon rose above the horizon.

Clearly, the list was too long.

And it became even longer as Michael Epting read the 62 newest names that were added to the memorial this year.

"Our memorial is now full," said Brooks White, who was instrumental in the creation of the memorial. "The medical community today offers new hope, but our community is not so easily treated for their grief."

He explained to the 250 or so people gathered for the ceremony the history of the memorial and how it began in 1997 with 730 names.

Those names represent people who appreciated the Florida Keys in such a way as to have lived, worked or visited here. Many also died here.

"Twenty years ago, a new reality entered my life," said Mary Hoeft, who spoke of a beloved friend who entered the battle against AIDS early on -- and lost. "We gave him love, but we could not give him a cure."

Hoeft is now the housing coordinator for AIDS Help Inc. and recounted favorite memories of clients who live on in her smile and memory.

She thought back to a similar ceremony a few years ago when a man named Julius Adams spoke. His name is now on the memorial and attached to a AIDS education task force focusing its efforts on the minority community, where death happens quietly and AIDS is never mentioned.

Adams reminded the crowd that year of the words of the Rev. Henry Scott Holland:

"Death is really nothing, I have only slipped into the next room. ... Why should I be out of mind just because I am out of sight?"

mbolen@keysnews.com