When Drs. David Blatt and David Moore founded the AIDS ward at Illinois Masonic Hospital in Lake View in 1985, they figured they were all but guaranteed to end up in one of the unit’s beds, face-to-face with their own diagnosis and anticipating their own death.

“For three years, I assumed everything I saw was my future,” said Moore, recalling the gruesome lesions, fevers and heart failure that often preceded death.

The ward, called Unit 371, was the backdrop to many patients’ worst days. Blatt and Moore, who today are married, described the unit as a place of stubborn resilience, prevailing love and strong community in the face of insurmountable grief.

It was there they kissed the foreheads of patients after giving bad news, comforted grieving family and friends, celebrated their weddin

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