"This disease brings no glory to anyone," she says. "Only pain and sadness and worry. Ryan always said if you don't know about something you will be scared. At least educate yourself. So that's what I do. Not from a medical standpoint but a human standpoint. Because the best way to learn about AIDS is from human experience. Not statistics."

She hopes the foundation will help, though it is still a fledgling operation, running out of her basement while funds are being raised. "There isn't hardly anything dealing with adolescents," she says. "When Ryan spoke in classrooms, kids were just in awe to hear a personal side. You have to see the gut of the disease."

When Ryan was diagnosed with AIDS in 1984, Mrs. White-Ginder says, "there was absolutely no education anywhere on AIDS." She continues: "The Centers for Disease Control sent people to me 'cause I was scared myself. Being Christian, the thinking was that people deserved this disease. But we learned real fast to fight the disease and not the people."

As Mrs. White-Ginder speaks, Ryan's dog, Wally, naps on the floor nearby. Pictures of Ryan are everywhere, even hanging on a tabletop Christmas tree with some of his sister, who is now a pre-med student at Indiana University. Mrs. White-Ginder's obsession with Christmas extends through the house with a full-size, elaborately decorated tree in her office and enough Santa Claus figurines to start her own mail-order business. The house is crammed with china, doilies, baskets, statues, dolls and needlepoint pillows. A portrait of Jesus hangs in the dining room.

"We were just an everyday family, even though Ryan was a hemophiliac," she says. "The biggest thing to deal with always was trying to keep Ryan alive. Growing up, he could never play contact sports 'cause he'd bleed. So I read to my kids all the time. I wanted him to be smart because I knew he wouldn't be able to rely on sports. But I was a factory worker. When this all happened, we really didn't know what we were doing. As for the media, I thought it would last a month or two and then die down. But it never went to his head. He had Michael Jackson's home phone number, but Ryan never acted like he was special. Michael Jackson said, 'Ryan knows how I want to be treated because it's how he wants to be treated.' "

Mrs. White-Ginder speaks warmly of her parents, who still live in Kokomo, and their support. But her memories of her hometown have not faded.

"There are a lot of hurt feelings, still. The people that live there feel they did what was right at the time. But when that TV movie about Ryan was made, those people did not want to see theirselves. My best friends turned on me. And all I could keep thinking was 'I got to make sure he lives the longest he can.'