Pictures Of Son Cause Pain, Do Good -- Parents Of Dead Man Say Ads May Help Control Fear Of Aids

Like most proud parents, Bill and Kay Kirby are only too glad to show a few snapshots of their son, David.

Gathered in the living room of their modest home in Stafford, Ohio - a small town south of Columbus - the Kirbys go through their albums, passing around the best of their collection.

David as a baby grinning in his car seat. David as a young boy holding a string of catfish caught one warm summer day years ago.

Then they share the photo that brings them the most pain, yet has gained them the most attention - the picture of David moments before his death at the age of 32.

You may have seen it. David is frozen in time in the moment last May when his family knows he has lost his four-year battle with AIDS. He lies in bed in the agonized embrace of his father, Bill. At his bedside is his sister, Susan, and niece, Sarah.

"I'm not really comfortable with the photo," said Bill Kirby, a quality-control clerk at United Parcel Service in Akron, Ohio. "When I look at that picture, it brings back all the heartache. Until this winter, I couldn't even look at it without crying."

Despite the pain, the Kirbys agreed to let the Italian clothing giant Benetton use the photo in its advertisements around the world. In the bottom right corner of the photograph are the words: United Colors of Benetton.

Since Benetton began its campaign last month, some AIDS activists and even advertising critics have condemned what they saw as a large company's gratuitous commercial use of a tragic image.

To the Kirbys, the photo shows how they came to know their son as an adult and how they want the world to remember him - as a man who tried to educate people by sharing the horrors of AIDS.

The Kirbys say the photo graphically informs people about how powerful a supportive family can be for AIDS sufferers.

"It's what David would have wanted," said Kay Kirby, 54, who works as a housekeeper at a church in Columbus. "You can see the family anguish, and people need to know this is reality."

In the final years of his life, David took up the cause of educating people about AIDS. He spoke to health-care workers, civic groups and schoolteachers about how the disease is spread and how to avoid getting it.

"David wanted to put a face on AIDS," said Barb Cordle, a volunteer nurse who cared for David until his death at the Pater-Noster House, an AIDS hospice in Columbus. "He wanted to eliminate deep-seated fears against people with AIDS and against homosexuals."

In a letter to Interview magazine, Cordle wrote: "The picture (in the ad) has done more to soften people's hearts on the AIDS issue than any other I have ever seen. You can't look at that picture and hate a person with AIDS. You just can't."

David's story is unusual, Cordle said, because while many parents abandon children who get AIDS, the Kirbys pulled closer together as a family.

"They were not the Brady Bunch; they were just a regular family that had their problems," Cordle said. "But you can see in the photo how strong-willed and supportive they became."

It was not always that way.

Before David contracted AIDS, Bill and Kay Kirby had fallen out of touch with their son, who left home at 18 and didn't return until he came home to die.

It was in the town of 94 residents that David learned the painful lesson of how scared and ignorant people can mistreat people who have AIDS.

When David first got sick - and people learned he had AIDS - the emergency crew who took him to the hospital later burned all the ambulance's contents. Soon after, a rumor quickly spread among area schoolchildren that an AIDS monster was in town.

"It was humiliating and degrading, like he was a leper and nobody wanted to be near him," Kay said. "We just tried to let him know we were here for him."

The town became more tolerant largely because David made an effort to talk to people about AIDS.

It was David who wanted his bout with AIDS told through pictures. He noticed a graduate student from Ohio University taking photos of other patients in the hospice where he stayed during his final months of life. He asked her to take photos of him.

"I felt honored to be able to do this for him and his family," said Therese Frare, who now works as a free-lance photographer in Seattle.

After the photo appeared in Life magazine, Frare was contacted by Benetton about using the photo in its ad campaign.