Space Travel

There are people who are always hinting that they don't hear from me enough. It's funny how time moves differently for different people - or rather, the perception of time, of course. Time rushes by for me. I'm never idle. Never bored. Always behind on a hundred different projects and goals. Time flies so swiftly for me it is practically undetectable.

"It's been a year!" says a friend, or "It's been three years!" This has no meaning for me. My friends need to do the time-managing for us. I'm incapable. If it has been too long for them than they must reach out to me. They must not wait for me. It's not that I don't care about them. It's just that it always seems like yesterday that we last met.

Tati is a morning-person. Her meds tend to loopify her through the latter part of the day. I am not a morning person but my shift-work patterns - until just recently - made Wednesday mornings a good time to call. I invited her to do so on any - or even every - Wednesday morning.

I haven't heard from her since then. She hasn't responded to my facebook overtures. There is no internet trail of her since March. I keep thinking I should try calling some rare morning that I am awake. What's funny is how I've been subconsciously afraid to do so. I'm afraid to find out how she's doing these days; that she may have deteriorated. Or worse.

I'm awake this morning. I really should call.

T is for Tati

If you don't know, or remember, who Terry Anne is, I urge you to read this short piece from July 2008. She is one of the most amazing people I know.

She had sent me some poetry which I thought I had lost, having switched to a new lap top and new email address after resigning from Ye Olde Marketing Company. But in a recent fit of illumination I actually started backing up my computer files and discovered that I had in fact imported some of Tati's emails over. I would like to share some with you.

Be advised: They are heavy.


Blatherings of Grayness
November 2, 2008

We feel the light and the dark
We cause the fight that doesn’t leave a mark
We plan it but don’t
We sit in our corner
Sulking, crying dull and well overplayed tears
Energy evades us, life replays us
We blame everyone and no one
Walk by us at the dark time
And you are the villain
You didn’t even do anything
We didn’t even do anything
We don’t even know who you are
We didn’t take the time to know you
We didn’t take the time to know ourselves
Walk by during the light and you are the saint
You can help, but you do not know
Bring us out of the hole to try and make us whole
What can we cover ourselves with now?
A drink, a drug, a robe, a rug
Anything that we can use to hide
What we feel is surely inadequate inside

Day 1: Ten things you want to say to ten different people right now.

Biodad: I know what haunts you. But there are other ways to defeat your fears. The drinking days are over. Help is available. The choice is yours; to live or die.

Neo: I believe in you. Always.

Jerry: I'm sorry I hurt you - what - 25 years ago? Whether I was right about you or wrong, it never was my place to judge you.

Doctor Lock: Thank you for coaxing the music out of me. You have changed my life profoundly

Mateo Jordache: Get that beautiful #@*%">#@*%>!* album on the damn market before I lose my marbles. I want a copy NOW!

Skeeter: I have a good hunk of respect for you. Any time you want to talk about the dark stuff; I'm there.

Jeff L: I miss your amazing energy. We must get together. Been way too long.

Rockin' Roddie: Thank you for taking a chance on me. It was an amazing time for those six years. I learned a lot about the world and about myself.

Dave: Many compliments are useless to me but you gave me a very fine one indeed. It's good to know I can be an inspiration to friends because my friends certainly inspire me.

Tati: Miss you. I will find a day to come soon. But we should do more than tell stories. You must put me to work!

Breakfast with an incredible shrinking woman

I hadn’t seen her in many years. Her little adopted son is now a university freshman with all of the dilemmas that teenagers invariably create for themselves.

Of all the coworkers I immediately lost touch with when the ops centre closed down, she was low on the list of people I thought I’d see again. We were both different people then. I had sensed conflict around her and shied away from that.

But bumping into her on facebook.com, I asked how she was doing and her answer compelled me.

I’m not well. But that’s okay...

I picked her up at her modest old home. She’s a fraction of the size she used to be but her eyes have not changed and that’s enough to recognize her. She brought her parking tag with us so we could park at the restaurant door.

I had been very familiar with the little charity organization she’d created. She financed insulin pumps for diabetic children in need while lobbying the government health insurance to assume this much-needed coverage.

I learned today that she succeeded a few years ago. Now no child in Ontario needing an insulin pump will go without one and Ministry of Health literature recognizes her efforts to this end.

She remains tight with the ministry, providing a buffer of reality between they and the self-interested, self-promoting national diabetes organization and all of their spin, while still lobbying, now for like coverage for adult diabetes sufferers – a service she currently provides to the best of her growing charity’s capability.

She’s allergic to insulin but takes a small amount, a calculated compromise, in effort to stretch her mortality a little further. She declares herself a medical wonder to have survived this long.

Each morning that she awakes to, is a bonus day for which she’s grateful and which she tries to make the most of – by logging onto the computer and dispensing vital counsel and assistance to fellow sufferers.

She ardently praises her husband. They’ve shared a deeply satisfying marriage built on unconditional love and tolerance. She worries about he and the boy and how they’ll deal with her absence. She begs that there be no funeral.

“If too many people come he won’t be able to handle it,” she says. “And if too few come, he’ll be hurt. If people want to pay respect, they know where the house is. They can drop by.” The lump in my throat silences me. “Don’t be sad,” she says to me. “It’s all okay.”

But I already know it’s okay. In essence I do not pity the sick and the dying. To suffer and die are the natural states of all life. I understand this intrinsically. I will desire no pity when my time for suffering or death comes. My pity goes to all those millions of people who are not celebrating their circumstances; their privileged health and wealth and security and who squander it; having no real understanding of their own lives and no connection to real happiness. I pity all those who are wasting their lives away – as I did for thirty-seven years.

“Tears don’t always mean I’m sad,” is all I managed to say.

These days I am easily overcome by any of a great many emotions, including, I now know, intense admiration.

FWG

http://www.sugarcharity.org/