This is SO not about me. It's about how I feel about things that aren't about me. (part 1)
I had my favorite day of the year last weekend; A Day With The Girls, which is a girls' lunch with the three matriarchs on my mother's side and their respective daughters. It is, hands down, THE BEST day of the year, and the day is never long enough.
I had a long talk with my favorite cousin, which was really all over the place (not her, the talk), but the highlights, which she helped me realize, are why I'm posting, and basically boiled down to this:
I am a pragmatist through and through. I will deal with fact before I'll even consider anything resembling faith.
I am telling you this because while *I* don't have a lot going on, there is a lot going on around me that is taking up a lot of headspace, and I've not mentioned it because it's not really mine to tell. It's a bunch of things that are sad, and a few of my opinions about it that are perhaps not very flattering.
But, y'know, this is my journal, and it's not here to be pretty.
So this is my full disclosure about why even my mom seems to notice that I'm quiet these days. Not that she isn't perceptive, she's just usually happy to fill out the silences. :)
A friend of mine that I studied with at Copenhagen Business School (right before I met Sven) is suffering from a fatal brain tumor. She is 26 years old. Her brother posted on her Facebook wall about a week ago, describing her horrifyingly short illness and how, since August of last year, radiology and chemo have had no effect and have left her weaker; she is now too weak to take in sustenance and medicine, and she is completely paralyzed. The only life left is in her eyes; she can't even smile anymore.
I had what I can only describe as an almost maternal reaction to this girl when we got to know each other. She was so young, and delightful, and completely beautiful, and her naïve and positive outlook completely slayed me. She wanted to be a news reader on TV, and she was the type of person where you believed with your entire being that she'd make it.
She had the ability to completely fail an exam and still be completely happy for someone else when they aced it. And then return, and try, try again until she too would get a passing grade. And be exactly as thrilled for herself that she finally passed as she had been for the person acing it in the first try.
I didn't have any contact with her after we left school. I sort of faded out and never finished and we never hung out outside of school work. We weren't even close to being at the same place in our lives, but I followed her on Facebook and took joy in her victories. And now this.
Her brother asked her friends and acquaintances to send her greetings that he would read to her, and I wracked my brain trying to come up with the perfect thing to say. I read some of the other greetings that had been posted to her wall, looking for inspiration, but they were all hopes that she'd get better, and... I'm sorry, but she's not. It's so completely unfair and heartbreaking, but whoever decides these things has tapped her shoulder and for some unfathomable reason her time is up.
So I told her in my greeting what I've told you - how much I admire her spirit and work ethic, how her inner light shone, and how much I hate that her light has let her down. While openly weeping, I wrote that I know she has faith, and how much I believe that for her, this is a new beginning. Because it has to be. And I wished her beautiful soul safe travels.
I don't know... In that situation, would you want a greeting that says goodbye, or a greeting that lies that you'll get better? I know what I'd prefer, but then, I am the eternal pragmatist, and I hate lies, even if they're to make me feel better. Her brother thanked me for my greeting, and I suppose at this point it doesn't matter as long as the words are pretty.
There's more, but she deserves her own post. And the other thing is decidedly less pretty. So this is to be continued.
I had a long talk with my favorite cousin, which was really all over the place (not her, the talk), but the highlights, which she helped me realize, are why I'm posting, and basically boiled down to this:
I am a pragmatist through and through. I will deal with fact before I'll even consider anything resembling faith.
I am telling you this because while *I* don't have a lot going on, there is a lot going on around me that is taking up a lot of headspace, and I've not mentioned it because it's not really mine to tell. It's a bunch of things that are sad, and a few of my opinions about it that are perhaps not very flattering.
But, y'know, this is my journal, and it's not here to be pretty.
So this is my full disclosure about why even my mom seems to notice that I'm quiet these days. Not that she isn't perceptive, she's just usually happy to fill out the silences. :)
A friend of mine that I studied with at Copenhagen Business School (right before I met Sven) is suffering from a fatal brain tumor. She is 26 years old. Her brother posted on her Facebook wall about a week ago, describing her horrifyingly short illness and how, since August of last year, radiology and chemo have had no effect and have left her weaker; she is now too weak to take in sustenance and medicine, and she is completely paralyzed. The only life left is in her eyes; she can't even smile anymore.
I had what I can only describe as an almost maternal reaction to this girl when we got to know each other. She was so young, and delightful, and completely beautiful, and her naïve and positive outlook completely slayed me. She wanted to be a news reader on TV, and she was the type of person where you believed with your entire being that she'd make it.
She had the ability to completely fail an exam and still be completely happy for someone else when they aced it. And then return, and try, try again until she too would get a passing grade. And be exactly as thrilled for herself that she finally passed as she had been for the person acing it in the first try.
I didn't have any contact with her after we left school. I sort of faded out and never finished and we never hung out outside of school work. We weren't even close to being at the same place in our lives, but I followed her on Facebook and took joy in her victories. And now this.
Her brother asked her friends and acquaintances to send her greetings that he would read to her, and I wracked my brain trying to come up with the perfect thing to say. I read some of the other greetings that had been posted to her wall, looking for inspiration, but they were all hopes that she'd get better, and... I'm sorry, but she's not. It's so completely unfair and heartbreaking, but whoever decides these things has tapped her shoulder and for some unfathomable reason her time is up.
So I told her in my greeting what I've told you - how much I admire her spirit and work ethic, how her inner light shone, and how much I hate that her light has let her down. While openly weeping, I wrote that I know she has faith, and how much I believe that for her, this is a new beginning. Because it has to be. And I wished her beautiful soul safe travels.
I don't know... In that situation, would you want a greeting that says goodbye, or a greeting that lies that you'll get better? I know what I'd prefer, but then, I am the eternal pragmatist, and I hate lies, even if they're to make me feel better. Her brother thanked me for my greeting, and I suppose at this point it doesn't matter as long as the words are pretty.
There's more, but she deserves her own post. And the other thing is decidedly less pretty. So this is to be continued.