Good Afternoon;
So I realize that I have not been producing much 'content' in recent days, and I apologize for that. Between really out of whack sleep patterns influenced by weather, the particular point in the cycle of clinical depression and outside factors both familiar and totally unexpected, all occurring and aligning at one time, I have not felt like writing, nor been able to take advantage of the times when I did feel like it.
I really got used to having the laptop and 24/7 access, (which also contributed to my sleep patterns being nudged out of their 'normal' (HA!) orbit), a lot quicker than I realized, and having it lock up the way it did in the middle of a couple of heavy duty conversations with people who I cannot contact any other way really sucked.
The familiar stressor of being out of money, albeit much earlier in the month, also sucks, and added to the ennui I have let take more control than usual. But, the really big thing that has overwhelmed me and occupied both my conscious and subconscious thoughts has been the death of and sudden influx of information and necessary activities surrounding and concerning my close friend and former lover Lisa.
We shared a bond and a connection that time and distance could not interrupt nor sever and when I was awakened one night last week with the overpowering need to call her...immediately!..I knew that something significant and consequential was imminent. As I began dialing the phone number to her and her husband Bill's business, ( a 1-800 toll free number ), my cell phone began to ring and it was him calling me. I spent over 2 hours standing outside on the payphone at the gas station that night, into the dawn, as we talked and they told me of the final diagnoses and prognoses she had received from the doctors that day......a fast growing and malignant, highly invasive Grade IV tumor of the Brainstem Glioma type.
F*CK..F*Ck...F*Ck...!!!!
From the first appearance of any symptoms to diagnoses to the beginning of rapid degeneration of motor skills and memory, and the neurospastic interruption on involuntary body functions took barely 2 weeks. With the onset of pain and the desire to leave a last image in peoples minds of dignity and not that of the typical wasted and diminished patient in her final stages, she was going about the emotionally depleting and physically exhausting task of saying goodbye and asking for the help, of those of us who would understand the meaning and significance, in fulfilling her last wishes and certain spiritually important rites after she was gone.
Anyway, this is the reason that posts have been short or missing for the past week and a half or so, or having a sense of gallows humor or black irony in some of the ones I did take time to write.
In light of what was going on and what I would be doing today, the fact that 2 of the people, Neil Rubin, and Lynn C., who have been true friends and in whom I have been able to confide, but who I have not seen in quite a while, happened to show up independently at the same time, at the Starbucks yesterday, when just their presence, even if they had no idea of what I was going through was enough to give me some strength of purpose of mind and spirit, and illustrates the principle of synchronicity that has permeated my life.
(yeah, that sentence IS a grammatical mess, but it gets the point across...lol)
So....Lisa passed away last Friday in a diving accident of the coast of Mexico, 2 days after I talked to her for the last time and we said our good-byes. Because her husband is Mexican and has very heavy connections, he was able to cut through ALL the red tape and bureaucracy and had her cremated as she wished and brought her ashes home Tuesday. Lisa had wanted this and to have her remains ceremonially both scattered to the Winds in a few places that were both memorable and meaningful to her in a personal and spiritual sense, and to be mixed with the Earth, and returned to Sea, if at all possible, at the same time, by friends and family. She is originally from Luray Virginia, and her parents and ancestors are buried there, and wished for the bulk of her ashes to be interred there. She and Bill, (Guillermo), had a fishing/diving lodge in Baja, Mexico, and a house in the Florida Keys. Her daughter Kate and her son-in-law Evan live in Seattle, and Lisa lived there for 20 years.
Bill was able by way of Next Day Air through FedEx, etc. to have Lisa's ashes delivered to all the U.S. locations and he took a portion back to Baja. I called in a major debt and had a friend pick me up at 1:30 am this morning and drive us to Luray, where at 10:17 am., in coordination with Bill in Baja, Kate in Seattle, and friends in the Keys, we all spoke the words she wished us to say, and returned her physical remains to Mother Earth.
I'm out of time here, I'll be back Saturday
Later.....................Dave
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