I’ve been scarce around these parts mainly because it appears as if days have gotten shorter or my energy level is out of kilter and I am just not getting things done the way I used to (and that is kind of scary because it isn’t as if I was some kind of dynamo before).
I’m in a brief pause at the moment though, by pause I mean I’ve hit a slow spell which in some ways is good because I have been fighting something for what seems forever (five weeks now) and finally I am getting back to decent shape.
The important thing though is to keep fighting.
What exactly does that mean?
It means not giving up and trying to push forward even though your heart may not be in it. It isn’t an easy thing to do but it’s a good lesson - things don’t get better when we give up, things may not get better even if we keep fighting but at least there is a possibility of change that does not exist when you just throw up your hands.
Bringing me to what I began to write about.
So, I lost a friend of mine a few weeks back. She passed away and I believe she was only 66 so there was about a decade separating us in age.
The difference though is in those 66 years, this woman packed in more than I could possibly imagine. I met her during another pause in work when I was looking to do something, anything to keep busy and have some money come in and I wound up working for the census bureau. It was easy money and there were times I found myself enjoying the job. It’s hard to argue with something where you can set your own hours for the most part and get paid for working from home part of the time but that’s what the job was.
The fascinating thing here was just how many people seemed to have a hard time meeting those very low standards but it just reinforced a lesson to me that not everyone takes work seriously instead looking at the whole concept of a job as something where you do as little as possible.
The first day I met my friend she was conducting the training for the job and I walked in a few minutes late (honestly anything within ten minutes either side is on time - probably something else I should change about myself) and I found myself immediately called to task for it. Believe me when I say that the harshness of the admonition regarding my tardiness was such that I thought I needed to keep my head down and steer clear of this person.
And wouldn’t you know it, this was the person who ultimately was my boss.
The funny thing is though, I do take every job quite seriously. I don’t know especially know how that happened but I have a pretty good idea that my grandparents and my mom (and maybe even my father) drummed that one thing into me as I was growing up. No matter what you do, do a good job, shoot for excellence, be thorough. It is ingrained in me and probably has been one of the few saving graces I can point to when it comes to any success I have realized over my professional career.
Any my friend, well apparently she recognized that and respected me for that.
So, after the census stuff was over and over the period of several months we came into contact sporadically and my friend did help me in a number of ways. Our friendship grew and I have to say one of the nicest things about it was being around someone who was so incredibly smart, so well traveled and who had moved in such amazing circles.
My friend was a lawyer by trade and a damn good one. So good in fact that she was the county attorney for some time and also was head of a local hospital here too. She met quite a few people over her time in government including a former president and a current candidate for president, a sitting governor, a former mayor and that isn’t even the tip of the iceberg.
She had a hand in writing the constitution for a nation in Asia.
She traveled all over the world, places I could only dream of seeing. To hear her talk about these far off lands just made me yearn to travel.
We would meet up every once in awhile and take long meandering walks several hours in length at a park not too far from where we live and we would spend the time just having meandering conversations about the present and past. It became something I really enjoyed and looked forward to.
Well, about two and a half years ago, she hadn’t been feeling so great and it turned out she had cancer.
Cancer becomes one of those power words spoken only in hushed whispers the older you get because you are likely to have seen the devastation it causes on people. The cure even if it takes which it often does not is more devastating than the disease itself because it amounts to poisoning the body so in the scorched earth nothing will grow.
There was an ebb and flow to her disease though and after the initial tide the seemed to be a pause where it looked like she might have had a reprieve. The pause was far too short though and the demon illness came back with a vengeance.
I was able to help out a bit at the beginning which I was glad to do but as the disease ravaged her my friend found herself less inclined to be out and about people because she didn’t like her illness being the elephant in the room and the last time I saw her was just over a year ago.
We had breakfast at a nearby diner and in keeping with her wishes I did not at all touch on the topic of her illness. I did everything in my power not to allow it to overshadow our time together although afterward I went to my car and sobbed like a child. My friend wrote me shortly afterward to thank me for making it easy for her to say goodbye.
We still kept in contact through text over the last year because I wanted her to know I was still thinking of her - even writing this now I find myself overcome with emotion.
She was a good friend.
But the lesson she gave me was to never give up. Her heart may have been one of the biggest I have ever come across even though it was hidden beneath a prickly shell. I went to the wake a week or two back and that closes the book, she’s gone.
But she is definitely not forgotten.
Marilyn you will very much be missed.
I’m in a brief pause at the moment though, by pause I mean I’ve hit a slow spell which in some ways is good because I have been fighting something for what seems forever (five weeks now) and finally I am getting back to decent shape.
The important thing though is to keep fighting.
What exactly does that mean?
It means not giving up and trying to push forward even though your heart may not be in it. It isn’t an easy thing to do but it’s a good lesson - things don’t get better when we give up, things may not get better even if we keep fighting but at least there is a possibility of change that does not exist when you just throw up your hands.
Bringing me to what I began to write about.
So, I lost a friend of mine a few weeks back. She passed away and I believe she was only 66 so there was about a decade separating us in age.
The difference though is in those 66 years, this woman packed in more than I could possibly imagine. I met her during another pause in work when I was looking to do something, anything to keep busy and have some money come in and I wound up working for the census bureau. It was easy money and there were times I found myself enjoying the job. It’s hard to argue with something where you can set your own hours for the most part and get paid for working from home part of the time but that’s what the job was.
The fascinating thing here was just how many people seemed to have a hard time meeting those very low standards but it just reinforced a lesson to me that not everyone takes work seriously instead looking at the whole concept of a job as something where you do as little as possible.
The first day I met my friend she was conducting the training for the job and I walked in a few minutes late (honestly anything within ten minutes either side is on time - probably something else I should change about myself) and I found myself immediately called to task for it. Believe me when I say that the harshness of the admonition regarding my tardiness was such that I thought I needed to keep my head down and steer clear of this person.
And wouldn’t you know it, this was the person who ultimately was my boss.
The funny thing is though, I do take every job quite seriously. I don’t know especially know how that happened but I have a pretty good idea that my grandparents and my mom (and maybe even my father) drummed that one thing into me as I was growing up. No matter what you do, do a good job, shoot for excellence, be thorough. It is ingrained in me and probably has been one of the few saving graces I can point to when it comes to any success I have realized over my professional career.
Any my friend, well apparently she recognized that and respected me for that.
So, after the census stuff was over and over the period of several months we came into contact sporadically and my friend did help me in a number of ways. Our friendship grew and I have to say one of the nicest things about it was being around someone who was so incredibly smart, so well traveled and who had moved in such amazing circles.
My friend was a lawyer by trade and a damn good one. So good in fact that she was the county attorney for some time and also was head of a local hospital here too. She met quite a few people over her time in government including a former president and a current candidate for president, a sitting governor, a former mayor and that isn’t even the tip of the iceberg.
She had a hand in writing the constitution for a nation in Asia.
She traveled all over the world, places I could only dream of seeing. To hear her talk about these far off lands just made me yearn to travel.
We would meet up every once in awhile and take long meandering walks several hours in length at a park not too far from where we live and we would spend the time just having meandering conversations about the present and past. It became something I really enjoyed and looked forward to.
Well, about two and a half years ago, she hadn’t been feeling so great and it turned out she had cancer.
Cancer becomes one of those power words spoken only in hushed whispers the older you get because you are likely to have seen the devastation it causes on people. The cure even if it takes which it often does not is more devastating than the disease itself because it amounts to poisoning the body so in the scorched earth nothing will grow.
There was an ebb and flow to her disease though and after the initial tide the seemed to be a pause where it looked like she might have had a reprieve. The pause was far too short though and the demon illness came back with a vengeance.
I was able to help out a bit at the beginning which I was glad to do but as the disease ravaged her my friend found herself less inclined to be out and about people because she didn’t like her illness being the elephant in the room and the last time I saw her was just over a year ago.
We had breakfast at a nearby diner and in keeping with her wishes I did not at all touch on the topic of her illness. I did everything in my power not to allow it to overshadow our time together although afterward I went to my car and sobbed like a child. My friend wrote me shortly afterward to thank me for making it easy for her to say goodbye.
We still kept in contact through text over the last year because I wanted her to know I was still thinking of her - even writing this now I find myself overcome with emotion.
She was a good friend.
But the lesson she gave me was to never give up. Her heart may have been one of the biggest I have ever come across even though it was hidden beneath a prickly shell. I went to the wake a week or two back and that closes the book, she’s gone.
But she is definitely not forgotten.
Marilyn you will very much be missed.
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