TheBanyanTree: A Life Lived Online

[Sally Larwood]

Your in laws crack me up!

Sal 

Sent from my iPad 

> On 4 Dec 2013, at 7:50, Monique Colver <monique.colver at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Yeah, let's magic it away.
> 
> I don't think it sounds lame. I think it sounds thoughtful and nice.
> Comforting. I just can't do it myself. If anyone were to pray for me, I'd
> thank them for thinking of me. Apparently, so my father-in-law says, and he
> IS a lawyer, praying is what we all need to do, and God will give us what
> we ask for. Or he won't, but He has his reasons. Heck, my mother-in-law was
> cured of cancer! She knows she had cancer because she FELT IT, and then she
> felt it leave her. All because she prayed.
> 
> I also think my in-laws are full of crap, so take that for what it's worth.
> 
> 
> We all do what works best for us.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *We appreciate your referrals!*
> 
> Monique Colver
> Colver Business Solutions
> www.colverbusinesssolutions.com
> monique.colver at gmail.com
> (425) 772-6218
> 
> 
>> On Tue, Dec 3, 2013 at 11:01 AM, Linda DeMerle <Twigllet at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> What a great story!
>> 
>> I have also noticed how, when things go south, people tend to pull
>> together.  Compassion, I think it may be called, or something like that.
>> 
>> People told my mother to imagine white light surrounding her and her
>> cancerous lungs and she could will it to go away.  Three weeks later, she
>> was dead, so it either backfired or just plain didn't work.
>> 
>> I don't like to tell people I am praying, usually, because I know how lame
>> it sounds to people who don't believe.  So, while it may mean something to
>> the sayer, I don't see how it comforts the one needing comforting, but I do
>> say it when I can't come up with anything  more eloquent, because I do
>> think of people and their sorrows, although my views on prayer may differ
>> wildly from some schools which guarantee that if one asks God to do
>> something, it is automatically fixed.  If that were true, nothing terribly
>> awful would happen to us.  Mostly, I meditate on being able to accept
>> things which happen and that certain people will open their minds and grow.
>> When it comes right down to it, I think the truth is that I don't expect
>> prayer to work until what others are praying for happens, and then I am not
>> only surprised, but a little ashamed.  But, heck, I don't have a crystal
>> ball, as doctors love to say.
>> 
>> Anyway, distress begs for consolation.  You're really very good at that.
>> 
>> xox
>> L
>> 
>> 
>> On Dec 3, 2013, at 1:17 PM, Monique Colver <monique.colver at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> 
>>> Not mine, of course, though it may seem like it.
>>> 
>>> I'm on this list. Not this list, another list. I've been on there for
>> years
>>> -- it's for people in my profession -- bookkeepers, accountants, CPA's,
>>> EA's, etc. I've been on there for so long that after my surgery in the
>>> distant past a group from the list sent me flowers. Some of us have met,
>>> some of us are friends, some of us are friends but haven't met yet.
>>> 
>>> There's a guy on the list. There's always a guy. He shares everything
>>> that's going on with his life, and many people find him insufferable not
>>> from the sharing, but because he's often a key troublemaker when
>> political
>>> discussions go awry. There aren't supposed to be any political
>> discussions,
>>> but they pop up now and then. He's annoying enough with his
>> pronouncements
>>> that I've considered switching sides merely because I don't like being on
>>> his side.
>>> 
>>> But that's a pretty weak excuse for switching my political persuasion,
>> so I
>>> haven't. But this guy . . . he was a history major in college, so he's
>>> certain he knows everything and those who disagree with him are
>>> fearmongerers (?) and not paying attention. And when it's pointed out to
>>> him that he's often the problem, he doesn't get it, his level of
>>> comprehension often being not as much as is required.
>>> 
>>> A couple of years ago he shared that he had a girlfriend, Shannon, and
>> that
>>> they were going to get married.
>>> 
>>> He kept us apprised of their march toward the altar. Many wished him
>> well.
>>> 
>>> He keeps us notified of scifi marathons and classic radio shows. He talks
>>> about how well done some tv shows are, like the Walking Dead (which I've
>>> never seen, despite my love of zombies).
>>> 
>>> He told us of a car accident he was in where the other driver, who had
>>> caused the accident, was killed. That shook him up.
>>> 
>>> He told us when he married Shannon.
>>> 
>>> Then Shannon got pregnant! While some of us may have thought, "poor kid,"
>>> we congratulated him.
>>> 
>>> He talked of his wife often, and her pregnancy.
>>> 
>>> He emailed me once and asked if my book would offend his wife. She's a
>>> psychiatric nurse and he thought I might be in the business of bashing
>>> people in the industry. He's oblivious to what goes on around him in the
>>> wider world. I told him I didn't know if it would offend her, or if she'd
>>> like it, that I really couldn't tell him. So he didn't buy the book, and
>> no
>>> big deal to me. It was just a strange question, I thought.
>>> 
>>> Shannon got transferred to a remote location, as if West Virginia itself
>>> weren't remote enough. Now they were moving to a remoter place.
>>> 
>>> He wrote about his struggle with his business, how he didn't know how to
>> go
>>> remote with his clients, and he kept asking the same marketing questions
>>> year after year until some people threw up their hands in impatience.
>>> 
>>> The baby was born, and he often talked of taking care for her while he
>> was
>>> working.
>>> 
>>> The baby's not yet a year old.
>>> 
>>> And Shannon, a lifelong nonsmoker, was diagnosed with lung cancer, and
>> they
>>> couldn't fix it, they could only slow it down.
>>> 
>>> And this guy is faced with losing his wife and having a small baby who
>>> won't remember much of her mother.
>>> 
>>> The other day she went to the hospital to have her lungs drained, and
>> they
>>> found more cancer they hadn't known about.
>>> 
>>> They're getting a second opinion.
>>> 
>>> Meanwhile, people send emails telling him they can beat it if they will
>>> just think positively.
>>> 
>>> We're a stubborn people, us humans. That's probably a good thing, but if
>> I
>>> ever get cancer, which is likely with my family history, and people tell
>> me
>>> that I can just think it away, I'm likely to virtually smack them upside
>>> the head.
>>> 
>>> I've never smacked anyone anywhere except in self-defense, so that's
>> really
>>> not likely. I'm more talk than bite.
>>> 
>>> I can't add to the chorus of "We're praying for you!" because I don't do
>>> that, but I can hope her cancer goes into spontaneous remission and then
>>> goes away by magic. I hope the same for another friend on the east coast
>>> who also has a terminal lung cancer. And another friend's daughter on
>> that
>>> same list, who has been fighting cancer for six years. It just keeps
>>> getting worse and they've removed much of her. She has three children,
>> two
>>> of them not much older than the cancer. They're all young, all these
>> women.
>>> 
>>> We're no longer bound by geography, by a closeness in knowing people
>>> face-to-face. We live in a world where Don's sadness can be shared with a
>>> group of people all over the US and Canada, some of whom don't care for
>>> him, but when someone's faced with the horrible things that happen in
>> life
>>> that doesn't matter so much. We're all of us united against the common
>>> enemy. We hope for the best for those we know, even if they've annoyed us
>>> in the past. We can transcend social constructs and meaningless barriers
>> if
>>> we just listen.
>>> 
>>> M
>> 
>>