TheBanyanTree: A Life Lived Online

[Sally Larwood]

I saw that on FB but didn't realise what it was about. Good on you Monique. A worthwhile cause.  Great that people are contributing. Can we use paypal?

Sal 

Sent from my iPad 

> On 17 Dec 2013, at 9:06, Monique Colver <monique.colver at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> His wife died Friday while in the hospital. She never got to go home.
> 
> I've started a fundraising campaign for their daughter's education find. So
> far, we've raised over 2k.
> 
> Monique
>> On Dec 3, 2013 10:17 AM, "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
>>