TheBanyanTree: A Life Lived Online

[Monique]

Sally really is.

I am not.

By the way, Sal, I don't think we take PayPal, but you can send me money by Paypal and I can add it manually. I did that with a check my cousin gave me Friday.

Monique
Sent using alien technology

> On Dec 23, 2013, at 11:45 AM, Indiglow <indiglow at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> 
> You are such a sweet and loving soul!
> J
> 
> 
> ________________________________
> From: Sally Larwood <larwos at me.com>
> To: A comfortable place to meet other people and exchange your own *original* writings. <thebanyantree at lists.remsset.com> 
> Sent: Monday, December 16, 2013 2:34 PM
> Subject: Re: TheBanyanTree: A Life Lived Online
> 
> 
> 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
>>>