TheBanyanTree: A Five Year Anniversary

[Sally Larwood]

And what you say says it for me too Pam. This tribute to Stew is inspirational. Thinking of you today Monique. 

Sal 

Sent from my iPad 

On 01/06/2013, at 7:58, Pam Lawley <pamj.lawley at gmail.com> wrote:

> I have learned so very much from Monique and Stew - about mental illness,
> and so much more.  But when I try to put into words what happens when I
> read her writing - well, words seem to fail me.  Thank you Jim for climbing
> into my head and finding those words!!  You put it so exactly!
> 
> Every word Monique writes moves me.
> 
> And this was a beautiful tribute from an amazing person!
> 
> 
> On Fri, May 31, 2013 at 5:24 PM, Jim Miller <jim at maze.cc> wrote:
> 
>> I wrote Monique privately; we're still doing taxes, but I must say this for
>> you who are listening:
>> 
>> Every word Monique writes moves me. This tribute was at least a times 3. It
>> was a most beautiful and poignant remembrance.
>> 
>> Jim
>> 
>> 
>> On Fri, May 31, 2013 at 2:19 PM, Theta Brentnall <tybrent at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> 
>>> Thank you, Monique.  You said it just right.
>>> 
>>> Theta
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On 5/31/2013 12:24 PM, Monique Colver wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Five years ago today I stood at the bedside of Stew Young and held his
>>>> head
>>>> while he died.
>>>> 
>>>> That sounds overly dramatic and sad, when I say it like that. How about
>>>> this:
>>>> 
>>>> Five years ago today I had a very bad day. For Stew, it was the last
>> very
>>>> bad day in a long line of them.
>>>> 
>>>> After years of living with mental illness, it was cancer that got him.
>> I’m
>>>> never sure if I should be participating in cancer walks or mental
>> illness
>>>> walks. Stew would find that amusing.
>>>> 
>>>> But Stew should not be remembered as the guy with a mental illness, or
>> the
>>>> guy with cancer. Those were not his primary traits, those were things
>> that
>>>> happened to him, and those things don’t tell us anything about him. None
>>>> of
>>>> us are defined by the things that happen to us, by the illnesses and
>>>> accidents and events that distract us as we go from here to there. We
>> are
>>>> not those things.
>>>> 
>>>> Stew was a writer. He co-authored the book we wrote, though it wasn’t
>>>> published until several years after his death. The delay was my fault,
>> not
>>>> his. He was a good writer, but not, as he would happily concede, as good
>>>> as
>>>> me. I’m not sure that’s grammatically correct, but I said I was a good
>>>> writer, not an excellent one. We would argue about comma placement,
>>>> punctuation being one of the ways we kept the rules of the world
>> straight.
>>>> 
>>>> He made me laugh. Even when things were at their worst and I didn’t know
>>>> how I was going to pay both the rent and utilities, not to mention his
>>>> meds, he would make me laugh. It helped me get through the times he
>> wasn’t
>>>> all there with me, when his mind would be in such chaos that he couldn’t
>>>> function at all, when he could only think of harming himself, or when
>>>> there
>>>> was no expression at all. I always had hope that the person he was would
>>>> come back out and he would make me laugh again, and he always did.
>>>> 
>>>> The laughter was often in relief, but still, we take what we can get.
>>>> 
>>>> He had an amazing relationship with his parents. When they couldn’t
>>>> understand his illness, because they had no experience of it, they
>> learned
>>>> everything they could. They were always supportive of him, of me too,
>> and
>>>> all they wanted was the son they knew to come back from wherever he’d
>>>> gone.
>>>> And Stew just wanted to make them proud. He did, of course, because they
>>>> loved him no matter what – it wasn’t conditional upon anything.
>>>> 
>>>> Stew was intelligent, so very intelligent. His dream job was to analyze
>>>> data and make it into something meaningful. Or being a screenwriter. One
>>>> or
>>>> the other. Something other than the crazy guy on disability. He was
>>>> politically conservative (to my dismay), loved corporations and big
>> pharma
>>>> (who he credited with keeping him from complete destruction), and loved
>> to
>>>> debate online.
>>>> 
>>>> He loved our dog, Honey, though when she first moved in he thought,
>>>> because
>>>> of her inherent Chowness and love of me, that it wouldn’t work out. But
>> of
>>>> course it did, and when she stayed with him she slept on his bed, and he
>>>> would do anything for her. She gave him a sense of responsibility, and
>> she
>>>> gave him a reason to go out when he mostly wanted to hide from the
>> world.
>>>> But the dog had to be walked, and though he’d often come back and tell
>> me
>>>> of the things he’d seen that didn’t really exist, it was good for him.
>>>> 
>>>> He’d learned to live with the hallucinations, and later on they
>> subsided.
>>>> The voices were worse because they told him things no one should have to
>>>> hear, and fighting voices coming from inside one’s head is so much
>> harder
>>>> than those coming from another person. It’s hard when you can’t tell if
>>>> it’s you or them, when they’re telling you that you deserve to die and
>> you
>>>> know it’s not you, but the voices are inside of you, and they’re demons.
>>>> 
>>>> I can’t imagine it. The voices telling me I’m unworthy were implanted
>> long
>>>> ago, and I know, mostly, that while they’re a part of me, they’re not
>>>> necessarily accurate.
>>>> 
>>>> Sometimes he forgot that life wasn’t all bad, and so I’d watch, and
>> wait,
>>>> and when he laughed or smiled or was having a good moment I’d turn on
>> him
>>>> and say, “Hah! Look at that!” It was so easy for him to forget that in a
>>>> life filled with pain, there were still plenty of shiny happy moments.
>>>> There was still the light bouncing off the Sound, the dog who would let
>>>> you
>>>> cuddle with her, books to read, pizza, watching me eat crab (which he
>>>> always found amusing), and even the dark clouds of a Seattle day, heavy
>>>> with rain and the promise of a good cleansing. He loved the dark grey
>>>> days.
>>>> 
>>>>  He loved his family, his friends, his dogs, and me. Later, he loved my
>>>> new
>>>> husband. That’s how he was –he wanted me to be happy. He always wanted
>>>> that, no matter what happened between us. When people rejected him
>> because
>>>> of his illness he would react with anger, because it made him sad. Stew
>>>> was
>>>> always willing to help people, always seeing the good side of people. He
>>>> fought his battles the best he could, and he had plenty of battles to
>>>> fight.
>>>> 
>>>> A day or so before he died he told me he was afraid of doing it wrong.
>> Of
>>>> dying, that is, as if there’s a right way and a wrong way, as if the
>>>> process should come with some sort of instruction manual. That’s how he
>>>> was, he wanted to do things the right way, the proper way. I told him
>> that
>>>> he was going do it just fine, that there was no wrong way to go about
>> it,
>>>> and that so far, he’d done everything just right.
>>>> 
>>>> Sometimes just doing things the only way we know how is the only right
>>>> way.
>>>> 
>>>> No one with mental illness is just that person with mental illness. It’s
>>>> just something that happened to them.
>>>> 
>>>> It’s what we do with what happens to us that matters.
>>>> 
>>>> Stew wrote because he wanted people with mental illness to know they
>>>> weren’t alone, and he wanted people without mental illness to know what
>> it
>>>> was like. He wanted to increase our awareness, and he wanted others to
>> not
>>>> have to go through some of the things he did.
>>>> 
>>>> But mostly he liked people to be happy, and he liked to laugh and get
>>>> others to laugh. He loved his family and his friends. That was his
>> thing.
>>>> On this day I remember him for his life, not his death. It was his life
>>>> that mattered, and death was just something that happened to him.
>>>> 
>>>> Laugh. Be happy. Look for the rays of light.
>>>> *
>>>> *
>>>> *We appreciate your referrals!*
>>>> 
>>>> Monique Colver
>>>> Colver Business Solutions
>>>> www.colverbusinesssolutions.**com<
>> http://www.colverbusinesssolutions.com>
>>>> monique.colver at gmail.com
>>>> (425) 772-6218
>>>> .
>>