Grandma speaks the truth
Posted: November 6, 2011 Filed under: Life's Observations | Tags: family, hospitality, love, Memories, relationships Leave a comment
Brian’s grandmother passed away on October 16 after 98 very full years in this world. I won’t recount her history as there is already a very good description in her obituary, and I’m in awe of all she accomplished. We only shared about 14 of those 98 years together, after Brian and his extended family entered my life, but they were certainly memorable years nonetheless. Probably the traits that stood out most for me were her extravagant welcome and acceptance of people, and her natural ability to exaggerate the facts to fit how she felt about us.
From the moment Brian introduced me to Grandma (and I always called her Grandma), she immediately accepted me as part of the family. I recall some family function that Brian took me to in those early days of our dating. We had been together long enough to meet the family, but it can’t have been more than 3 or 4 months into our relationship. I had met Grandma and Grandpa, as well as his parents and brother and sister-in-law, but I had yet to meet many of the cousins and other extended family. As was the case in most those family functions, there was a cacophony of kids squealing, parents hollering, people talking, sports on the TV and a density of bodies in the family room that would most certainly have blown the fire code by a substantial margin. Amongst all this noise, Grandma silenced the room by yelling out, “Everyone, everyone, Brian has an ANNOUNCEMENT to make.” I could see Brian’s mother’s eyes widen and the room went dead silent and I think there was a collective inhale as folks started to suspect an engagement was about to be announced. This was equally surprising to Brian and I as there was no such announcement coming and these things were not even in our consciousness at this point. Brian rallied and said, “Everyone, this is Lyda. Lyda, this is everyone.” Folks quickly went back to their conversations at hand and perhaps more used to Grandma’s typical pronouncements were less thrown by this outburst than I was. Of course, in retrospect, perhaps Grandma indeed saw something in the cards that Brian and I just hadn’t figured out yet, as we were engaged before the end of the following year.
Another time, I was training to run a 10K and my training came up in conversation while we were out having dinner out with Grandma and the rest of the clan. Brian’s cousin Lyndsey showed up after us and Grandma pulled her aside and said, “Oh Lyndsey, did you know Lyda is running a marathon?!” Not sure how we got from 6 miles to 26 miles in the course of a single conversation, but by this time I had come to realize if Grandma liked you all stories got enhanced in the retelling. And again, in the end, she may have just been ahead of her time as I did indeed complete a marathon many years later.
She also told Brian and I how Brian’s cousin Brent had just taken a new job after college. According to her, he was so good with computers that after less than a week at the job, they asked him to run all the computer systems for the company. According to Brent, he was just doing inside sales and didn’t have any better computer skills than anyone else there. At this point knowing Grandma’s track record, I would say Brent’s got a bright career coming somewhere in his future.
Even when she got to the point when her memory struggled to hang onto the details of day to day life, she was always extremely glad to see Brian and me. She would tell us what a wonderful couple we were (to which Brian still maintains, “Hey, Grandma speaks the truth.”) and to come visit anytime. One more poignant episode took place when we were starting to first see signs of her impending dementia. Brian and I were staying over at their house for the weekend and I was chatting with Grandma after dinner. She looked at me and said, “Listen, you can’t stay in the guest room because Lyda and Brian are staying over tonight, but we’ve got plenty of room so please make yourself welcome.” Even in that diminished state, her sense of welcome and hospitality kept going strong.
At the time I met Grandma, I had already lost all of my own grandparents, and she took me in as if I had always been a member of the family. Brian and I chose early on not to have any children of our own and I have always been extremely grateful we never got any pressure or guilt from family about that choice. One mother’s day weekend, Grandma decided to buy geraniums for all of the mothers in the family. She just could not bring herself not to get one for me as she felt like that would have left me out, so in the blink of an eye she handed over the flowers and told me they were a gift in honor of my mother and that was that.
Grandma’s presence in my life was the true gift and I hope I can extend even a fraction of the welcome and hospitality to others that she showed to me.
Anatomy of a bar fight – or why I love my local bar
Posted: October 16, 2011 Filed under: Life's Observations Leave a commentA few weekends ago, Brian and I were at our favorite local watering hole helping a friend celebrate her birthday when a bar brawl broke out. Okay, maybe “brawl” is a bit of a strong word for what was ultimately the classic battle – two guys fighting over a girl, but a punch did get thrown, a shirt was ripped, and a candle holder was broken. Although it only lasted about 20 seconds, they were exciting seconds nonetheless. For those 20 seconds, all other sound was suspended as the rest of us absorbed just what was happening. After it was all said and done and the extremely drunk instigator was shown the door, then all conversation turned towards what had happened and who had done what during the chaos. Repeatedly, people said “let’s just stop talking about this” only to raise some other viewpoint or retell the showdown mere minutes later. Brian, being ever the risk manager, did not get involved but did rush over to move chairs out of the way to prevent further injury and/or collateral furniture damage. Only his lovable insurance-auditor-Swiss-heritage self would be so methodical in his assistance, but God love ‘im, someone has to think of the bar stools. He did say to me that he pondered for a moment what he might have done if the drunken idiot had been hassling ME. His first thought was that I could pretty much take care of myself and woe to the drunk who thought to try giving me a hard time; his second thought was this guy was way bigger than him and his only hope if push truly came to shove was to just go bezerker and hope for the best. Fortunately for everyone, that was a non issue and the Swiss in him prevailed.
A few other things stood out for me in those crucial seconds. First, a couple of the regulars, larger guys, ran over and restored order by restraining the two brawlers. These regulars kept their cool and their heads and simply stopped the two others from going at it any further. Their presence was a comfort and I regarded them both with renewed esteem. The bartender that night is a young woman who at first glance you might assume was hired for her looks. She’s young, blond, and probably one of the friendliest people you’d ever like to meet. She is relatively new to the bar-tending scene and also the owner’s daughter. But she really showed her chops when said drunkard thought he wasn’t really quite ready to leave. She looked him in the face, told him to get on out the door, and did not take no for an answer. She did not raise her voice or get excited but somehow he sensed the gravity in her voice and left without further trouble. In that moment she was the drunk-whisperer, which is a gift no bar should be without.
I think the other reason we were all so transfixed by what happened is that these kinds of things simply don’t happen at this particular watering hole. The entire vibe of this place is relaxed and for people enjoying each others company as much as anything. Sure conversations are often animated with the assistance of liquid encouragement, but in the same way you might have intense conversation with friends around the dinner table, which is what Brian and I love about this place. In fact, we generally drink modestly and Brian gets as excited by their homemade ice cream as he does by their Hendricks martinis. It struck me that evening that people who go too far and who cannot hold their liquor are bad for business. No one really wants to spend time with someone who can’t respect the boundaries of common decency or even common sense. I suppose every bar is a little different and there are those places that cater to the Carnival Cruise Line philosophy of the harder the party the better, but just because a place has “bar” in its name doesn’t mean its a place for drinking with wild abandon.
This particular bar is where Brian and I go to see our friends – people we have gotten to know far better than any other business I have ever frequented. We’ve celebrated my 40th birthday there, Brian’s 40th birthday there, our 10th wedding anniversary, and my last day at Cobalt. I have happy hours there with my girlfriends. We have taken any number of family and friends there when they come to visit in the hopes they will see some of the same magic that we do. Sometimes we go for no reason at all. But, it’s not all one way either. We have helped celebrate their birthdays, and watched them perform in shows, even had them over to our home for dinner. My former suburban self never would have even considered being so connected to people that I met “in a bar.” Happily, the Universe felt that was a misconception my life needed correcting. The people here are family.
Last weekend, we were chatting with one of the bartenders who did not happen to be working the night of the big brouhaha. He mentioned that fellow had been trouble before and it was probably only a matter of time before he had to be shown the door. I asked if that guy was “banned for life” and he said he was in his book and he did not have any patience for that kind of behavior in this place. He thought the owner might feel differently as he believed in giving people second chances, but he wasn’t so sure in this case. That comment said so much to me about both their characters and in that moment I loved them both.
If you need me, I’ll be enjoying good drinks, fine food, and laughing with my friends at the bar.
More Agony, Same Teeth
Posted: October 4, 2011 Filed under: Life's Observations | Tags: dentists, healthcare, oral surgery, smiling Leave a comment
Or, rather, same tooth – the infamous #27. Don’t know what number has been assigned to your teeth? Neither did I until I got to spend so much quality time talking about this particular tooth with various dental professionals. A lot has happened since The Agony of the Teeth and if you go back an re-read the post there is a little clue that all was not well in my final paragraph about the pain being worse after the root canal than it was before. I’m happy to report that the only real agony I’m experiencing these days is to my pocketbook and even that is more a nuisance than actual suffering. In fact, at this point this post feels a little more like it should be called, “middle class white woman whines about toothache,” but for inquiring minds here is the story…
After returning from Hawaii in March, I felt better, but not what you would call great. I was still living on ibuprofen and a few weeks after the procedure when it didn’t seem like I was improving, I called the dentist but they reported that sometimes it can take a long time to fully recover. It was a rough few weeks at work, but eventually the pain faded into the background and I moved on with my life. It was still kind of awkward to sleep on that side of my face, but I just adjusted the way I held the pillow and kind of figured that would be the new normal. Fast forward to June and I did the Seattle Rock N Roll Half-Marathon with my friend Sandy Hickey. Sandy is a photo-taking maniac and she took roughly 1 million pictures of the two of us at every stage of the race. As I was looking over them at the time I noticed that the same side of my mouth as the root canal was crooked in every picture (you can see two of the pictures in my half-marathon recap). I emailed the photos to the dentist and asked if that was something I should be worry about, and he suggested I come to see him, oh, say, right away. He took x-rays and I knew immediately that all was not right. There was a very brief, almost imperceptible, pause and for that moment all the sound (and oxygen) were sucked out of the room. I like to call it the “oh shit pause” which is the brief moment when the medical professional takes a quick breath and prepares to face the patient. When he came back around to my side of the chair, I already knew bad news was coming. That bad news was that there was ‘something’ there, a lesion (dentist-speak for they have no idea what the hell it is) and he referred me to an oral surgeon.
Off to the surgeon I go where they take another x-ray. The technician announces that he’s sure I’ll need a CT scan, then proceeds to take my blood pressure where he remarks that it is a little high. Maybe in his universe CT scans are no big deal, but in my world, that is something scary that only happens on TV shows like House (and if you watch that show you know bad stuff always happens in the CT and MRI machines). I meet the surgeon and he shows me the “thing” on the x-ray and says (surprise, surprise) that I need a CT scan. Another referral, this time to radiology. The upshot is that it could be a variety of things, but regardless it has to come out, and good ‘ol #27 is at risk for having to be removed altogether, but we’re all optimistic so we’ll leave it (for now). On August 26, I had minor surgery and had what turned out to be a garden variety cyst removed. Ironically, the recovery from the surgery was much easier than the root canal. I did not need anything other than ibuprofen for the pain, and even that was minimal. Eating was a challenge with the stitches, but aside from one ill-fated attempt to eat a grape, I managed quite well on chocolate shakes and mashed potatoes. Today, I am pain free. My jaw is still a little stiff and I do still use my modified pillow sleeping position, but there is a lot of work going on in there as the hole left behind heals itself and it will take a few months for everything to go completely back to normal. My smile is much improved if not exactly symmetrical just yet. The surgeon told me to come back and see him in 6 months (March 2012) and if all goes well, it will be a boring visit and we can officially stop obsessing over #27.
I recently went back to my regular dentist for my 6-month check (amazing to think this whole process has been going on for that long) and of course I had to cap it all off with a couple of cavities, so I got to see him two days in a row. The dentist remarked I must really love him since I come to see him so much and I told him, nothing personal, but I didn’t want to see him again until next year thank-you-very-much.
In my typical style, I have been anxious to share my woes with anyone and everyone, but in what must be a cosmic lesson of some sort, every time I have started to talk about it I discover that the person I’m with has suffered injuries or surgeries far more extensive or serious than me. In what has to be one of my most classic foot-in mouth blunders, I was blathering on to my hair dresser about how I had maxed out my dental insurance and was having to pay the rest out of pocket. I caught myself and commented that she must not even have dental insurance and she told me, in fact, she has no health insurance at all. I won’t rant about healthcare in America. Okay, maybe just a teeny rant – I don’t have all (any of) the answers to how to manage healthcare, but there is something that somehow seems fundamentally wrong with the notion that on top of having to cope with whatever medical ailment you have, the uninsured have to also cope with how they will pay for their care, or if they can actually afford to get any.
No vacation for you…
Posted: September 28, 2011 Filed under: Leadership, Life's Observations | Tags: happiness, leadership, vacation, work-life balance Leave a commentBecause I work in Social Media and because I am kind of a dork for articles about leadership-type stuff, I follow the Harvard Business Review blog and found this little gem on how Work and Vacation Should Go Together.The author, Ron Ashkenas, suggests perhaps we should accept the fact that folks spend time working when they are theoretically off the clock or even when they are on vacation:
Maybe we need to accept the fact that the sharp demarcation between work and home is a thing of the past, and that the new normal is a life that integrates home and work more seamlessly.
I will confess I tend to check my work emails in the evening and it’s not unusual that I’ll wrap up a project after I get home, but I have to draw the line when it comes to my vacations. I am a vacation junky. I use my vacation time as fast as I can earn it. I love to travel and I’m as likely to take a Friday off to take a quick weekend trip when the airfares are good as I am to take a week off and run to Hawaii for the same reason. I cherish that time away and part of what makes it special is that it is MY time. I work hard and long the rest of the days, so why would I want to pollute my chance to take a break with a conference call?
Ashkenas goes on to say
…we can stop feeling guilty about scheduling calls during our vacations or checking our emails at night
How about not feeling guilty and also not scheduling calls during vacations? I believe this kind of thinking sets a dangerous precedent that we are so important that work can’t survive without us. That simply is not true. If you have someone to back you up, good documentation, and a well-oiled team that you trust; they actually hum along just fine without you – they might even get a few extra things done when you’re gone. Or maybe they have to scratch their heads and puzzle a little over how to solve a problem in your absence. But is that such a horrible thing – for your team to have to stretch and challenge themselves?
Some people fear the mountain of work that will await them when they get back if they don’t check in while they are gone. I will tell you a little secret from someone who does not check even one email when I am on vacation. Emails do pile up, but with an out of office reply that informs people you are out, not checking email, and where they can get help, there is a point of diminishing returns. Somewhere in the middle of being gone, people stop emailing you because they already know you aren’t there and/or how to get the answers they need. Mostly what I am doing when I get back and am facing the mountain is deleting or filing emails that have already been dealt with – maybe that does take an investment of time when I first return to the office, but it’s a good way to catch up on what I missed and the small amount of time it takes to do the email clean-up far outweighs the cost of trying to field all those emails while you are out of the office.
Also, for me as a leader and a manager within my company, I believe my actions send as loud or louder a message than anything I say. If I spend all my time on vacation checking in, checking email, attempting to “integrate” my work and my vacation, then I am sending a message loud and clear to my people that they aren’t allowed to take real vacations either. In Go Ahead, Take that Break, author Whitney Johnson says it well when she notes:
We may think we’re being responsive, even impressive, when we send work-related e-mails at midnight, on the weekend, or vacation, but those who work for us will see us as establishing a norm. If you will take some real down-time without the constant tug of technology or a to-do list absorbing your thoughts, you will give your employees permission to do the same.
There seems to be some sentiment in American work culture these days that says if we stop for even a moment to take a break that we will lose all our momentum and spend all our time scrambling to catch back up to ourselves. I think that is frankly poppycock and comes from some place of fear, not reason. It’s been shown time and time again that periods of rest actually make us more productive. Instead of integration of our work and our rest, I think we need to reclaim our ability to stop and smell the flowers once in awhile. And in the camp of an oldy, but a goody, No one ever said on their deathbed,”I wish I had spent more time in the office.”
Do I know just how overweight I am?
Posted: September 27, 2011 Filed under: Life's Observations, Weight Management | Tags: being overweight, journeys, making changes, weight loss 1 CommentFor me, truthfully, the answer is often no, I don’t really realize it much of the time. I am generally happy and healthy, I am an active person who does the things that are important to me (like a marathon in 2010). I have a husband who thinks I am beautiful and sexy regardless of my size. I have a good community of friends. I have a job that I enjoy and where I am professionally well-respected. My “numbers” are good – as in I don’t have high blood pressure, or high blood sugar, my cholesterol is perhaps a little high but I don’t take any medications for anything. Generally speaking, I can function pretty well in a bubble of oblivion about my weight. Most of the time.
But there are reminders that burst that bubble. After I went north of the 200lb mark, I pretty much quit 
standing on the scale, so there is one rather scary number I already know is not good, but I still don’t want to face. Anytime I have to buy clothes, I am painfully aware of my current weight. Any remaining delusion about my size or the size of the clothes was lost now that I can only fit into Women’s sizes. I saw a cute marathon jacket at the pre-race Expo in June, but their largest size was still too small. I didn’t like buying jeans or pants back when I wore a size 12, and now that those digits are reversed the experience is mostly an exercise in self-humiliation. Photographs are another touchy subject and when I look at them I am often shocked by what I see and wonder if that is really what I look like “in real life.”
And while my numbers are technically good, there have been impacts on my health. I have a chronic hip joint injury from that infamous marathon I did and while my weight may or may not have contributed to the injury, I know that my recovery would have been greatly improved by losing weight. I also have occasional issues with indigestion that didn’t exist when I was thinner that I am quite confident are weight-related.
I am constantly thinking that I am going to start a new diet, go back to Weight Watchers, start journaling, start this or start that. Just this week, I was looking for some paper to jot down a note for work and I found a page in the back of my notebook that I had written almost exactly a year ago. On it, in writing, were the same goals I told myself this weekend that I was going to commit myself to – being more active, eating smaller portions, eating more vegetables, and eating less sweets and junk food. And I even had some specific milestones to hold myself accountable. Why didn’t I follow through? I don’t really know. I could point to any number of changes in my life that may have triggered the initial downfall, but the slide seems to now have a life of its own. I was particularly moved by the sentiments expressed by Kara Curtis in One Woman’s Struggle to Shed Weight, and Shame:
“It’s a very schizophrenic relationship we have with obesity,” Curtis says. “I understand it as addiction, but then there’s also this other piece of me that knows that there is a lack of willingness on my part. So really, who’s to blame for that?”
I have been successful in losing weight in the past and so I know I have the tools to repeat that success again in the future. I am not sure what will turn the tide for me from contemplation into action, and perhaps this post will be a small step in the right direction. Or at least it’s a reminder that I still care enough – to care about trying.
Put your blog where your mouth is – or stop talking about it and just blog already…
Posted: September 26, 2011 Filed under: Life's Observations | Tags: blogging, Social Media, writer's block 1 Comment
I follow Seth Godin’s Blog and sometimes I agree with him, sometimes I don’t, but I couldn’t really argue much with his recent post on Talker’s block. The basic premise of the article is captured in the first two sentences:
No one ever gets talker’s block. No one wakes up in the morning, discovers he has nothing to say and sits quietly, for days or weeks, until the muse hits, until the moment is right, until all the craziness in his life has died down.
Seth maintains that because talking all the time is a habit and a regular occurrence, so we get good at it through all that practice, and we also don’t worry so much about it coming back to haunt us. So he says the cure for writer’s block is to practice-practice-practice and aim at being better, not being perfect:
Just write poorly. Continue to write poorly, in public, until you can write better.
As fate would have it (maybe there is a muse afterall??), I also happen to be reading Roger Ebert’s book, Life Itself. I highlighted a phrase from the book where Roger receives some writing advice in the beginning of his career as a reporter:
One, don’t wait for inspiration, just start the damned thing. Two, once you begin, keep on until the end.
I have been thinking about coming back to this blog for quite a while now, and have also thought up a couple of good post ideas, but never managed to actually do anything with all that great thinking. It amazes me how often what I need to get going again, on whatever it is I’m procrastinating about at the moment, is often SHOUTING at me if I only open my eyes and ears and pay attention. Clearly, the message I needed to hear was ‘just shut-up and write in your blog already.” So, here I am back in the saddle writing and trying to do my best to suck less.
For those of you willing to go along for the ride – in the immortal words of Bette Davis, “Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night!”
image courtesy of Aura983 via Creative Commons.
Seattle Rock N Roll Half-Marathon recap (in half the words)
Posted: July 19, 2011 Filed under: Life's Observations 2 CommentsCommon courtesy is that after your friends, family, and one very kind-hearted stranger donate their hard
-earned money to a fabulous charity, on behalf of your hare-brained and ongoing compulsion to do endurance events for reasons unknown, that you tie up all the loose ends and tell them how the event actually went down. For all they know at this point, maybe I didn’t even show up… In case anyone is getting nervous at this point, I did show up and successfully put in my 13.1 miles. And just in case you missed me talking about it ad naseum, here is a picture of my walking buddy Sandy and me with our finisher medals.
Last year I wrote the world’s longest recap and recounted every moment of those life-changing 26.2 miles. This year I was thinking maybe I would go a different way and in half the words (or less) share a few select moments that stood out.
My walking buddy, Sandy, and I planned to walk together but also both agreed that the event is ultimately a personal experience. So, in that light, if one of us had to stop off for a pit stop the other one would keep going and hopefully we would catch up. Around mile 5, Sandy cut off to take advantage of reasonably short port-a-potty lines (Side note, these events have notoriously long lines – two years before at another half-marathon I watched hundreds of runners go by me while I waited impatiently in line…). As agreed, I kept going. I did slow down to a more casual pace, thinking she would easily catch up to me, but eventually I realized that wasn’t going to happen, so I picked back up the pace and figured I was on my own. Then nature knocked on my door, and I ducked off the trail to a park restroom about a mile later. When I got back to the course, Sandy was about 20 feet ahead of me, as if we had planned it that way. We stayed together the rest of the way along the course and over the finish line. This may not seem like much, but when you are sharing an event with over 25,000 other people, reconnecting like that is far from a given.
The other moment that stands out for me was around Mile 12. We bumped into Coach Siri and it is always very motivational to see the coaches. For whatever reason, it always puts a little extra pep in my step. After the requisite Sandy photo op, we headed to the viaduct where the race splits and the half marathon goes left towards the finish line and the full marathon turns right for another 12 miles. I was getting tired and my hips were sore, but I experienced a brief moment of pure joy that I was able to go left and did not have to continue on for another 12 miles (in case you think my math is wrong, the courses do not match each other exactly). In fact, I may have enjoyed that moment more than actually crossing the finish line. As monumental as my marathon experience was last year, I was really VERY happy not to be doing it again this year.
I got to the finish line and after chatting with my other TNT teammates, Brian took me home where I practically dove head first into an ice bath (the only time this season that Brian got the pleasure of recreating “Lyda on the rocks”). I was never in imminent danger of being booted off the course like I had been last year and enjoyed Sandy’s company as well as seeing the bands and cheerleaders. This being my third time at this event, the course was familiar, and I felt a quiet sense of satisfaction in accomplishing my training goal. I was mildly disappointed to finish in just over 4 hours when I had hoped to come in just under that, but as my new non-stranger friend, Steve Bralla, reminded me – whatever time I finished in I would have wished it would have been faster, or my form better, or… So the best we can do is to find a way to be comfortable with not ever really being fully satisfied in our performance, which ironically is the very thing that drives our success in the first place.
Finally, if I haven’t expressed it adequately already, THANK YOU to everyone who has so generously supported me in this effort. I literally could not do this without your help and the fact that so many of you have stepped up more than once makes me even that much more and I am humbled by your donations on my behalf.
I guess I will recount one other memory. As many of you know, I walked this event in memory of my friend Gil, who lost his battle with Leukemia a couple of years ago. Gil was, well, a weird dude and life was rarely dull or normal if you spent any amount of time with him. He was not a runner and probably would have found a half-marathon a rather mundane event. Later that day, Brian and I were driving back from the store and we encountered a group of people in bright multi-colored body suits that covered their heads and even down to their fingers, riding old fashioned bicycles (with bells and baskets on the front) across the intersection. This was nowhere near the race course and was hours after the event finished, and it had to be one of the most random things I had seen all day (or any other day for that matter). It was frankly a rather Fellini-esque moment. I could not help but think of Gil and smile.
Image courtesy of prayitno
Life is too short to be anything other than absurd
Posted: July 16, 2011 Filed under: Life's Observations | Tags: happiness, journeys, relationships Leave a commentI cannot get enough of this video and post on The Bloggess of Jenny Lawson talking about taking happiness into your own hands. It’s only 6 minutes long and soooo well worth the time, so please go check it out and then, well, go and start your own zombie apocalypse.
I will confess I wish I could be more outrageous like Jenny, but the reality is that I am more like the group of folks she mentions who sit on the sidelines and observe. Don’t get me wrong, I am a big fan of people who walk on the weird side and I have been told that my sense of what is funny can be rather random and eclectic. I also have an unusually large collection of Brian holding martini glass pictures on my cell phone that I’m fond of sending to people after I’ve had a martini or two, but that’s generally about as crazy as I get. Fortunately for Brian, I am not going to go out and buy a 5 foot tall metal chicken to put on our doorstep or start a Twitter campaign against William Shatner, but this will certainly make me stop and think before I choose work over fun. It will encourage me to choose going out with my friends over staying in because I already (or still…) have my PJ’s on, and it will reinforce my belief that we have the ability to choose whether we are laughing or crying at life’s slings and arrows.
One other point I will make is in regards to her recounting the story of giving gift cards to the first 20 people who asked on her blog, and then having her readers – total strangers – volunteer to gift card #21, 22, and on up to $45,000 worth of donations. I too have been blown away by the kindness of strangers. I only had 1 in my case, but as I shared in The world would be a better place if more people said thank you, the generosity of someone I had never met resulted in a $100 donation to LLS on my behalf.
As a card carrying member of the glass half-full club, in spite of all the darkness and pain, people are pretty amazing – and don’t we all have the right to be furiously happy?
image courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/people/bfurnace/
Meet Gil, and then make a donation
Posted: March 12, 2011 Filed under: Life's Observations, Team in Training | Tags: Friendship, Half Marathon, Leukemia and Lymphoma, Memories Leave a commentLast year when I did the full-on marathon with Team in Training, I did the event in honor of my friend, Nick. Thinking about Nick’s journey to recovery helped keep my feet pounding the pavement far beyond when my brain had gotten tired of running and the rest of me wanted to go home. His story was an inspiration to me and I think knowing that he was alive and well was an element of that inspiration. As most of you know, this year I’m taking on a different challenge and trying to be a little more patient with myself as I walk a half marathon.
I considered not dedicating the training to anyone in particular, but my thoughts kept drifting back to my friend Gil. Unfortunately, Gil’s story does not have a happy ending – he died in 2008 from Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia at the age of 41, leaving behind a wife and 6 year old son. I have often commented on the brutality of the way Leukemia afflicts such young people, and I guess this situation isn’t really any different. Is it not just as brutal for a young son to lose his father? Sadly, when Gil passed away, I had not been in touch with him in almost 8 years and I had no idea he was living just across the state in Spokane, let alone battling Leukemia.
I met Gil when we were both in college at the University of Kansas. He was a graduate student in the Department of Geography and I was an undergrad working in the department office, also studying Geography. In some random way, I don’t really remember now, he also wound up living in the same apartment building as me and my then boyfriend (soon to be first husband), Steve. I guess because our daily lives intersected so much at both school and home, we spent countless hours together with Gil and his girlfriend, Lisa, who was also a friend. Gil was a night owl and would often call or show up at 10 or 11pm to see if we wanted to play Spades or Hearts, and I have many memories of long nights of playing cards and laughing until our faces ached.
You see, Gil was the oddest human being I have ever met. He enjoyed being outrageous to the point of being absurd. He told me once that he yelled out at some women in a car next to him, “I bet you don’t even sleep with the sheets on!” No one knew what that was supposed to mean, not even Gil. He loved to make crazy movies that also did not make any sense. I happen to have a few on VHS (that sadly I can’t watch any more since I no longer have a VCR) and in one he runs around the campus sneaking up on people with a large piece sheepskin on his head and filming their reactions. He was very hot headed and if he got mad during one of our card games, he would scream and yell and get red in the face, but a few nights later he would be knocking at our door again to play cards and as near as I can recall, we always played. He often accused me of having a ‘difficult’ sense of humor and would do things he thought were funny that I would often only find amusing. This would frustrate him to no end and he would get weirder and weirder trying to see if he could get me to actually laugh out loud.
After we all left college, we stayed in touch off and on over the years. I got married, then divorced, and spent many years of my career as a road warrior. There were countless times that I called Gil from some random hotel room and we would spend hours talking on the phone about nothing in particular. He would give me quizzes with questions like whether I thought it was funnier for someone to die by having their guts fall out or whether it was funnier for someone else to die by having guts fall on them. (Again, no one ever knew where he came up with this stuff or what it meant.) It was sometime during these years that I developed quite a crush on him. He was crazy, and handsome, as well as a very loyal friend. I saw him a few times when he lived in California and had high hopes for something more, but his feelings were always strictly platonic. I now admire his ability to maintain our friendship and still make it clear that he was never going to be interested in me in any other way, even if it frustrated me at the time.
We drifted apart and I met and married Brian. He lived in Japan and eventually married a Japanese woman, Keiko. He invited us to his wedding in Florida, which we attended (and I am now of the opinion that one should never pass up wedding invitations – it’s not the first time I have rekindled a friendship over a wedding invitation). In May of 2000 Brian and I planned a trip to China to visit my father and stepmother and decided to stop in Tokyo and visit Gil and Keiko. We did a few touristy type things, but my fondest memory of that trip was playing Hearts and laughing way into the night. That was the last time I saw Gil. We may have traded an email or two after that, but Gil wasn’t much of one for email and Japan was simply too far away for hours-long phone calls. Life moved on and we went our separate ways, although I always expected we would reconnect again as we had so many other times over the years. I had no idea he had started a family, no idea he had moved back to the US, and I certainly had no idea that he battled Leukemia for years, including some rather intense treatment sessions. Instead I learned of his death from his old girlfriend Lisa, who when we spoke simply said the world just didn’t seem quite right without Gil in it and she could not have said truer words.
So, my friends, cherish your friendships – reach out to someone you haven’t talked to in awhile (because you don’t always get second chances) and please make a donation to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society on my behalf, so that 6 year olds don’t have to lose their dad, wives don’t have to lose their husband, and friends don’t have to lose each other.
Walk on, Lyda
See Lyda Run 