I sit here about to enter a full blown illness. It has been sneaking up on me for nearly a week. Headaches brought on by: fuel oil spills in my work area, caused by severely poor maintenance and real age of equipment, other chain smoking employees chain smoking in the work area— in contradiction to town by-laws and new legislation in the province and others, and of course real illness. I have not been sick in a good while, about 23 months exactly and I guess I am due, but it is happening at a very bad time. A dear friend needs me.
Need means something beyond want. I this case she wants me to watch their house and cats while she is gone. She does not know when she will be back, but when a friend asks you something like this you do not say that you are getting sick and you would rather not, you just do it, because the situation is more important than slight personal inconvenience.
My dear friend has had a rough couple of years, rougher than the couple of years before that, which were rougher than most people's, so I know that I will do anything to make her life easier in this time of stress. I know that some people who know me, who read this, can figure out who I am talking about, but I would harken for them to pay close attention: my friend is 19 years older than me and thus she is a window into what life might be like for them or people that they know at her age and the problems that will happen to them; prepare yourself!
I can't get a date in this town, I might be too picky– not willing to date people that are not close to my own political ideals, nor having any interests in common, not able to date women twenty years younger because I would then be a creepy old man, even though for some odd reason there are lots of women that age that fit my interests and political leanings. BUT, as I said get some perspective, my friend needs me. In the last two years alone, she has found out that seven friends that she was close to, twenty years ago, had all died in the space of a few months.
I have a friend who is twenty years my junior, who caught an extremely horrible affliction called Faith, and is following her faith into ruin, willingly. Boy friend who can't find work because he is unemployable, but she still insisted that condoms are evil and abortions are worse and God wanted her to get pregnant, because if he didn't, it wouldn't have happened! I want to rush in and save her, but she does not want my help, even though she needs more help than my friend that needs me now. Perspective: in the last nine months, her best (from childhood) friend's husband, whom she was good friends with for over fifty years died. Her adopted sister, read that as better than best friend, from her adult years, died a couple months ago. This crippled her, both of them, but more that latter.
Perspective, things that people do to themselves to make their life worse are still in need of rescuing, but when horrible things happen to the people that you love, because that is what happens in life, you have to do what ever you can to ease their burden. Now her brother…. She has to go and sit and wait, to do something that for her has become normal, more often than anything like weddings or happiness like things.
My friend, is not a touchy type person. I can't hug her better. I can't let her cry on my shoulder. I can go and take care of her cats, so she can go watch her brother die.
If you know who I am talking about don't say a word to her, please, she won't appreciate it and I mean that this is private for her.
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