Archive for the ‘heartbreaking stories’ Category
My friend Jeff dies in CO at age 47
Folks, this is the last post I wanted to write, and it’s taken me nearly a full day to write it since I heard the news. My good friend Jeff died in Colorado last evening; he was only 47. (I’m withholding his last name for now at the wishes of his family, who haven’t all been informed.)
Jeff was a deeply spiritual man, someone who followed the teachings of Confucious and appreciated Buddhism as well as Christianity. He was principled, ethical, interesting, witty, and extremely intelligent . . . and he was my best friend for six years.
I don’t have the words to express the depth of my feelings here; as I said in my previous post “Life, the Universe, and the Unexpected,” Jeff even being in the hospital tested my faith significantly. His death will test it even more, especially as he’d improved a great deal in the past ten days.
I called Jeff every single day since his mind and memories returned; I gave him encouragement, I told him how much I cared, and I told him I saw a bright future for him, one I hoped I’d always be a part of . . . I know he wanted that future, and I know he valued our friendship greatly, as I valued his in return.
On Saturday, we were supposed to talk around 7:45 p.m. his time; he had a stroke around 7 his time. (I didn’t find this information out until later this evening; before, I’d been told he’d passed away by his brother, who had few details.) He’d been sent to a long-term care facility, which means the doctors at the hospital he’d been at believed Jeff was on the mend — they’d never have sent him, else. That care facility sent him to the local hospital in Fort Collins, then he went back to the specialist hospital in Loveland, where he’d been before . . . they attempted emergency brain surgery but it didn’t work.
Jeff died at 3 a.m. Colorado time, early Sunday morning.
Funeral arrangements are pending at this time.
________________
Note: I will honor my friend’s memory as best I’m able; Jeff always believed in me, my writing, my music, he loved ELFY, he was a big fan of KEISHA’S VOW and AN ELFY ABROAD (both of those in progress), loved CHANGING FACES and THE GIFT (both also in progress). I believed in him, too; he was a good writer, he was extremely creative, and he was an outstanding friend. I will miss him profoundly.
Written by Barb Caffrey
November 14, 2011 at 2:04 am
Posted in Elfy, Faith, friendship, heartbreaking stories, Persistence, Remembrance
Tagged with Jeff Wilson (1963-2011)
Compassion Strikes Out: People Cheer Hypothetical Death Example at R Debate
I have now seen and heard it all: compassion has struck out.
Why do I say this? Well, last night there was a strange occurrence where audience members watching the “Tea Party” Republican Debate in Tampa, FL, actually cheered the thought of someone dying young due to a lack of health care. This was an awful occurrence, one that turned my stomach, and I have many things to say about it — but before I do, let me first set the stage in order to possibly understand the crowd’s behavior.
Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) was asked a hypothetical question about a thirty-year-old man without health insurance; the moderator of the debate, Wolf Blitzer, asked whether or not Paul felt this man should get governmental help to pay for health care (as health care is extremely expensive in this country, and some working people — perhaps many working people — cannot afford to have health insurance due to high co-pays, pre-existing conditions, or other factors that raise the premiums beyond their ability to pay). Paul, also a licensed medical doctor, was asked this question first because as a doctor, he should know the most about the health care system.
Paul’s answer was that private charities used to do the work and can and should do the work again; this is a very Libertarian philosophy that goes along with his lifetime viewpoint. This answer wasn’t at all a surprise to me as a long-time political watcher as for the most part, Paul’s objections are made from a standpoint of long-held principle and he’s been eloquent on the subject before.
What was a surprise, and a most unwelcome one, were the wags in the crowd who shouted, “Yeah!” after cheering Paul’s answer. Blitzer followed up with, “So you’d just let this man die?” and people cheered even louder.
Look. I do not believe that the Republicans, as a whole, want people like me who are poor and do not have health insurance to “die quickly” as former Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) once said. But I also agree with Grayson’s comments, made tonight on Keith Olbermann’s “Countdown” on Current TV, that the behavior of much of the crowd showed a sadistic streak that should not be tolerated. (I’m using the term precisely: sadism is joy in other people’s pain, or at minimum, delight over other people’s pain.)
Now, does that mean that every member of the audience who cheered this hypothetical example of a thirty-year-old man not getting needed medical care are bad people? Probably not; mob psychology may well have gotten to them, and some in that crowd may really not believe that the idea of a thirty-year-old without insurance should die is a good one after all. (This is also called “get on the bandwagon psychology,” and is a known phenomenon in large groups.)
The main problem is that something like this, at what was billed as a “Tea Party debate,” makes everyone in the Tea Party look both unsympathetic and lacking in empathy. I know that’s not true; one of my doctors has spoken at Tea Party rallies (she is against nationalized health care because she believes that it would severely weaken the overall standard of care) and is a compassionate person who volunteers her time to work with low-income people (myself included). I have many other friends in the Tea Party movement across the nation who are good, caring, empathetic people; they may not believe that government should implement what they call “Obamacare” (the most recent health care bill), but their objection to it is principled and rational, not the nonsensical behavior of a bunch of creeps in a crowd who’d cheer for someone to die merely because he doesn’t have the money to pay for health care.
Olbermann had as another guest on his program Nicole D. Lamoureux, who is the executive director of the National Association of Free Clinics (to donate to this worthy program, go to FreeClinics.us — they do very fine work). Lamoureux made a good point about mob psychology, made another good point about how some people seemingly would rather “take care of themselves” than anyone else, and said how upset she was in seeing that behavior.
What I would have added, had I the chance to speak with Ms. Lamoureux, is that some Republicans seem to behave like Florida Governor Rick Scott. Scott has a minimal co-pay (something like $25) for himself and his family for operations and such (chump change), and for several of his immediate underlings, but much of the rest of state government have atrociously high co-pays (into the high hundreds or thousands) as Scott struck some sort of deal with the insurer. This is a classic example of “I’ve got mine; the Devil take the hindmost,”* and is quintessentially the behavior of many hard right Rs in local, state and federal offices.
Once again: this does not mean the voters, who put people like Scott in office, are unfeeling and uncaring people.** It doesn’t mean that all Tea Party members are as uncompassionate as those who cheered for this hypothetical man to die; it doesn’t even mean that all Tea Partiers in that particular audience last night felt that way.
But what this does mean is that the hard-right Rs have successfully made a class-based argument to some of their own voters — enough, they hope, to keep them in office. The voters who trended R in 2010 are people who are working, who mostly have decent health insurance or believe they’ll be able to get it soon, and some don’t see that “there for but the grace of God goeth I.” Nor do some of them see that this is unChristian or uncharitable behavior, even though such classic Biblical texts such as Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount make it clear that the poor, widowed, infirm (meaning sick and/or disabled) and elderly should be well-treated. This is a practical approach as well as a compassionate one, because one day, you may be in one of those categories. Where will you be if no one helps you out?
Look. We have really high unemployment in this country — 9.1% nationally. Millions of people are out of work. Millions more are underemployed at best; millions more are retirees, who may have to go back into the workforce to make ends meet due to the down economy wiping out their savings, 401(k) plans, or entire retirement in the 2007-8 stock market crash. All of these things mean that more people are using free clinics or charitable services than ever before, with fewer dollars going to support such endeavors because fewer people are working in order to help them out.
In other words, this is the time to be more compassionate, not less.
This is the time to care for your neighbor as yourself, because this economy is so fluid that even the best employees can get laid off tomorrow, lose their health insurance, and end up needing to go to a free clinic or using charitable services at local clinics in order to get the health care they need.
This is the time that we must pull together as a country. Find ways to help people who need it get the proper health care, particularly with regards to health care prevention; it’s shameful that women cannot get Pap smears if they’re poor. Which means that someone like me is more likely to get care only if and when she discovers cancer — is this right in the wealthiest nation in the world? (God, I hope not.)
Most importantly of all, people need to be educated about this. They need to understand that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” And that sometimes, paying for a low-income person’s health care is going to save the government money in the long run while allowing that person to fully recover, then resume paying taxes and funding the same services for someone else in need.
Maybe by doing all this, we won’t have any more instances of supposedly-educated people cheering the thought of anyone dying young due solely to a lack of health care, or lack of means. Because the fact that anyone at all can do this in our country shows a streak of barbarism that I’d truly hoped we’d fully rooted out, and cheapens American citizens in the eyes of the world.
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* Another way to say this is, “I’ve got mine, so to Hell with you.” Keith Olbermann called this attitude by so-called Christians “more the work of Devil-worshippers,” and I completely agree.
** Scott narrowly won office in ’10, and may end up becoming a one-term Governor over things such as the health insurance debacle as what he did is deeply unpopular throughout Florida across all parties and incomes due to its hypocrisy.
Written by Barb Caffrey
September 13, 2011 at 9:43 pm
Tenth Anniversary of 9/11; Help the First Responders
Folks, today is the tenth anniversary of 9/11/01, one of the most shocking and horrific things in United States history. Due to the attacks on that day, the US “lost our innocence” regarding international terrorism. Though other, terrible attacks had occurred, most especially to the USS Cole and a previous attack in 1993 against the World Trade Center, most American citizens felt like our country could not and would not be attacked.
We were tragically wrong.
Last year, I wrote a blog about 9/11, which is posted here. In many ways, I cannot improve upon this; even though a lot has changed in a year, many of the same problems are still with us.
So instead, I’ve decided to focus on the biggest remaining problem from that fateful day: our lack of help for the first responders — the firemen, policemen, military people, and volunteers — who did their best to find surviving victims of the World Trade Center bombing, then did their best again to help clean the place up and restore it, in the process finding many of the dead who did not survive that fateful day.
I’m tired of our current crop of politicians doing nothing about this important issue. Instead, I wish our politicians would act more like President Barack Obama, and past Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, have acted in the past few days. These men have been statesmen, and have publicly discussed the need for medical and financial help for the first responders — many of whom still need help and perhaps always will — because what they were doing in trying to rescue people trapped in the wreckage of the Twin Towers was inordinately stressful. These first responders were exposed to goodness-knows-what toxic substances, and that some of them have not been able to get help for the medical conditions they incurred is plain, flat wrong.
Note that Hillary Clinton, when she was still a United States Senator, urged the Congress to act and they did, but it wasn’t enough. She now is our Secretary of State, and for the most part cannot take active part in asking for more help to be given to those who gave of their time and effort on 9/11/01 and afterward. And while she’s been an outstanding Secretary of State, I wish that she was still able to call more attention to this issue as it needs to be done.
Aside from her, Representative Peter King (R-NY) and, of all people, comedian and political commentator Jon Stewart (he of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show fame) have been the most vocal and active people in the public eye who have demanded help for the first responders. Good for them; they know many of those first responders ended up with chronic medical problems due to their help on and directly after the 9/11 terror attacks, and they know it’s absolutely disgraceful that these people have had to fight for whatever little bit of help they can get since that awful day.
We must help all of those who need it who helped find victims after the Twin Towers were destroyed. If we do not, the legacy of 9/11/01, which is already distressing enough, will become that much worse. Refusing to help these people is shameful.
Written by Barb Caffrey
September 11, 2011 at 8:11 pm
Posted in heartbreaking stories, Hillary Clinton, Prescient observations, President Obama, Truly horrible behavior, United States Politics, United States Presidents, vicious people doing stupid, vicious things
Tagged with 9/11 first responders, financial help, international terrorism, Jon Stewart, medical help, Representative Peter King, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, World Trade Center bombing
Baseball, Mike Flanagan, and Depression
It’s now been a week since former pitcher Mike Flanagan’s death rocked the world of major league baseball. It’s been six days since Flanagan’s death was ruled a suicide. And it’s taken me all this time to try, somehow, to come to terms with Flanagan’s death enough to discuss it because I think it’s important.
Flanagan lived an interesting, fulfilling life, and was a bright man with a biting wit and a winning personality to go along with his substantial athletic gifts; all you have to do to understand this is to read Washington Post baseball writer Thomas Boswell’s tribute to him, or perhaps former Washington Post baseball writer Jane Leavy’s piece about how unusual Flanagan was because he wasn’t self-focused as many athletes are, or better yet, Kevin Cowherd’s assessment in the Baltimore Sun (reprinted by the Boston Herald, where I found it) on how the Orioles did their best to cope in their first game back (Friday night) after Flanagan’s suicide. All of these are essential reading if you want to know who Flanagan was, much less how big a hole his passing has left in its wake.
But to this long-time Brewers fan, the best way I have to remember Flanagan is to remember how good a pitcher he was. How strong a competitor he was. How indomitable his spirit seemed while he was out on the mound, and how impressive Flanagan was even in defeat (which was a rare thing as the Brewers seemingly never got the better of him).
But baseball, as important as it was to Flanagan, wasn’t the sum total of his life. Flanagan was a husband, a father, a friend, a mentor, and many other good things in a life that spanned fifty-nine years; that he left behind three daughters, a wife, many close friends and a baseball community behind who will miss him greatly is heartbreaking.
Depression is an illness that knows no boundaries; it can strike anyone at any time. Baseball players are far from immune, and baseball itself should have realized this quite some time ago as it’s been over fifty years since Jimmy Piersall wrote FEAR STRIKES OUT, the story of Piersall’s struggles with mental illness and how he overcame them to play professional baseball with the Boston Red Sox and other teams. And yet despite the publication of Piersall’s important book, it seems like baseball would rather not admit problems like Piersall’s — or Flanagan’s — exist.
Flanagan’s depression and suicide is not an isolated incident by any means, as there have been a number of players suffering depression in recent years. Joey Votto, famously, had to make a statement regarding his father’s death and subsequent severe depression. Ken Griffey, Jr., once tried to commit suicide; fortunately, he didn’t succeed. On the Milwaukee Brewers, my favorite team, there are two players — both pitchers — who have problems often linked to depression or anxiety. These are Zack Greinke, who has SAD, an anxiety disorder treated by medication, and Zach Braddock, who has a severe sleep disorder that may well have caused some depression — quite understandably, to be sure — and who is now on the disabled list.
So this problem is not unknown here in Milwaukee; in actuality, we should be among the cities who understand this issue the most because two of our players are battling these problems.
Yet it disturbs me that so little has been said in the Milwaukee area regarding the death of Flanagan, who was a superb pitcher in his time and used to give the Brewers fits (this, of course, was when the Brewers were still in the American League). Bob Uecker discussed the rain-out of games due to Hurricane Irene and made an off-handed remark after finding out that the Orioles didn’t want to schedule a double-header on Friday that Baltimore probably “didn’t want to lose out on gate receipts” in conversation with Cory Provis on the Brewers Radio Network last Friday night. But Uecker had to know that the real reason the Orioles didn’t want to play a double-header that evening is because the team was grieving and in shock as Flanagan had been one of the Orioles’ television broadcasters at the time of his death, and had been heavily identified with the whole Orioles franchise as he’d been a player, coach, assistant general manager, and member of the television broadcast team. And Friday’s game between the Orioles and Yankees was the very first one since Flanagan’s death had been ruled a suicide; tributes to Flanagan, including a moment of silence and a retrospective of Flanagan’s service to baseball and the Orioles franchise in particular, abounded during Friday night’s game as Cowherd’s article, referenced above, clearly shows.
Lest you think that it’s only the Brewers radio broadcast team that seemingly would rather avoid the whole subject of Mike Flanagan, the Brewers television broadcast team of Brian Anderson and Bill Schroeder also hasn’t said anything at all regarding Flanagan to the best of my knowledge. The only possibly reasoning that I’ve come up with as to why Anderson and Schroeder would be silent is that due to the Brewers impressive record and season (in the last 32 games, the Brewers are 27-5, one of the best stretches in their history, and are currently 10.5 games ahead of their nearest National League Central Division rival, the St. Louis Cardinals) that talking about Flanagan would be “a downer” or perhaps even irrelevant despite the fact that Schroeder was a catcher for the Brewers years ago and had to bat, several times, against Flanagan.
The lack of discussion regarding Flanagan is disturbing, because depression is a part of life. Many of us have light bouts with it from time to time, and we pull out of it; some have heavier bouts, get medication, and are eventually able to pull out of it. But some, sadly, cannot pull out of it no matter how hard they try, with Flanagan obviously belonging to this last list along with 49 other baseball players known to have taken their own lives.
How I wish baseball weren’t so close-mouthed regarding those who suffer with depression. How I wish that baseball would do what Leavy suggested:
Flanagan’s suicide and that of former Yankee pitcher Hideki Irabu after the spotlight passed them by, that of Denver Bronco’s receiver Kenny McKinley and LPGA golfer Erica Blasberg after suffering debilitating injuries, and that of former Pro Bowl safety Dave Duerson, who shot himself in the chest so his brain could be studied for evidence of trauma-induced disease — which was found to be ample — cry out for the availability of on-going psychological services for professional athletes and for a reexamination of the fallacious assumptions we make as a result of their sturdy professional lives.
I agree with Ms. Leavy, and wish that baseball along with all professional sports would come out of the “dark ages” and realize that depression is not a dirty word, nor one to be shunned. Those with the courage to admit they have a problem and get help for it should be appreciated, rather than being pushed to the side or ignored.
Considering that major league baseball has known since 1957, if not before, that some of its players have struggled with mental illness, anxiety, depression, and now sleep disorders (which often have a depressive component mixed in), it’s long past time that baseball did something to attempt to head future tragedies like Flanagan’s off at the pass. And if they decide to actually do something about all this, that would be the best memorial to Flanagan’s life that this baseball fan could possibly imagine.
Written by Barb Caffrey
August 30, 2011 at 8:33 pm
Recalls, pt. 2 — Dems fall short
Folks, this is not the post I was expecting to write this evening, but the facts are what they are.
In three of the R districts, the Rs comfortably held their seats — these were Rob Cowles (Allouez), Sheila Harsdorf (River Falls-Hudson) and Luther Olsen (Ripon), with only Olsen having to worry until the last 5% of the vote or so as to whether or not he’d be retained.
In two of the R districts, the Ds won — Jennifer Shilling easily over Dan Kapanke in LaCrosse (as I’d expected), while Jessica King from Oshkosh defeated Randy Hopper from Fond du Lac narrowly (I’d expected an easier win, but did predict she’d be the victor).
So it was all down to only one race — the race in district 8 (suburban Milwaukee, including parts of Washington, Ozaukee, Milwaukee and Waukesha Counties) between Alberta Darling, the incumbent R from River Hills, and Assembly Rep. Sandy Pasch from Whitefish Bay, a D. That race went back and forth for a while, then Pasch established a comfortable lead — something like 5000, 5500 votes ahead — until the Waukesha County votes weighed in around the 75% votes counted mark. At that point, Pasch lost her lead . . . and a controversy ensued.
For a little while around 11:20 p.m. — maybe twenty minutes or so — Mike Tate, head of the Wisconsin Democratic Party (aka WisDems) said that there were “too many problems” in Waukesha County and that something must be done about it. Graeme Zielinski, the communications person for WisDems, followed up with a statement that this result was wrong and that they would be doing everything necessary to see that a fair and accurate count of the vote was done — then Mike Tate came back around midnight CDT and said (in essence), “Nope, sorry, nothing to see here; we’re not going to dispute the irregularities.”
As to why I don’t have cites? Well, WisDems pulled their whole site down for a while, and took some of these things off of there, and I don’t know how to look to see if there were any “screen captures” made by anyone.
So there we have it.
Three Rs definitely won.
Two Ds definitely won.
One R won, questionably, with a possibly tainted outcome due to the Waukesha County results (a long delay in counting by Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus, who’s been under fire before for incompetence, etc.), where the WisDems Chair initially said he’d fight the results — then said he wouldn’t.
These results will not quiet the angry populace here in Wisconsin, because Scott Walker’s Republicans still have control of the Senate at 17 Rs to 16 Ds (next week’s recall elections can only leave the vote totals alone at absolute best, as they’re for two Democratic incumbents). Making matters worse, Scott Walker signed a horrible redistricting bill that gives major help to three Republicans (Alberta Darling being one) to help hold their seats in ’12 and beyond under the cover of the recall elections. (This proves he’s got something between the ears besides air; I’ll give him that much.) Legal challenges to that will definitely ensue unless the Democratic Party of Wisconsin has absolutely zero brainpower.
At any rate, many people across Wisconsin were looking for the recalls against the Republicans to turn up at least three Democratic victors (me, I expected four and thought five was quite possible, as I said before) to slow down Scott Walker and his radical R agenda.
We didn’t get it.
This bodes ill for the quality of life here, which was already in the toilet as it was, partially due to high unemployment . . . just a dispiriting result, all told.
All I can say now is, “Congratulations, Senators-elect Shilling and King.” Then, “Congratulations to you three R Senators, Luther Olsen, Sheila Harsdorf, and Rob Cowles, for your retention.”
But I refuse to congratulate Alberta Darling for anything at all, as I believe her “victory” is heavily-tainted and I truly believe an independent, unbiased observer needs to get in here and figure out what the Hell has gone wrong in our Wisconsin elections because once again, due to the actions of Kathy Nickolaus, none of our vote counts can be completely trusted.
Which makes our “free and fair elections,” which people fought and died for, no such thing. And that, my friends, is the saddest commentary I’ve had in a long, long time.
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** If you’re looking for something else to do, you can try to call the United States Department of Justice and ask for an investigation. I know I tried that, but I don’t expect them to do anything because if they’d really been all that interested, they’d have done something the last time we had a big mess up here — that’s right, during our state-wide judicial recount for our state Supreme Court race. And there were far more egregious violations reported there than have been thus far reported by neutral election observers in this election.
Written by Barb Caffrey
August 10, 2011 at 1:28 am
Discussing Two Deaths: Betty Ford and Shannon Stone
Tonight, I mourn.
In baseball, a 39 year old fan, Shannon Stone, passed away at a Texas Rangers game after he fell over a railing trying to grab a ball flipped to him by Rangers OF Josh Hamilton in order to give to his six year old son, Cooper Stone. Conor Jackson of the A’s had just hit a foul ball, and Hamilton had flipped the ball into the crowd. However, the toss was a bit short, and Stone fell, head first, twenty feet to the ground.
I have no words for this, but the closest I can come to my feelings have already been expressed by sports columnist Greg Couch here:
I don’t even know what to say. I can’t stomach this. It makes me want to call my dad, hug my son. This is the prototypical father-son moment in this country, and it ended with Stone falling over the railing.
But what was even worse was what happened next:
They put (Stone) on a stretcher and, according to A’s pitcher Brad Ziegler who saw it all, Stone was telling the paramedics “Please, someone please get my son. Please check on my son. He’s up there all by himself.”
Ziegler, on ESPN’s Mike & Mike show in the morning, said, “One of the paramedics was right there, said, ‘Sir, we’ll get your son. Your son’s going to be OK. Don’t worry about your son.’ ”
A few minutes later in the ambulance, Stone died.
This reminds me ever so much of my husband Michael’s last few conscious minutes (after the first heart attack, he fell into a coma before we ever got to the hospital, and he died ten hours later). Michael’s words were for me — the person he cared about the most in the world. While Stone’s words were for his six-year-old son — one of the people he cared the most about. In the world.
Stone was only 39. He was a firefighter for 18 years, one of mankind’s unsung heroes. He is survived by his thirty-six year old wife Jenny, his mother, Suzann, and of course his young son. He will be greatly missed.
Compared to that, the passing of former First Lady Betty Ford at age 93 was both more somber and more understandable. Ford’s life was remarkable; she crusaded for the Equal Rights Amendment (and yes, she was a Republican). She was a feminist who believed that abortion should be safe, legal, and rare (in Hillary R. Clinton’s famous words). Ford was relentlessly honest about herself, from her breast cancer to her issues with substance abuse, and she helped to found the Betty Ford Center (which later spread into more than one, helping numerous people overcome substance abuse addiction). And she was a very good wife who loved her husband, very much, something I empathize with a great deal.
Betty Ford was 93. She lived a life filled with great, and public, meaning. Many are left behind to honor her memory in and out of her family, and she, too, will be greatly missed.
Written by Barb Caffrey
July 8, 2011 at 11:03 pm
Barb Caffrey's Blog 