Lost friends

This is another before and after entry.

One of the sad things that happen when your life gets put on hold by illness is that you lose your friends. Not because either of you stop caring, but because you shut down -- a cell phone with almost no bars, a clock with failing batteries. It becomes more and more difficult to go anywhere, do anything. They call, of course, and stop by to visit sometimes. But they’ve got a life to live. You understand that, and when the time between the calls and visits grows, you’re actually relieved because your condition embarrasses you.

As the weeks, and months, and years pass the connections fade until you’re essentially alone with your care giver. On the loving island she or he built for the two of you. And that is enough.

Then one day, quoting from a poem someone I know wrote, you find yourself “Waking up Dreaming” that the bad days are over. And they are.

It’s not until later that you grow lonely, and start thinking about friends, thinking that in this new life you don’t have any. It’s been years since you had lunch with anyone, even longer since you joined a group at a bar or party. You've kept in touch via email with a couple of people; one in Australia and another across the country in Los Angeles, but that old saw absence makes the heart grow fonder doesn't hold much water. And then someone smarter than you says... Try reaching out.

I’ll give you the result of that effort in the next blog entry. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the poem I mention earlier.

Waking Up Dreaming

I used to dream

That someday I’d wake up

And still be dreaming

Doing something I could never do

Better than leaping

Tall buildings in a single bound

Or meeting E.T.

Or even winning the lottery

Then one day I went to Gainesville

To see the Wizard of Baz
Now every morning I’m

Waking up dreaming that same dream

That I can take a deep breath

And I can