This isolation business is for mass murderers on death row, not the general population  (gosh that is sounding like a prison isn't it). I'm finding I'm better off if I have structure to my day. I finally decided a first step towards normalizing this predicament was to get dressed every day, that seems to put a new light on things, although I haven't given up my slippers. I do wish I had a few to choose from but alas when isolation began to make sense I only had a five year old pair, how embarrassing!  Speaking of five year spans, some freezer contents fell under the slipper situation. The upshot of that was my freezer got cleaned out and organized. This definitely added to the structure of one day.  Connecting with friends and relatives (I know they should fall under the same category,  but you know how that goes) has taken a place in my "structure", to the point that my cell (my only phone) has begun to run out of juice by 3 ish, which calls for a recharge.  This gives me reluctant time to check one more closet for dust, out dated clothes, games with pieces missing, 4 inch heels that would send me to an orthopedic Dr. almost immediately and did I mention dust. Add in a walk outside and there goes your day.  Oh, and just to keep the adrenaline at fever pitch, a good hour of cable news does the trick.  Binge watching Game of Thrones and The Newsroom (HBO if you are interested) usually tops off my day. That doesn't bode well for a good night's sleep, but , oh well, I don't really have any place to go right now. By: Mike

On Social Distancing

I am okay so far, though this social isolation is taking a toll on me. The hardest part is that time is passing, I am getting older every day, and with each day that passes, my opportunity to share with others what I know and wanted to talk about this year—formidable women in Fort Collins history—diminishes incrementally. Up until now, I have not let my age affect my life any more than it has to; now, it has become a painful reminder of just how short life is. 

 

By: Barbara F

Remembering Hope

After a long debilitating illness, my dear friend, Hope Cassiday, died this third week in March 2020. There will be no service for a while because of a pandemic sweeping across the country. But when there is a service, it will be huge because Hope more than lived up to her name. She touched so many lives, serving brain-injured people in her own community, and raising funds to meet urgent health and education needs  through a Simple Supper fundraiser she founded. Simple Supper survives to this day.

As I think about Hope, I am suddenly reminded of another March day, in 2006. A fierce wind, bare trees, dust swirls and scruffy pale grass greeted Marcia Benfica and her five-year-old son, Ruy when they arrived in Colorado, invited by Hope to speak at the Simple Supper fundraiser in Greeley.

I came to know Marcia when I was in Mozambique. I was a failure when she tried to teach me Portuguese, but we became good friends, translating African folk tales into English. She took me to a Mozambican wedding where I was the only white person. We laughed when one of her friends asked her why, since I was American and no doubt wealthy, wasn’t I better dressed?

Marcia is African, but firmly planted in three worlds: rural Mozambique where she grew up, Maputo, the capital of her country where she attended university and earned a degree in languages, and in Lansing, Michigan where she cleaned motel rooms, became proficient in English, and gave birth to her son while her husband earned a graduate degree in 2000. In 2005 they returned to Michigan so that her husband could complete his PhD.

Meanwhile, Hope had committed the Simple Supper funds raised in 2006 to help in completing a kindergarten in Mozambique. I realized that Marcia would be the perfect spokesperson to add authenticity to the project. 

“Of course, I’ll come,” she said. “But what is this fundraising—what does it mean?”

I was thrilled and told her that if she would speak about the importance of education to Mozambicans and the extreme shortage of kindergartens in her country, that would be enough.

She spoke so eloquently that no one at the Simple Supper could have questioned the need or her sincerity. Nearly $7,000 was raised in a single night and the dollars continued to trickle in later, making the goal of $8,000 a reality.

Despite fickle March weather, Marcia and Ruy had a week to remember in Colorado. They visited Rocky Mountain National Park, the capitol in Denver, took a tour of Cheyenne, saw a puppet show, and went to a pizza birthday party.

“Oh no, its too cold,” Marcia pleaded when I suggested a late night dip in my hot tub. 

“Just try it,” I insisted.”

Little Ruy slipped in clutching his inflatable crocodile and Marcia followed, gingerly at first. 

“Soft water,” Ruy said, swishing his hands across the bubbling surface. Sinking into the deliciously warm water became a nightly ritual for the rest of the week.

Marcia went back to Michigan with a collection of recipes, measuring cups and spoons, and Ruy went home with a couple of books, a few marbles and a collection of dinosaurs given to him by new friends who learned that he loved them.

When they departed, there were only tiny buds on the trees, no leaves but small sprouts of green were emerging from the winter-brown grass. A cold wind blew but Spring was around the corner.

Back in Mozambique, fall, the dry season was on its way. By winter, a new school would be complete and would soon be filled with small children taking their first steps into a wider world.

When Marcia goes back home, she will visit the school and tell them about Hope and a windblown week she spent in Colorado.

By: Libby James

Is there a medically approved time frame when you can legally claim you are cancer free? I'm going on three years, it was my cancer so I think I'm  formally declaring
myself CANCER FREE  AND A SURVIVOR.  I will have to try and remember to tell my Oncologist so they can change their guidelines.
To be more accurate I'm physically free but mentally and emotionally burdened by its aftermath. I find myself living in six month increments,  from CT scan to CT scan.

A friend suggested I begin a dialogue with it, yea well easier said than done. It did make me start to think can you have a truce, a working relationship, a cease fire. If so, how do waring factions come to that cease fire? Smoke filled, oak panelled,  dark velvet draped floor to ceiling windows ( way way too many WW 2 movies), filled with cigar smoking, testosterone, ego driven, yea you got it, men.  Love, love, love them to death, but maybe not in this scenario.

My first step to reframe this cease fire is to surround myself with positive, joyful, and engaging wise women friends who help feed, and maintain a woman's instinct for peace of soul.

By: Mike