An evil spammer has hacked my email account and has sent advertising messages to everyone on my email list.
Sorry about this. I woke to over 80 messages in my own spambox. Please ignore until I figure out what to do about it. Hate to lose an email address I've been using for ten years.
Suggestions?
HJW
~
Monday, July 25, 2011
Saturday, July 23, 2011
"Allowed to die" a quick lesson in media manipulation
Today the Daily Mail is running a poll with the question, "Should 'minimally conscious' patients be allowed to die?
As of this writing, 29% said No, 71% said yes.
I have to wonder though, if the people who clicked Yes had given much thought to the form of the question. Something I learned as a lobbyist paying close attention to various pieces of legislation is to always look very closely indeed at the pages of the bill that give the definitions of terms. What does it mean to be "allowed to die"? And what, exactly, are we talking about when we refer to "minimally conscious" people?
I'll help here with some research I have done into the question at hand. In the cases I have studied closely, that of Terri Schiavo in the US and Eluana Englaro in Italy, neither woman was a) terminally ill, b) on a respirator c) sick in any way. Both were brain damaged, but the damage did not impair any of their vital bodily functions. In both cases, the only care they needed was ordinary nursing care, bathing, clothing and, most crucially, feeding. Both of them could have lived a normal lifespan if these had been continued.
In the case of Terri Schiavo, her family made it public knowledge that she was not "in a coma," not in a "vegetative state". In her case, the public was shown video and photographs of Terri awake and responsive to the people and stimuli around her. In the case of Eluana Englaro, although we were shown no photos, it was revealed to the public that she was not ill, was not on a respirator, was not in a coma and required only food and hydration via a feeding tube. In the US, the delivery of food and water via a tube is classified as "medical treatment" that can be refused by a patient or (and here's what killed Terri) by a patient's guardian. In Italy this is not the case, but the artificial delivery of food and water was not specifically dealt with in law. However, in both countries, "assisting a suicide" is an offense, as is homicide.
We are all aware of the media frenzy, including a great deal of misdirection, surrounding the case of Terri Schiavo. In Italy, there was also a loud uproar and the media paid a great deal of attention to the case, particularly towards the end of Eluana's life. In most cases, the media consistently used this phrase: "allowed to die," a piece of deliberate and conscious misdirection, that I maintain is maliciously motivated to promote the cause of legalised assisted suicide and euthanasia, a favourite cause on the left in Europe and the US.
In parliaments too, the phrase is consistently used as a type of pacifier by legislators trying to lift prohibitions on assisted suicide. It sound quite natural and harmless doesn't it, and it plays on the perfectly moral principle that patients who are near to death from illness should be able to refuse extraordinary, aggressive or painful procedures if there is little chance that they will significantly prolong life.
If a cancer patient is in the last stages of the disease and all normal measures have been taken, everyone agrees that it is not only perfectly licit but in fact desirable to provide palliative care and allow the patient and their loved ones some quiet time before the end.
But the question asked by the Daily Mail above doesn't mention "terminally ill" patients. It doesn't specify that a person who is potentially to be "allowed to die" is about to do so anyway and is being plagued with aggressive extraordinary treatments. All it says is "minimally conscious" and "allowed to die".
Let's examine the following scenario. A healthy person has been drugged into minimal consciousness. He is strapped to a gurney and wheeled into a room and left there without provision for food and water.
Now, ask the following question: Is he being murdered or is he being "allowed to die"?
Now, let's examine another scenario. A healthy person is in a car accident and is rushed to the hospital with a severe head injury. It is determined in the hospital that although she remains otherwise healthy and undamaged, her brain function is never going to be what it was and she will require help with feeding, dressing and bathing etc., very likely for the rest of her life which, barring future illness, should be a normal span. She is taken to a nursing home run by nuns who are happy to take on the duties of caring for her for the rest of her life. This includes delivery of food and water via a stomach tube.
If the nuns then removed her food and hydration tube and refused to care for her and she died, should they be liable for charges of neglect causing death? Perhaps even homicide?
Is it "allowing a person to die" if he is helpless and is refused food and water?
I wonder how the British public would be answering a poll question like the following:
"Should vulnerable patients be deliberately starved and dehydrated to death when their lives are deemed to be worthless by a hospital ethics committee?"
~
As of this writing, 29% said No, 71% said yes.
I have to wonder though, if the people who clicked Yes had given much thought to the form of the question. Something I learned as a lobbyist paying close attention to various pieces of legislation is to always look very closely indeed at the pages of the bill that give the definitions of terms. What does it mean to be "allowed to die"? And what, exactly, are we talking about when we refer to "minimally conscious" people?
I'll help here with some research I have done into the question at hand. In the cases I have studied closely, that of Terri Schiavo in the US and Eluana Englaro in Italy, neither woman was a) terminally ill, b) on a respirator c) sick in any way. Both were brain damaged, but the damage did not impair any of their vital bodily functions. In both cases, the only care they needed was ordinary nursing care, bathing, clothing and, most crucially, feeding. Both of them could have lived a normal lifespan if these had been continued.
In the case of Terri Schiavo, her family made it public knowledge that she was not "in a coma," not in a "vegetative state". In her case, the public was shown video and photographs of Terri awake and responsive to the people and stimuli around her. In the case of Eluana Englaro, although we were shown no photos, it was revealed to the public that she was not ill, was not on a respirator, was not in a coma and required only food and hydration via a feeding tube. In the US, the delivery of food and water via a tube is classified as "medical treatment" that can be refused by a patient or (and here's what killed Terri) by a patient's guardian. In Italy this is not the case, but the artificial delivery of food and water was not specifically dealt with in law. However, in both countries, "assisting a suicide" is an offense, as is homicide.
We are all aware of the media frenzy, including a great deal of misdirection, surrounding the case of Terri Schiavo. In Italy, there was also a loud uproar and the media paid a great deal of attention to the case, particularly towards the end of Eluana's life. In most cases, the media consistently used this phrase: "allowed to die," a piece of deliberate and conscious misdirection, that I maintain is maliciously motivated to promote the cause of legalised assisted suicide and euthanasia, a favourite cause on the left in Europe and the US.
In parliaments too, the phrase is consistently used as a type of pacifier by legislators trying to lift prohibitions on assisted suicide. It sound quite natural and harmless doesn't it, and it plays on the perfectly moral principle that patients who are near to death from illness should be able to refuse extraordinary, aggressive or painful procedures if there is little chance that they will significantly prolong life.
If a cancer patient is in the last stages of the disease and all normal measures have been taken, everyone agrees that it is not only perfectly licit but in fact desirable to provide palliative care and allow the patient and their loved ones some quiet time before the end.
But the question asked by the Daily Mail above doesn't mention "terminally ill" patients. It doesn't specify that a person who is potentially to be "allowed to die" is about to do so anyway and is being plagued with aggressive extraordinary treatments. All it says is "minimally conscious" and "allowed to die".
Let's examine the following scenario. A healthy person has been drugged into minimal consciousness. He is strapped to a gurney and wheeled into a room and left there without provision for food and water.
Now, ask the following question: Is he being murdered or is he being "allowed to die"?
Now, let's examine another scenario. A healthy person is in a car accident and is rushed to the hospital with a severe head injury. It is determined in the hospital that although she remains otherwise healthy and undamaged, her brain function is never going to be what it was and she will require help with feeding, dressing and bathing etc., very likely for the rest of her life which, barring future illness, should be a normal span. She is taken to a nursing home run by nuns who are happy to take on the duties of caring for her for the rest of her life. This includes delivery of food and water via a stomach tube.
If the nuns then removed her food and hydration tube and refused to care for her and she died, should they be liable for charges of neglect causing death? Perhaps even homicide?
Is it "allowing a person to die" if he is helpless and is refused food and water?
I wonder how the British public would be answering a poll question like the following:
"Should vulnerable patients be deliberately starved and dehydrated to death when their lives are deemed to be worthless by a hospital ethics committee?"
~
A punto...
It's an old standby. Whenever there is a huge, distracting, celebrity-saturated news story going on, watch Parliament especially closely...
~
With British attention distracted by the phone-hacking scandal, this week the European political elite hurled another £96 billion at the ailing Greek economy, desperate to stave off a financial meltdown that could plunge the entire European project into disaster.
~
Friday, July 22, 2011
One nation, under...
A while ago, an Irish friend involved in politics told me that the EUrocrats are going to be taking full advantage of the instability created by the economic crisis to solidify their plans to abolish the nation state in Europe and unite the EU member states into a single socialist European superstate.
Apparently, that happened on Wednesday, while no one was paying attention. Which, in my experience, is the way really big things are brought about by politicians who know the public doesn't want their really big things. It is an axiom among lobbyists: if there is a huge news story breaking, it is wise to watch with extra care that day what the government is doing in Parliament.
~
Apparently, that happened on Wednesday, while no one was paying attention. Which, in my experience, is the way really big things are brought about by politicians who know the public doesn't want their really big things. It is an axiom among lobbyists: if there is a huge news story breaking, it is wise to watch with extra care that day what the government is doing in Parliament.
European politicians have developed the same superstitious attachment to the single currency. They are determined to persist with it, no matter what suffering it causes, or however brutal its economic and social consequences.
There is only one way of sustaining this policy, as the International Monetary Fund argued ahead of yesterday’s summit in Brussels... Admittedly, the IMF should not be regarded as an impartial arbiter. Theoretically, its responsibilities stretch around the globe, but it has become the plaything of a reactionary European elite, of whom its latest managing director, Christine Lagarde (a dreadful and backward-looking choice), is the latest manifestation. However, the IMF was entirely correct when it pointed out that the only conceivable salvation for the eurozone is to impose greater fiscal integration among member states.
This advice was finally being taken yesterday – and it is almost impossible to overestimate the importance of the decision which European leaders seemed last night to be reaching. By authorising a huge expansion in the bail-out fund that is propping up the EU’s peripheral members (largely in order to stop the contagion spreading to Italy and Spain), the eurozone has taken the decisive step to becoming a fiscal union.
So long as the settlement is accepted by national parliaments, yesterday will come to be seen as the witching hour after which Europe will cease to be, except vestigially, a collection of nation states.
It will have one economic government, one currency, one foreign policy. This integration will be so complete that taxpayers in the more prosperous countries will be expected to pay for the welfare systems and pension plans of failing EU states.
This is the final realisation of the dream that animated the founders of the Common Market more than half a century ago – which is one reason why so many prominent Europeans have privately welcomed the eurozone catastrophe, labelling it a “beneficial crisis”.
~
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Let's see how long it takes, shall we?
Until the Catholic bishops of Ireland say something, anything at all, about the attempt by the government to shut down the practice of the Catholic Faith in Ireland.
A friend commented this evening:
"Well, why don't they just bring their enormous moral authority to bear ...
Oh, wait..."
~
A friend commented this evening:
"Well, why don't they just bring their enormous moral authority to bear ...
Oh, wait..."
~
For our bulging Anglicans Are Peculiar file...
I realise that she's very helpfully with us on at least one important issue, but really,
what on earth is she wearing?
I have to say that the absurdity of the whole Anglican Ministrix thing comes painfully home when presented with the day to day usages. For instance, I had trouble not bursting out laughing when I was instructed to refer to one as "Mother" so and so. You see, she was...err...umm... a priest and because one calls a "male priest" "Father" it stands to reason that...
(I solved the problem by addressing the person in question as "Miss" so and so, since she was not married. I thought this was a hilarious solution since, at first sight - processing down the aisle of Chester Cathedral in a cope - I had had no idea that she was not a man. It is perhaps a bit improper, but have you ever heard the joke about the real reason the Anglican Church agreed to start ordaining women? It's slightly impolite, so email me and I'll tell you.)
That sort of thing. That and the clothes. I had the pleasure of meeting Victoria Matthews, lauded far and wide as the most "conservative" Anglican "bishop" in the Canadian Anglican establishment. And she is. It's just that, well... when I met her, she was all got up in a black skirt/jacket suit combo paired with a purple clerical shirt and collar. I had a hard time figuring out where to put my eyes so they didn't become an occasion for at least a giant social faux pas.
It's what happens when a group of people replace The Real with their personal preferences.
~
what on earth is she wearing?
I have to say that the absurdity of the whole Anglican Ministrix thing comes painfully home when presented with the day to day usages. For instance, I had trouble not bursting out laughing when I was instructed to refer to one as "Mother" so and so. You see, she was...err...umm... a priest and because one calls a "male priest" "Father" it stands to reason that...
(I solved the problem by addressing the person in question as "Miss" so and so, since she was not married. I thought this was a hilarious solution since, at first sight - processing down the aisle of Chester Cathedral in a cope - I had had no idea that she was not a man. It is perhaps a bit improper, but have you ever heard the joke about the real reason the Anglican Church agreed to start ordaining women? It's slightly impolite, so email me and I'll tell you.)
That sort of thing. That and the clothes. I had the pleasure of meeting Victoria Matthews, lauded far and wide as the most "conservative" Anglican "bishop" in the Canadian Anglican establishment. And she is. It's just that, well... when I met her, she was all got up in a black skirt/jacket suit combo paired with a purple clerical shirt and collar. I had a hard time figuring out where to put my eyes so they didn't become an occasion for at least a giant social faux pas.
It's what happens when a group of people replace The Real with their personal preferences.
~
Pious and overly devotional
The post below quoting Fr. Faber (whose writing on the spiritual life deserves a great deal more attention than that of the attention-seeking Newman) has generated much interesting comment here and on Facebook. I post below my addition to the discussion.
First, I simply have an instinctive aversion to public displays of devotion, for much the same reason I object to public displays of affection between members of a pair-bonded unit. This might just be an English thing, but it embarrasses me on the person's behalf. It betrays a lack of a certain kind of social modesty. One keeps that sort of thing private. It's a thing appropriate to moments of sincere discussion between intimates.
I think (though he was not my favourite Catholic writer) I remember Thomas Merton also making a similar comment in Seven Story Mountain, along the lines of "There is something nauseating about pious talk".
The other reason is that it tends to cheapen the devotional life. Talking about, thinking about and praying to God is so important that it should not be tossed about like the wrapping on a bag of take-away.
But mostly I posted Fr. Faber's quote because of the ongoing debate about the Traddie world over nice vs. holy. Trads are notoriously given to very public displays of devotion (and insisting that they be conducted in the right way!!) while holding the knife ever-ready for the quick one between the ribs of anyone who crosses them. This tendency is hardly limited to the Traditionalist movement in the Church, but it certainly seems to be more prevalent as a community trait there.
They are ever-ready too, with the quick and often pat rejoinder when faced with any criticism: "The hard truth is better than the sweet lie". This is usually followed by recitations of Our Lord's open displays of anger against the pharisees and money-changers. Passers-by, non-Catholics and children, however, are often witness to these kinds of exchanges and I think are justified in going away disappointed. See how they love each other?
Well, I'm not a spiritual writer and it's not for me to correct, particularly since the quick and irritable rejoinder are defining characteristics of my own interpersonal and devotional life. I am faced daily with the temptation to the quick and snarky response.
I posted Fr. Faber's comment because I was relieved somewhat to learn that this is not a modern problem, that others greater and holier than I have observed it and fought against it. It's comforting to have companions in temptation.
~
First, I simply have an instinctive aversion to public displays of devotion, for much the same reason I object to public displays of affection between members of a pair-bonded unit. This might just be an English thing, but it embarrasses me on the person's behalf. It betrays a lack of a certain kind of social modesty. One keeps that sort of thing private. It's a thing appropriate to moments of sincere discussion between intimates.
I think (though he was not my favourite Catholic writer) I remember Thomas Merton also making a similar comment in Seven Story Mountain, along the lines of "There is something nauseating about pious talk".
The other reason is that it tends to cheapen the devotional life. Talking about, thinking about and praying to God is so important that it should not be tossed about like the wrapping on a bag of take-away.
But mostly I posted Fr. Faber's quote because of the ongoing debate about the Traddie world over nice vs. holy. Trads are notoriously given to very public displays of devotion (and insisting that they be conducted in the right way!!) while holding the knife ever-ready for the quick one between the ribs of anyone who crosses them. This tendency is hardly limited to the Traditionalist movement in the Church, but it certainly seems to be more prevalent as a community trait there.
They are ever-ready too, with the quick and often pat rejoinder when faced with any criticism: "The hard truth is better than the sweet lie". This is usually followed by recitations of Our Lord's open displays of anger against the pharisees and money-changers. Passers-by, non-Catholics and children, however, are often witness to these kinds of exchanges and I think are justified in going away disappointed. See how they love each other?
Well, I'm not a spiritual writer and it's not for me to correct, particularly since the quick and irritable rejoinder are defining characteristics of my own interpersonal and devotional life. I am faced daily with the temptation to the quick and snarky response.
I posted Fr. Faber's comment because I was relieved somewhat to learn that this is not a modern problem, that others greater and holier than I have observed it and fought against it. It's comforting to have companions in temptation.
The question of real vs. false devotion is extremely pertinent, and is a big part of Fr. Faber's very pointed writing on the spiritual life. Of course real devotion produces real sanctity, but it is only too easy to fall into the trap of presuming one's self devoted, and therefore superior to the general run of humanity, or even the general run of Christians. It is a salutary warning, and one that is repeated many times by C. S. Lewis and nearly all other writers on the Christian life.
It is for this reason I have banned excessive God-talk in the commbox, and the reason it tends to irritate me so much. I have found that in many, if not most cases when a person engages in gratuitous God-talk, particularly in a public forum, the person is much more likely to be talking about himself. Or herself, since it seems mostly to be a female vice.
In fact, this was proven to me quite aptly recently when a person who had left a particularly flowery God-talk commbox post became abusive and extremely nasty when I deleted his comment and said why. From the excessively POD language and tone, I had guessed that this was someone who was greatly enamoured of his own holiness and was very interested in demonstrating it for the world to admire. The incontinent note I received as punishment for daring to call him on his bullshit proved my suspicion to have been justified.
Don't keep your light under a bushel, by any means, but I think it's good advice to try to keep our phylacteries as narrow and our tassels as short as possible, yes?
~
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
So, I'm not the only one who's noticed
“Devout people are, as a class, the least kind of all classes. This is a scandalous thing to say; but the scandal of the fact is so much greater than the scandal of acknowledging it, that I will brave this for the sake of a greater good. Religious people are an unkindly lot."
Fr. William Frederick Faber, founder of the London Oratory
~
Let's play a game!
Well, enough of all that.
Had a nice few days, bought a bunch of needful stuff, new pj's and whatnot, to get ready for Chemo 2.
They were going to start me today, but having seen the results of some blood tests have decided to put it off for a week or so, to let my liver have a bit more time to recover. I'm taking liver-fixing drugs as well as a bunch of vitamins. Other than this everything's fine. Back to work in a limited way, which is really great.
Nice to have a week of reprieve so I can get some more cooking done and get things ready for Dorothy's visit and ... (fanfare) The Return of Sarah! (woop!)
Starting chemo 2 next Wednesday, if the blood tests come back favourably.
In the meantime, let's play a game.
Name the strangest place or circumstances you've ever had your confession heard.
Mine is on the steps of Canada's parliament in Ottawa.
Behind a plinth.
Oh, I almost forgot. I've also made confession in Latin at the Jesu in Rome. I had been told that there were always English speaking priests available at the Jesu, which is a conveniently located church in Rome (near a big bus stop). So I went in and sure enough there was a box near the entrance that had a sign on it saying "English" but when I asked the old chap in the box, he shook his head and said, "Mi dispiace". I went away annoyed, and then thought, wait, this is the Jesu and that's an ancient, retired Jesuit. No way he doesn't know how to do it in Latin. So I went back and asked and he looked a little startled, but said, in Italian, that we could try. I knelt down and riffled through my mental Latin files and we stumbled through on a halting combo of Latin, English, Italian and French. I got the gist across, he gave the ancient absolution formula. And "three Hail Mary's and one Our Father" is pretty easy to understand in any language.
~
Had a nice few days, bought a bunch of needful stuff, new pj's and whatnot, to get ready for Chemo 2.
They were going to start me today, but having seen the results of some blood tests have decided to put it off for a week or so, to let my liver have a bit more time to recover. I'm taking liver-fixing drugs as well as a bunch of vitamins. Other than this everything's fine. Back to work in a limited way, which is really great.
Nice to have a week of reprieve so I can get some more cooking done and get things ready for Dorothy's visit and ... (fanfare) The Return of Sarah! (woop!)
Starting chemo 2 next Wednesday, if the blood tests come back favourably.
In the meantime, let's play a game.
Name the strangest place or circumstances you've ever had your confession heard.
Mine is on the steps of Canada's parliament in Ottawa.
Behind a plinth.
Oh, I almost forgot. I've also made confession in Latin at the Jesu in Rome. I had been told that there were always English speaking priests available at the Jesu, which is a conveniently located church in Rome (near a big bus stop). So I went in and sure enough there was a box near the entrance that had a sign on it saying "English" but when I asked the old chap in the box, he shook his head and said, "Mi dispiace". I went away annoyed, and then thought, wait, this is the Jesu and that's an ancient, retired Jesuit. No way he doesn't know how to do it in Latin. So I went back and asked and he looked a little startled, but said, in Italian, that we could try. I knelt down and riffled through my mental Latin files and we stumbled through on a halting combo of Latin, English, Italian and French. I got the gist across, he gave the ancient absolution formula. And "three Hail Mary's and one Our Father" is pretty easy to understand in any language.
~
Friday, July 15, 2011
I am a jerk
Readers and friends,
I recognised so many of those names as they came into my inbox with donations. The 63 people who donated are people I've known personally for many years, people I've known through writing and blogging, people I've had heated arguments with in commboxes, people I've worked with, people you might have heard of, people I barely know and some I've never heard of until now. I'm astounded and humbled.
But I think perhaps I shouldn't be so surprised, and I'll get to that more below.
To let you know, in the last few days, donations have covered the airfare for two friends, one coming over from Scotland for the first half of August and the other all the way from Raleigh, North Carolina, to stay for the second half.
There is also enough left over after airfares that ancillary medical fees will be easily covered at least for the next month.
My reaction to this has been a little surprising. I'm embarrassed. I feel as though I have gravely and unjustly underestimated ... well, everyone really. I have given my friends and readers and everyone one else terribly short shrift. The experience has shown me that I have a pretty deep-seated set of assumptions about people and that a lot of them are simply wrong.
Some of you may know that I left home very young and have very little family. By the time I was thirty, I'd been fending for myself in the world for half my life. I am often reticent to talk about my personal life as you know. I've learned that it does not do to share too much. But some of you know some of the background, so you will understand when I say that I have, what a friend calls, "family of origin issues" (the acronym is pronounced "phooey"). This has left me, as it will, with a profound distrust of other people and the assumption that when the chips are really down, I can count on no one but myself.
The other evening, I was having a talk about this with a friend. I was watching my friends here booking flights to go back "home" for their annual summer exodus from Rome, a process that usually leaves me somewhat depressed. It highlights the fact that there isn't really a "home" for me to go to. For as long as I can remember, whenever I am having one of those conversations, and the question arises, "What do you really want, Hilary?" my gut-instinct answer, the one hidden underneath a lifetime of cynicism and carefully trained wit, the one I never say out loud, is that I want to go home. It's been the one thing I've wanted since I was fifteen, and it's the one thing that will never, ever happen.
This year, it made me more than depressed to watch all my local friends leaving; it made me frightened. I hadn't bargained on the cancer thing still going on so late in the year. I got the diagnosis on March 9 and things have dragged and dragged. There were weeks of waiting for test results and whatever else it is one waits for in a public healthcare system. I don't know really how it happened so slowly, but now that things are finally happening fast, it is the worst possible time and I was in a near panic that I would be facing the worst part of it alone.
Until now, I've had a whole team of people to take phone calls from non-English speaking doctors, and to arrange appointments, to deal with government red tape, to make runs to the pharmacy when I can't, and one at a time, each one of these people has either left or will be gone soon.
I am now going to share: those of my readers who are like me and find such things excruciatingly embarrassing, should avert your eyes.
I've mentioned before, I think, how my brain is evil. Well, one of the elaborate theories my Evil Brain has come up with, and refuses to drop, is that there are two classes of relationships between people. Primary relationships are the ones that incur the most duties on the people in them. For the most part, they are the ones you are born with: mother, father, brother, sister, children. These are the kinds of relationships that take priority in life. When it is a choice between duty to one of these and anything else, that relationship takes first place. The only primary relationship you can acquire without being born into it is marriage.
Secondary relationships are everything else. Friends, co-workers, colleagues, neighbours. With these, the duty is still there, but is not as strong. In a secondary relationship, you are bound to help when help is needed, but only so far as it does not interfere with other important things in life, with your duties to your family, say, or to work or school.
I don't have any primary relationships. My mother is dead, my father has been out of my life for decades; I'm an only child and so was my father, so there were no aunts, uncles or cousins. My mother was estranged from her family and I've never heard from any of them. Until I went back to England in 2008, I had not heard from my mother's foster family in Manchester since I was six.
I have been aware of this relationship hierarchy since I left home and was confronted with the reality of having no one in the world to really rely upon. It's a hard lesson to learn when you're a teenager, but at least in my case it was swift.
When I was fifteen, I took a bus from the arctic where I had been living with my mother and stepfather, back to Victoria. My father picked me up at the bus station. I stayed with him a week and then he told me we had an appointment with the family court. We went into a court room and my father told the judge that he didn't want to care for me and that I should be made a ward of the court. The papers were signed and I was taken from there to the first of a series of foster homes. I was a ward of the state until I was 19, then a social worker told me I had to get a job. I never heard from my father again.
I can imagine what you are thinking, having read this, and I'm right there with you (I can also hear a few of you saying, "It answers so many questions..."). But you might be surprised to hear that it did not occur to me until I was in my 30s that anything untoward had happened. It wasn't until I told it to a priest, who had been trained in psychology, and saw his reaction that I started to understand how appalling it was. At the time, I just accepted it and got on with surviving, which might have had something to do with my already well-developed familiarity with my father's character.
In the years since then, I have to admit that I have developed a set of emotional and psychological barriers to other people, that have shaped who I am and that would be very difficult to overcome. I can't assume that they are all bad, but there are ways in which they have hardened me.
All of which leads me back to the cancer crisis. This is really the first time that I've faced something with which I am actually not capable of dealing alone. This has, naturally, set up a kind of war between my ears. When the cancer thing started, my friends and helpers, co-workers and colleagues, readers and supporters, and a whole bunch of other people I've never met or heard of, all dove into the breach to help. Often without being asked. Despite this, my Evil Brain continues to insist that depending on another human being, particularly a group of humans, is at the very least, extremely unwise. It's a funny thing about habits of thought, as I'm sure any confessor will tell you, they powerfully resist the evidence of our senses.
I hardly know what to say at this stage. Everything I need to deal with this is in place. I suppose that my Evil Brain is more or less unkillable and I will continue to be "astounded" by people helping me. Maybe at some point, I'm going to give my friends the credit they deserve.
Until then, I hope y'all won't be offended by my surprise that you all are decent, kind, honourable and caring.
Sorry.
I'm really trying to be less of a jerk.
HJW
~
I recognised so many of those names as they came into my inbox with donations. The 63 people who donated are people I've known personally for many years, people I've known through writing and blogging, people I've had heated arguments with in commboxes, people I've worked with, people you might have heard of, people I barely know and some I've never heard of until now. I'm astounded and humbled.
But I think perhaps I shouldn't be so surprised, and I'll get to that more below.
To let you know, in the last few days, donations have covered the airfare for two friends, one coming over from Scotland for the first half of August and the other all the way from Raleigh, North Carolina, to stay for the second half.
There is also enough left over after airfares that ancillary medical fees will be easily covered at least for the next month.
My reaction to this has been a little surprising. I'm embarrassed. I feel as though I have gravely and unjustly underestimated ... well, everyone really. I have given my friends and readers and everyone one else terribly short shrift. The experience has shown me that I have a pretty deep-seated set of assumptions about people and that a lot of them are simply wrong.
Some of you may know that I left home very young and have very little family. By the time I was thirty, I'd been fending for myself in the world for half my life. I am often reticent to talk about my personal life as you know. I've learned that it does not do to share too much. But some of you know some of the background, so you will understand when I say that I have, what a friend calls, "family of origin issues" (the acronym is pronounced "phooey"). This has left me, as it will, with a profound distrust of other people and the assumption that when the chips are really down, I can count on no one but myself.
The other evening, I was having a talk about this with a friend. I was watching my friends here booking flights to go back "home" for their annual summer exodus from Rome, a process that usually leaves me somewhat depressed. It highlights the fact that there isn't really a "home" for me to go to. For as long as I can remember, whenever I am having one of those conversations, and the question arises, "What do you really want, Hilary?" my gut-instinct answer, the one hidden underneath a lifetime of cynicism and carefully trained wit, the one I never say out loud, is that I want to go home. It's been the one thing I've wanted since I was fifteen, and it's the one thing that will never, ever happen.
This year, it made me more than depressed to watch all my local friends leaving; it made me frightened. I hadn't bargained on the cancer thing still going on so late in the year. I got the diagnosis on March 9 and things have dragged and dragged. There were weeks of waiting for test results and whatever else it is one waits for in a public healthcare system. I don't know really how it happened so slowly, but now that things are finally happening fast, it is the worst possible time and I was in a near panic that I would be facing the worst part of it alone.
Until now, I've had a whole team of people to take phone calls from non-English speaking doctors, and to arrange appointments, to deal with government red tape, to make runs to the pharmacy when I can't, and one at a time, each one of these people has either left or will be gone soon.
I am now going to share: those of my readers who are like me and find such things excruciatingly embarrassing, should avert your eyes.
I've mentioned before, I think, how my brain is evil. Well, one of the elaborate theories my Evil Brain has come up with, and refuses to drop, is that there are two classes of relationships between people. Primary relationships are the ones that incur the most duties on the people in them. For the most part, they are the ones you are born with: mother, father, brother, sister, children. These are the kinds of relationships that take priority in life. When it is a choice between duty to one of these and anything else, that relationship takes first place. The only primary relationship you can acquire without being born into it is marriage.
Secondary relationships are everything else. Friends, co-workers, colleagues, neighbours. With these, the duty is still there, but is not as strong. In a secondary relationship, you are bound to help when help is needed, but only so far as it does not interfere with other important things in life, with your duties to your family, say, or to work or school.
I don't have any primary relationships. My mother is dead, my father has been out of my life for decades; I'm an only child and so was my father, so there were no aunts, uncles or cousins. My mother was estranged from her family and I've never heard from any of them. Until I went back to England in 2008, I had not heard from my mother's foster family in Manchester since I was six.
I have been aware of this relationship hierarchy since I left home and was confronted with the reality of having no one in the world to really rely upon. It's a hard lesson to learn when you're a teenager, but at least in my case it was swift.
When I was fifteen, I took a bus from the arctic where I had been living with my mother and stepfather, back to Victoria. My father picked me up at the bus station. I stayed with him a week and then he told me we had an appointment with the family court. We went into a court room and my father told the judge that he didn't want to care for me and that I should be made a ward of the court. The papers were signed and I was taken from there to the first of a series of foster homes. I was a ward of the state until I was 19, then a social worker told me I had to get a job. I never heard from my father again.
I can imagine what you are thinking, having read this, and I'm right there with you (I can also hear a few of you saying, "It answers so many questions..."). But you might be surprised to hear that it did not occur to me until I was in my 30s that anything untoward had happened. It wasn't until I told it to a priest, who had been trained in psychology, and saw his reaction that I started to understand how appalling it was. At the time, I just accepted it and got on with surviving, which might have had something to do with my already well-developed familiarity with my father's character.
In the years since then, I have to admit that I have developed a set of emotional and psychological barriers to other people, that have shaped who I am and that would be very difficult to overcome. I can't assume that they are all bad, but there are ways in which they have hardened me.
All of which leads me back to the cancer crisis. This is really the first time that I've faced something with which I am actually not capable of dealing alone. This has, naturally, set up a kind of war between my ears. When the cancer thing started, my friends and helpers, co-workers and colleagues, readers and supporters, and a whole bunch of other people I've never met or heard of, all dove into the breach to help. Often without being asked. Despite this, my Evil Brain continues to insist that depending on another human being, particularly a group of humans, is at the very least, extremely unwise. It's a funny thing about habits of thought, as I'm sure any confessor will tell you, they powerfully resist the evidence of our senses.
I hardly know what to say at this stage. Everything I need to deal with this is in place. I suppose that my Evil Brain is more or less unkillable and I will continue to be "astounded" by people helping me. Maybe at some point, I'm going to give my friends the credit they deserve.
Until then, I hope y'all won't be offended by my surprise that you all are decent, kind, honourable and caring.
Sorry.
I'm really trying to be less of a jerk.
HJW
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