Pedestrians who?

Hello readers!

I spent a long while as a pedestrian. For many periods of my life, I did not have a drivers licence, and if I had, I wouldn't have been able to afford a car. So, I walked, rode a bike, took a bus or taxi when I could. But I didn't have that freedom that comes from having a set of wheels to get myself around with. A freedom that now, admittedly, I take for granted. So having been both a pedestrian and a driver, I now feel pretty darn qualified to rant about this subject.

Nearly on a daily basis, or at least so it seems for the last six months or so, I hear about pedestrians being killed by cars on the streets of Indianapolis. Now I don't live in Indy, but I'm a half an hour car ride away from the outskirts and only an hour from the city center. Having driven through downtown Indy, the traffic is scary to say to the least. There is a lot of it and it moves fast. Some of the roads and traffic signals are confusing to say the least. And a lot of the roads are massively wide, multi-lane monsters built to accommodate the huge traffic flow.

I get it that Indy is a big city. But it has to be one of the least pedestrian friendly cities I've ever seen! The most appalling thing about all these deaths, are the comments on the news articles. People blaming the pedestrian, saying it MUST have been their fault. And in some cases, I'm sure it is. But it can't possibly be that in all cases. The utter lack of compassion or empathy is disgusting. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, but it still makes me very angry.

Even when I lived in little bitty Winchester, with it's minuscule population, and even though I always followed rules ie: wait for signals, etc. I very nearly got hit several times. I actually had someone waiting to make a left turn decide I wasn't moving fast enough and they sped within inches of my back and honked their horn, scaring the life out of me. When I had the right of way! I also nearly got hit on my bike a number of times, even though again, I followed the traffic rules.

But too many people (and I'm not saying everyone cause I see many people who do give way to pedestrians) just think the road completely belongs to them. They disregard right of way to everyone, pedestrians, cyclists, and other cars. (pickup truck drivers are notorious for this) and seem to act as though traffic laws simply don't apply to them.

Or when the weather is bad, sweltering hot or frigidly cold, pouring with rain or pelting down snow or ice, I've seen people in their nice, air conditioned/heated cars, safe and comfortable from the elements, force a pedestrian to wait while they sped through an intersection. I'm sorry, if you can't wait five seconds for a pedestrian to cross, helping them get out of that weather a little sooner, then you should leave your house earlier if you're worried about being late. Its despicable!

And I've been in cities where the pedestrian takes precedence, and even though drivers don't like it, they put up with it, otherwise they'd have massive fines or jail time on their hands. I've walked the streets of New York City and did not feel the same kind of fear of traffic that I do in Indianapolis. And Indy is a gnat compared to the population of NYC. I've also been to other countries, England and Wales. And while I found the drivers to be a bit crazy sometimes, they still followed pedestrian rules. In England, all traffic, on all four sides of an intersection, stops when pedestrians are given the go ahead to cross. ALL OF THEM! And, there are entire streets of city centers in large cities like Birmingham or Wolverhamton, that are designated to be 'car free'. The road is home only to pedestrians, and you often have little shop booths running right down the center of the road you can peruse. This doesn't seem to bother anyone there, but Americans, it would likely drive them crazy. At least here in Indiana!

Rather than complaining about pedestrians, Indianapolis needs to do something to protect pedestrians from insane drivers who are selfish, self-important fools that act as though the world needs to move out of their way, rather than the other way around. How many more people have to die before they get a clue?

I'm not saying its always the drivers fault, but stop assuming it is always the pedestrian too. I think people do that simply because they can't admit to themselves they've probably almost hit a pedestrian from time to time. That would mean admitting they are wrong, and who likes to do that?

Okay, rant over, thanks for listening!

Dawn

Losing someone to cancer.

Until recently, I was one of the lucky ones. I had never lost anyone particularly close to me to cancer. Not to say I hadn't lost people before. My Dad died from a heart attack when I was ten. My Step-father in a car accident when I was in my early twenties. And my son to a tragic accident when he was 8 months old. I've experienced loss. But losing someone to cancer seems to me to be different from all those.

I'm now losing a person I hold dear to my heart. An amazing woman who has touched so many lives, including mine, in special and profound ways. My pastor, Cherie Isakson, is dying from cancer. She is weak, confused, and sleeps most of the time at this point, and is no longer able to eat. It won't be long now, and her daughter and best friend are both here to look after her till the end.

Cherie was diagnosed with uterine cancer last year, underwent surgery and chemo, and all seemed well. She told us her scans had come back clear. Things were good, and then life carried on as usual. Cherie, as our friend Alison is fond of saying, is a woman who "Walks the walk." She lead us spiritually and also lead by example of the Spirit.

Cherie isn't just my pastor, she's my friend. She was always there when I needed advice, a shoulder to lean on, or even a car to borrow. If you needed her to be somewhere, she would usually find a way to get there. If she couldn't be there she would use her extensive knowledge of local pastors to help you. When my husband was in the hospital with his emergency surgery, she couldn't make it right away and sent a pastor she knows in our town to pray with Kevin before his surgery, and then made it over here herself afterward, and helped very pregnant me get him home. She opened her home to those that needed it, whether for a dinner or a place to stay.

But not to say she was perfect. She could be grumpy, particularly if people didn't make their commitments. She argued with people, and was a bit of a control freak. Also a planner, she didn't like doing anything last minute. She'd be the first to tell you she had flaws. Often admitted to them in her Sunday sermons. Human and flawed, like all children of God.

Cherie being Cherie, she didn't say anything when her scans started coming back with not so good results. I think she figured that so long as she felt good enough to work, that they were only numbers on a page. She kept all her commitments, went on a vacation, and was helping to plan bible school. Then within just two weeks, she ended up where she is now. To say that many of us at church were blindsided would be an understatement.

Living an hour away, I was really out of the loop and had no idea she'd been in hospital for a morphine reaction. When we stopped by to visit her a week ago after my doctor appointment, to find her in her den in a hospital bed, on hospice care and actively dying from cancer, was a shock, to say the least. It all seemed to have happened so fast. Only a week later, she is no longer able to see people or talk very much. I'm really glad we got to see her when we did. When she was still the Cherie that I know and love. When she could still banter, and laugh and talk with us as she's always done.

I guess that is what I find so awful about cancer. The deaths that I have experienced have all been quick ones. Sudden and abrupt crises that you deal with and then begin the process of grieving and moving on with your life. Cancer on the other hand, is a slow thing. Robbing a person of their body function and mind until there is nothing left and they finally drift off. When Cherie first told us she had cancer, and that it was a difficult one to treat, I knew that at some point we'd likely have to face this. But when things were going so well, it was so easy to forget that. So easy to pretend that things were all ok and that this stuff that's happening now seemed like it could be years away. And then, all of a sudden, it's not. Some cancers work fast and others slow, and obviously hers was working on her longer than any of us knew. But because she seemed so well, it all feels so rapid and sudden now and we all feel totally unprepared to deal with it.

Currently I'm dealing with it in the best way I know how. Since I can't do anything for Cherie, I've taken it upon myself to do things for those that are caring for her. Preparing food to bring, or using my church connections to make sure they get the things that they need while they take care of my beloved friend. Being there for my church family as much as I can even though I live an hour away. Kevin and I can't imagine going to church anywhere else. It's where we feel we belong, and to us it's worth the two hour round trip to do church on Sunday and to make sure I get there for session meetings, etc.

But now when I see all the things on TV and around me in my community about fighting cancer, I finally understand on more than just an intellectual level. Before, I knew that cancer was bad and while I supported folks in their causes against cancer by donating, etc, I was still pretty detached from what they were doing. Now? Now I have that gut wrenching, visceral reaction at the thought of the very word, cancer. I understand on a much deeper level what it means to lose someone to cancer. Now, I get it, and good Lord I wish I didn't.

I'm angry and sad in turns. It seems so unfair that a person so good, so filled with grace and so present in this world in all she did to help the poor, the mentally ill, the drug addicted, that this person of all people would get cancer and die when she's still in the prime of her life (early sixties). Sounding like my six year old, "It's not fair!". But my mother always used to say that life isn't fair. The older I've gotten the more I've understood that.

So many people do manage to survive cancer, which is so amazing. But when you're losing someone to cancer, when the end result becomes inevitable, you can't help but think, "Why can't they cure this one, dammit!?" Why can they cure some and not others? Obviously, I know why. I know that all cancers are different and all people are different. But I still can't help thinking that anyway. Why not just this one? Sigh...

I don't know how long Cherie has left, but in my mind she is really already gone. The Cherie that I knew has already been taken from us, and now God merely needs to bring her the rest of the way home. I comfort myself knowing that when she was lucid she was at peace with her situation, and at peace with God. All I can do at this point is pray for her caregivers, pray that she doesn't suffer, and pray for my church family who now have to figure out how we move forward without her.

I guess that is all any of us can do. But now I know, now I know what it means to lose someone to cancer.

Dawn

So you're different...

Hello readers!

Those of you who actually do read my blog know that I don't blog often. Heck, only my husband follows me on Google. People read my blog, sometimes, when I post it on Facebook. That doesn't stop me from blogging though, because whenever I find something that either makes me mad, intrigues me, or that I feel passionate about, I have to write about it. It's a great outlet to get out your feelings and just put your thoughts out there. Sometimes my blogs have sparked discussions, other times my blogs are largely ignored. But I won't ever stop writing them, even if only my husband ever reads them.

That said, as usual I've found something that bothers me so I want to write about it :)

I was watching a show I recorded yesterday called "Taboo". The series covers a variety of topics, and this episode covered physical or mental disorders that cause people to be outside what society views as 'normal'.
One was a man a little older than myself who had severe OCD. Despite using medicine and therapy to combat it, his OCD was pretty severe and some of the worst I've seen. Another was a woman whose body has basically no fat on it. It makes her look prematurely old and she is so skinny she looks severely anorexic, despite the fact that she eats constantly and loves fast food, which makes most of us fat. Another was a man with severe Asymmetry on his body, one side was much larger than the other.

In all the cases of these people, the thing that stood out to me most was how they talked of being bullied, ostracized and teased. How people looked at them like they are crazy, particularly the guy with OCD. The young woman who was so skinny found a you tube video of herself calling her the 'worlds ugliest woman' and comments on the video saying they'd give her tips on how to kill herself and doesn't she wish her mother had aborted her.

These sort of things make me seriously ANGRY! People who are ill through absolutely no fault of their own, being shunned by society because they are different. Being seen as less because they don't fit the status quo. There are so many different types of people out there. No two are exactly alike, even when you take identical twins into account there are differences that exist. So who are any of us to judge someone?

I admit, there are times in my life where I've seen someone behaving oddly and I thought, 'Okay, that was weird.'. But I would never shun or outright make fun of someone for being different. I suppose growing up with a brother who is severely mentally handicapped, and also who became mentally ill with Paranoid Schizophrenia, I'm a little more tolerant than some folks. I like to think that some people have been sheltered and just not had to deal with folks with special needs or strange disorders, so I like to hope that their ignorance is simply unintentional and a result of never having been exposed to these things.

Unfortunately that isn't often the case. Some people believe that mental disorders and things simply don't exist. Others make a snap judgement and once their mind is made up you can show them all the scientific evidence in the world and they still won't believe you, because their belief is now set in stone. Others simply lack basic human compassion and poke fun at these people for their own amusement. Those are the ones that really tick me off!

And I know that some things wouldn't even be said if it weren't for the internet. The inherent anonymity of it makes people bold and brings out the jerk in many. They say things online that they could never say in person to someone because they aren't brave enough to be that hideous.

I can understand people hundreds of years ago, not having the knowledge of science and the human brain that we have today, being irrationally afraid of someone different, because they didn't know any better. But in today's more educated and civilized society, this should no longer be the norm but it should be in the minority. Yes there are people not as well educated but again, those should be in the minority.

But its not and that is what makes me so mad. I suppose that is why I like watching shows that talk about rare disorders and people who look different. Mainly because I want to educate myself, and be prepared for what life may throw my way. You never know when your own child can be stricken with one of those rare, one in a million type of conditions that the doctor doesn't know anything about. Being informed as to what is out there, can lessen the shock of it.

I have to say I admired the folks in that show. The young woman has aspirations of being a motivational speaker and already speaks at schools about bullying. The guy with OCD holds down a normal job as a waiter, and has roommates and friends and family who are supportive of him. He tells his roommate to tell him its the OCD when it starts getting a little out of control, which helps him snap out of some of his compulsive behaviors.

One of the interesting things I learned about OCD watching that show is that the people who have OCD, are fully aware that their behavior is not normal and appears ridiculous, but they still can't help doing it. He explained it like having an itch you simply can't resist scratching. If they don't do the compulsion it's as though something bad is going to happen. The anxiety builds and builds till they can't handle it.

I admire anyone who perseveres and overcomes a health issue or disorder to really make something of themselves. Even if that means only being independent. I hope that anyone who reads this thinks twice before they judge the guy in the grocery making strange faces, or the autistic child flapping their hands or twirling. Be tolerant of your fellow man and be loving as Jesus taught us to be. After all, he hung out with the misfits, so too can we. They can surely bring a lot more life to the party, I'll tell you  ;)

Thanks,

Dawn