Friday, March 25, 2005
campaign crossover
It has been a strange several days… no, I am not referring to my own previously referenced drama but of the surreal ironies implicit in other people’s more visceral experiences of pain and joy and striving and loss.
I know these two women… both party girls, both schooled in the occult, both big personalities, but in so many other ways worlds apart. Within the span of ten days both of their lives were dramatically altered.
After fifteen hours of labor Dev gave birth to her first child. She is full of pride and joy and trepidation. She is politically connected. Finances are not really and issue and she has doting parents and devoted friends, so being a single mother does not so much trouble her. The bouncing new addition is the product of a one night stand that could not have become more, had she wanted it to, for the father was killed before Dev even knew she was pregnant. It is instead the father’s legacy and the enemies it brings that worry her; those who might seek to harm the child for fear of what role he might come to play in their future. She tries to put these thoughts aside. When she gazes on the baby, who round and soft favors his father’s people more than hers, she tries to see only wonder and possibility and to feel only joy and love for this wee being that she confides has become her reason for everything.
Only days after I was notified of Dev’s good news word of a more troubling sort came from Sondrah. A friend and associate of hers had gone missing at the tail end of a business trip and she and some other associates were off to find out exactly what was going on. I must admit the details are sketchy, confidentiality and all that sort of rubbish, but it appears that whatever had happened, it wasn’t at all good. By the time they located and subsequently reached the gentleman it was “too late”. Sondrah couldn’t say what the specifics were other than it was all rather gruesome; that he was nearly gone when they arrived… and that she did what he asked and let him go. She is not taking it well. She says she is putting in for a six month leave of absence. Sondrah tends to talk a lot, talk about people a lot… not in the delicious gossipy way that I favor but in an honest and enthusiastic way. She likes people. She mentioned this guy (whose name I have been asked not to use) a little bit more frequently than most... I think maybe she liked him just a little bit more. I guess she’ll never know what that might have meant. But, as life is about moving forward, as the living must continue, I hope that she can see she did all she could. I hope that she will forgive herself for a valiant rescue that simply failed to arrive in time.
I know these two women… both party girls, both schooled in the occult, both big personalities, but in so many other ways worlds apart. Within the span of ten days both of their lives were dramatically altered.
After fifteen hours of labor Dev gave birth to her first child. She is full of pride and joy and trepidation. She is politically connected. Finances are not really and issue and she has doting parents and devoted friends, so being a single mother does not so much trouble her. The bouncing new addition is the product of a one night stand that could not have become more, had she wanted it to, for the father was killed before Dev even knew she was pregnant. It is instead the father’s legacy and the enemies it brings that worry her; those who might seek to harm the child for fear of what role he might come to play in their future. She tries to put these thoughts aside. When she gazes on the baby, who round and soft favors his father’s people more than hers, she tries to see only wonder and possibility and to feel only joy and love for this wee being that she confides has become her reason for everything.
Only days after I was notified of Dev’s good news word of a more troubling sort came from Sondrah. A friend and associate of hers had gone missing at the tail end of a business trip and she and some other associates were off to find out exactly what was going on. I must admit the details are sketchy, confidentiality and all that sort of rubbish, but it appears that whatever had happened, it wasn’t at all good. By the time they located and subsequently reached the gentleman it was “too late”. Sondrah couldn’t say what the specifics were other than it was all rather gruesome; that he was nearly gone when they arrived… and that she did what he asked and let him go. She is not taking it well. She says she is putting in for a six month leave of absence. Sondrah tends to talk a lot, talk about people a lot… not in the delicious gossipy way that I favor but in an honest and enthusiastic way. She likes people. She mentioned this guy (whose name I have been asked not to use) a little bit more frequently than most... I think maybe she liked him just a little bit more. I guess she’ll never know what that might have meant. But, as life is about moving forward, as the living must continue, I hope that she can see she did all she could. I hope that she will forgive herself for a valiant rescue that simply failed to arrive in time.
