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| I've started and stopped posting this so many times, and then pushed it aside; absorbed myself in my work and so on. All of these fail to complete what I said I would do which is explain what happened and also post Mandy's words to you, the ones she had been typing up off-line in an 'intendtopost' document. When she was taken into hospital. She had fallen, again. She'd been doing well, as you could probably tell from her posts, even going down to the hospital and teaching some of the children there. Well, somewhere along, she caught something from one of the children, which might not be so bad, except the medication for it, reacted with some of the medication she was on for the Multiple Sclerosis, not a bad reaction, except that it made her very dizzy...as we discovered and thus she fell while she was out. Thankfully she had Divo with her, and Divo did as she was supposed to and got attention and an ambulance was called and she went on to the hospital, but...we think, that is Sarah voiced to me what I had been thinking, which was that at this point she had no more strength left to continue on going like this, she would put on a brave face for us, and joke around, but she was definitely tired. We had found out from the doctors that considering this latest event they wanted to admit her again, and I think knowing this, she may well have summed up her stubborness and died, just to spare herself and in some way us from going through this over and over again. I did, as I said, take her ashes, after some million miles of paperwork, back to Austria, and we had a ceremony there with the Mitchell-Humes. I laid her in her favourite spot, a place we used to picnic quite a bit, down at the edge of the grounds of Kari's family cabin, near a river, by the willow there. She and I would walk there quite a bit, and sit and she would make me relax, because that has been very hard for me. Moving on, the document from Mandy pasted thus: ( Mandy's Words ) As this is mostly her words. I used one of her icons. She had it labeled as 'angelic'. I hope you all understand. -Gavin | |
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| It's a little tricky getting used to livejournal. I've never really bothered with weblogs. Somethings are straight forward and some things I'm not sure of. I've left Mandy's icons up, but I added one I found on the computer that she had saved from apparently the same place she got one of her others, because I didn't feel right using pictures she had actively used, it's strange enough using her journal and her username now.
I wanted to thank everyone for their messages of love and support during this trying time, and double verify if it's alright to use some of the memorial posts you've been putting up in an entry I'm working on explaining what happened. If anyone else has any funny/uplifting things they would like to share please email it to her address (thedawnwillow@yahoo.com) and I'll add it in.
I found also she had some information about herself she'd saved that it looks as though she'd been meaning to share with people but didn't get chance I'm going to put that in there as well but it'll probably be a few more days before everything's ready to go.
I had debated closing the journal, but it just wouldn't feel right to erase her mark.
Thank you again, everyone. It's lovely to hear that she was loved and cherished by so many people, and that everyone's memories verify to me the way she was: whacky, crazy, charming, caring, beautiful.
-Gavin | |
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| and with much apologies for not letting everyone know sooner that I must report Mandy has lost her battle.
Perhaps at some future date I will go into all the details, but I thought it only prudent that her closest friends not be left unaware of the situation any longer.
Suffice it to say she wound up in hospital again about three weeks ago and finally passed at about 4 a.m Sunday the 26th of March. Thankfully not alone, myself and my family and Sarah were with her.
I wish to publically acknowledge/thank the staff of our hospital for their support at this trying time. We had her cremated this past weekend, and I'm going to take her ashes to Kari's family to be scattered there where she was most at home.
I'll close with a sentiment Mandy always held dear.
Take care of those close to you, before acknowledging me. Spend time with those you love rather than spending on me. Remember who your true friends are and have always been. I will see you again soon.
I take comfort in the fact that now she can probably know our daughter for what little time she'll spend resting before coming back and doing this all over again, and look forward to the next life time where I'll get to know her.
-Gavin | |
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| I'm a touch behind, and LJ will only let me see back to the 10th of February, so if anyone has anything from between the...20th of January (I think) and then they would like me to see, please let me know.
I'm sorry for the silence, and for the lack of knowledge/explanation. I tried to get Gav to nip on and update but neglected to tell him the password for here is the same as my email, and he could have done the email thing again, but I guess got sidetracked with me, so...
Well, I was doing the tutoring thing and that was working out quite well, but then I caught something from one of the children I was working with and got knocked for six...or sixteen, and then whatever it was they gave me to combat it didn't like either me or something else I'm on for the MS so, blah. I'm up and about now, but things are going back on the 'not good'. So, I'll probably be very sporadic for a while I just wanted to catch up on things and was being stubborn today. My inbox is clear now...but that probably means Cat's isn't (sorry!) because a lot of what I replied to just now was leftovers from the 1000+ comment entry.
Other people probably have a few things, and may have more as I go back and read from the 10th to now. See how far I can get before I have to take a break. | |
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| Yesterday I decided to 'take the plunge'. I went around a few local places that were in need of part-time help and filled out a few applications, chatted with some of the owners/supervisors and generally made nice. A few of them I decided to shred the application after talking to, but a couple seem nice. It was about 50/50.
If that doesn't work out...I may take Molly's suggestion and put up flyers about tutoring people. She actually suggested having them come to our house, but with Divo and all, that might not be such a good idea. I know she's a right sop, but her being an Alsation will probably put some parent's back-up.
My other thought has been to go around the Children's Ward of the hospital and ask if there are any families there who might want a tutor for their kids who are missing too much school being stuck there. It'll be a bit heart-rending, I know, but I thought maybe my own experience with annoying illness might give me a level of sympathy/connection with the kids who might not respond as well to a 'healthy tutor' who has no idea what they're going through.
Falling back on the tutoring from home...our local library has put tutors up before and let them meet the students there. It's safe. It's a public location, and is better than the alternative of me driving to people's homes and working there, which is also not always a good idea with the way some people can be.
Anyway, that's what I did yesterday, and will start on next week or so if I don't hear anything. Most part time jobs will potentially prefer random high school student to me, but we'll see. It was mosty 'do something' to give self confidence boost while trying to kick self into admitting that the tutoring is feasible again. | |
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| Truth and Lies -- the answers.
1. I have a degree in English.
Status: True
Yes, indeed I do. I'm not going to say when I got it because it makes me feel old, but I have a degree in English, and I'm certified to teach, in the United Kingdom and Europe anyway. I'm not sure what the difference would be to be qualified to teach in the States on anything more than a temporary basis. I've only taught briefly in classrooms, however. My 'work experience' while teacher training; most of my teaching career has been spent as a personal tutor. When we first came back to the UK I did teach for a while in an actual school, bit of a culture shock in some respects, and then as my health worsened I dropped down to just teaching 'special' kids, and then had to stop entirely for a while and have been scared to go back.
2. I'm an orphan.
Status: True
My Dad died when I was twelve. My Mum died a few years ago. So, while I wasn't orphaned at a time where I'd have had to be a 'ward of the state' or anything. I do have no living parents, or grandparents.
3. I learned some semblance of web design from Kari's grandmother.
Status: False
This one really goes down as 'bleeding obvious' me do web design *laughs a whole bunch*. Cat's right though. I did have a webpage for a while, but Kari's granddad put it together for me. I just wrote the text out. For a while it was linked from Cat and Luci's 'Denara Ink' page, but then I got a nasty email from an American phone company telling me that the webpage title infringed on their copyrighted name. I'm not sure if it was real or genuine. It came in while I was in hospital. Once I got out and got back online I took the webpage down right away, better to be safe than sorry, and I really didn't want to mess with ANYTHING at that point other than trying to get better.
4. I can play the flute.
Status: True.
It has been a while since I've tried. I think the last time I played was when I was trying to show Kari that it wasn't that hard, as she was threatening to give up on her lessons, and that's got to be three years ago now. I learned in high school.
5. I own a mobile phone.
Status: False.
Gav does have one, but I don't. I'm home most of the time anyway, so it is mostly pointless, and yeah...I've used Gav's maybe twice, and it's scary.
6. I've lived in Switzerland.
Status: True
Yes, I did. When I first went out to tutor Kari the family was living in Switzerland, then they moved back to Austria.
7. I've lived in New York.
Status: True
I don't talk about it much, and it wasn't for very long, but I was there. Kari's father had to go to New York for business for about six months. Kari's grandmother was very sick at the time, and her mother was taking care of her. Kari elected to go to the States with her father, so I had to go with to keep up her studies. We wound up coming back to Austria after only a couple of months, though.
8. I've been in hospital in four different countries.
Status: False.
Only three. Austria, France and England.
9. I'm closer to my student's family than my own.
Status: True.
I resonate very well with Kari's family. For a long time I resisted this. But after George (Kari's father) went to bat for me with doctor's in Austria, and also gave Gavin the tenth degree when he came to visit me and made sure that he was going to treat me right and was a decent human being I realised that I had apparently graduated from 'daughter's tutor' to one of the family with them as well. They have been incredibly, incredibly sweet to me, and truth be told I do tend to look on Kari more as kid sister than student now.
10. I have my father's eyes.
Status: True.
In more ways than one.
11. I speak Italian.
Status: False.
Which made our visit to Rome veeeery interesting.
12. I've used a computer with a dead monitor.
Status: True.
Don't ask me how I managed it but I did. The monitor on Kari's old computer died. I was a bit tipsy at the time and jokingly decided to see if I could send an email to Luci and she replied to it, so apparently it worked.
13. My middle name is Elaine.
Status: True.
My Mum's first name was given to me as my middle name.
14. I'm allergic to cats.
Status: False.
I'm not overly keen on most cats because they have a tendency to try and gnaw my hands off, but I'm not actually allergic.
15. My husband is half-Korean.
Status: True.
On his Mum's side. | |
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| I was actually up before noon today. We'll see how long it lasts.
Granted it was ten-thirty, but that's pretty good for me, especially since we've been back from visiting.
If you're feeling masochistic check out my previous entry and try to guess the lies from the facts. It's been proving interesting so far *rubs hands together* Of course now I'm thinking up some much more creative and unusual things I could have said, but that's the way it goes, I suppose.
Well, I'm going to take advantage of the fact that I'm up early and head down town and check out the comic shop I was going on about most of yesterday. See if they've heard of Jhonen Vasquez who Birdy's been telling me about. May as well accomplish some of my goal ideas. | |
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| ( Meme 11: Threes )Truth and Lies * Make a list of 15 statements about yourself. * 5 of the 15 statements must be LIES * Post your list and have people guess which five are lies! 1. I have a degree in English. 2. I'm an orphan. 3. I learned some semblance of web design from Kari's grandmother. 4. I can play the flute. 5. I own a mobile phone. 6. I've lived in Switzerland. 7. I've lived in New York. 8. I've been in hospital in four different countries. 9. I'm closer to my student's family than my own. 10. I have my father's eyes. 11. I speak Italian. 12. I've used a computer with a dead monitor. 13. My middle name is Elaine. 14. I'm allergic to cats. 15. My husband is half-Korean. | |
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| As some of you, mostly Cat ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) ami_the_cat and Isil isil_elen know I made it on IM the other night. I discovered/remembered inadvertantly my old password so the 'FireflyBecky' handle is active once again. Apparently IM has also decided to invade the computer with some other interesting programs called 'Plaxo'. I thought it was just going to bombard me through email, but apparently it's also trying to infest Gavin's Outlook, so he's none too thrilled. Once again I shall destroy all technology! (ahem) I make no promises on when I'll be around and about given it tends to be very quiet on IM at the times I'm usually online. I do also have yahoo's messenger program which is 'thedawnwillow' handle, but I'm not used to that one at all, and tend to only remember to log in if I'm the one who turns the computer on in the morning and it automatically signs in. | |
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