Two years ago in writing about his memories from 1982 , my former boyfriend described me as “A Goddess in red, with golden blond hair, clear blue eyes, and skin that looked like she was made alive from ivory”. Ahh, 17 year old me, not all that
, but still an experience to hear about my 17 year old self through the eyes of another. The “red” was a satin toga gown I wore to a Halloween party. I graduated high school that year (a year early) and made the toga of silk satin that my mother had left over from a gown she’d made for herself.
I told a friend about this contact and she instantly became concerned. “You two are e-mailing? He’s out of state right?“ I said yes, absolutely in Washington. She was worried It would raise bad memories for me. She was a CALS for 9 years, and I think her road was harder in a lot of ways than mine. It lasted a lot longer, and they had a ten year old still at home when her late husband was Dx’d. It is her belief that virtually everyone that the beast touches is viscerally traumatized on some level and we need to be careful. This is from a person who remarried and lost her PALS a decade ago. She still volunteers for ALSA though. Point taken, and I will be careful.
My surprise contact further motivated me to get my registration going for this years ALS walk, start checking into plans for the annual gala and if it is happening this year or next, and check into using my volunteer day through work for ALSA. Yes, I’d have done all that anyway but I got going on all of it now. I keep saying - this disease needs people who understand it up close to stick with raising funds, volunteering time. The mods here are good examples of that.