I've been away for quite a while but many things have occupied my mind these past two months. I have come to realize that the young are plagued with adult pressures, adults face death on a daily basis, tennis has saved two lives that I know of, and the impact one person can have on a population is never realized until that person is gone.
An eighth grade student is hospitalized after her blood pressure drops to a dangerously low level. The culprit...anorexia. How does a 13 year old develop such a horrendously paralyzing disease? Is the pre-teen population so jaded that they can push a slighty overweight child to the brink of death with condescending comments that linger in a young girls mind and leave her with no alternative but starvation? These children have given her an insecurity that may take her life. She struggles with this illness daily, having to make intermitten stops at guidance so they can observe her eating. The entire school knows of her affliction and can not possibly comprehend, what it is like, to intentionally harm yourself until you are on the brink of death and still not realize you are out of control. Ironically, control is the one thing she thinks she has! If this is her life at thirteen, what will she know as a teenager or young adult?
Adults face death on a daily basis and become hardened to it's hold on life. I have seen so many people who battle their own looming death with ferocity and vigilance. This is their monthly, weekly, daily routine and they have lived it for so long they do not know any differently. For those that love and care for them, it is a battle that can not be fought by anyone else but the victim, yet they feel the weight and pain of the ordeal as though they were enduring it themselves. Their helplessness is their affliction and they, like their loved one, can do nothing to alter the course of the illness. They proceed with caution and apprehension, until the ordeal becomes such a routine part of their lives, that onlookers can not comprehend how they can maintain such balance and appreciation, when faced with such overwhelming difficulty.
A year and a half ago, tennis saved my life and once again, this year, I was a first hand witness to tennis saving a friends life. A year and a half ago, it was my tennis friends that talked me into going to the doctors for my abdominal pain. What would have happened had I not been playing tennis is unknown, but I do know it was my drive to get back on the court that forced my hand into a doctor's visit that uncovered my ovarian cancer. The silent cancer that so often goes unnoticed until it is too far gone. I thank God I went to the doctors when I did! Just one month ago, at tennis practice, a teammate experienced some unusual symtoms while at practice. In a matter of minutes, she went from serving a tennis ball to nearly collapsing on the court. Luckily, teammates noticed something unusual and her partner caught her before she collapsed. The severity of her condition worsened dramatically. EMTs were called and they quickly took her to the hospital. Her screams of head pain as she left still resonate in my mind. She had an aneurysm on the court during our team practice. We all thank God she was with us when it happened as we have all come to find out only 20% of the people who suffer aneurysms survive. She was so fortunate to be with us when it happened. Had she been alone, she probably would have died.
A fellow co-worker passed away last week and left an entire gym feeling his abscence. He was a facility worker with downs syndrome. He was the mayor of the club, always there with a smile and a sly grin. I'll never forget one of the first times I met him, he was working with a personal trainer to get his health under control. He would ask all of us at the front desk to get him a donut or a cookie or candy, and then if his trainer saw him, he'd say it was ours. It was a daily ritual for him to stop at the front desk and chat with us. Always calling us gorgeous or sweety. He shocked us when he went on a date and told us how he "made out" on the deck after dinner!!! Members and workers were all touched by Jack. He loved life, people and having fun. He brightened so many lives with his pleasant demeanor and personable ways. He welcomed anyone with the same enthusiasm and joy. He truly loved life and the people he met living his life the only way he knew how, with an open heart and an innocent humor that could brigten even the darkest day. He is gravely missed by more people than he will ever know and his persona made the "Y" a better experience for all of us who knew him.
One can only hope to leave the same kind of indelible, optimism and joy behind for those we have touched with our arms out-stretched, our eyes sincere and our hearts our open, offering.
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