Hello readers,
First of all, I’d like to thank to those of you who’ve registered on my blog. I do appreciate your interest.
Now that I’ve been away for about six weeks, I’ll try to get back up to speed as quickly as possible. At the same time, my focus is changing. I have a vision, but it’s not really “solidified” yet. We’ll see how it unfolds.
Thanks again for visiting.
Lisa
I’ll be away from my desk a lot from now until the middle of August. Actually, I’ll be making a major move. Feel free to comment on any of my posts; I’ll still be checking my e-mail except for approximately August 4th through 12th.
See you after that!
The third phase of our project is to provide business loans to Haitians who have skills but lack capital to buy equipment and supplies. In most cases, a small amount of money, in the $500-1000 range—perhaps even as little as $50-100—would be enough to get them started on a lucrative business that would enable them to support themselves.
Repaying the loan would be painless. We would simply subtract the borrowed amount from the profits on their goods that we help them sell.
Everybody wins.
Visit us at www.Bon-Bagay.com and see the ways you can get involved.
The second phase is to sell Haitian-made goods, specifically clothing, jewelry, accessories, home décor items, and gifts. We’re building up a network of people who visit and/or live in Haiti who can put us in touch with people who have goods to sell.
Know anyone who visits or lives in Haiti, who’d like to be a “finder” for us?
Visit us at www.Bon-Bagay.com.
I’ve just launched a new website in partnership with my daughter Noelle. I’ll let the site speak for itself, so please visit.
Our project has many phases. The first one is to create and sell Haiti-themed products. The t-shirts Noelle designs and makes, adorned with flora and fauna of Haiti, have been quite popular so far!
It’s www.Bon-Bagay.com. See you there!
As I usually do when I hear about someone having to deal with a situation that defies comprehension, I began to wonder: What is this worse than? What is it not as bad as?
I thought of being a prisoner of war. If you’re a POW, you’re cold (or hot), underfed, and surrounded by people who want to kill you. You sleep on the floor, with no covers. You have bugs and snakes and other scary creatures skulking around you. Still, you live with daily hope that you’ll escape or be rescued, that you’ll overpower or kill your captors, that the war will end. Your circumstances couldn’t be much worse, yet you can believe that at any moment they will get better.
Life in an iron lung…that’s forever. Some people have been able to escape this life by having surgery to enable them to breathe on their own, but I understand that Dianne had some spinal abnormality that prevented such a surgery. I suppose they couldn’t take her out of there long enough to even investigate what might be done. Yet she was surrounded by family and friends who tirelessly (as far as we can see) did what needed to be done to make sure she was safe and comfortable.
From what I know of parents of disabled children, life’s biggest fear is: “Who will take care of my child when I die?” Perhaps it was a mercy that Dianne died while her aging, failing parents were still able to care for her on a daily basis.
Who knows, perhaps she was at least as happy with her life as I am with mine. Still, she certainly had more “complaining rights” than I have ever had. So when I heard this story, I decided: I will never complain again.
In the month that has gone by, I’ve actually done pretty well. Perhaps Dianne would be pleased to know that her sacrifice of a “normal” life has inspired others to complain less about theirs.
Dianne’s father installed an intercom system connecting the local high school to their home so she could listen to classes from her bedroom. She also took university classes, although health problems prevented her from earning her degree; the university eventually awarded her an honorary degree.
She watched her favorite programs on a TV mounted in front of her, and could see visitors’ faces via a mirror. Her family would wheel her, iron lung and all, into the dining room so she could enjoy holidays with them; they even transported her to a restaurant to celebrate her birthday. She spoke at the Rotary club, helped out with local political campaigns, and tutored children. She even authored a book, Blinky Less Light, about a tiny star that wanted to be a wishing star.
All from within an iron lung. To be honest, my thoughts first turn to…what would you do if you had an itch, or needed to sneeze? What about taking a shower or brushing your teeth? How do you swallow your food, when you have to eat lying down? Yet it’s clear her family loved her, and they did what they needed to do to make sure she was cared for.
Dianne Odell died about a month ago. In case you’ve never heard of her, she was a 61-year-old woman who’d spent the last 58 years of her life in an iron lung. She died when the power at her family’s home was knocked out by a thunderstorm, the emergency generator failed, and the iron lung stopped doing her breathing for her.
Dianne had been left paralyzed by polio at age three. That was in 1950, about five years before the Salk vaccine was discovered. Other people have spent years in iron lungs, but Dianne was believed to be the nation’s oldest survivor of polio to have spent almost all of her life in one.
The idea of spending virtually my entire life flat on my back, encased in a metal tube, is beyond mind-boggling. Yet by all accounts, she handled her very special circumstances with grace.
That Jeff lacked dependable physical health but overflowed with love, both given and received, is one of those unfathomable mysteries. Some people clearly live more life in less time than others. Do they know, on some conscious or subconscious level, that they must do more and be more in a briefer space of time? Perhaps. But even with that, Jeff gave and received more, did more, was more than most people ever do, even if given many more years to work with.
I feel that Jeff Healey was under-recognized and underappreciated during his time with us. There are countless musicians less talented, less likable, less enjoyable to watch—yet more famous—than he. In recognition of his amazing talents and his extraordinariness as a human being, we own it to ourselves to know him better. How about a documentary, a movie, a book?
And how about if we all try to be the love that Jeff gave and received in his too-short life.
The “basics” about Jeff’s life are as follows:
When and where he was born: March 25, 1966, Toronto, Ontario. Why he was blind: retinoblastoma in his first year of life. How he died: metastases from the original cancer, which became pretty much a lifelong struggle.
Since Jeff’s talents encompassed several styles of music, from jazz to blues to soft rock to harder rock, it is reasonable to expect that his fans come from a similarly broad demographic. Yet from young kids to those older than Jeff, the comments are universally adoring. Read the stories told by those who’d met him in person, and it’s obvious that he was deeply and widely loved.
Some praise his music: amazing…outstanding talent…one of the best.
Some his character: nice and genuine…a true gentleman…a great human being…a true Canadian hero.
And some capture the whole man: an inspiration to all of us…a beautiful song, a beautiful voice, a beautiful man.
One repeated theme in the comments is “I didn’t know he was blind.” Well, the complete mastery he has over not only his instrument but also his physical space is something to behold. Sure, lots of blind people become accomplished musicians; many come to mind. But the way Jeff moves around onstage is utterly captivating. You can enjoy his performance even with the sound turned off!
I read that once someone in the audience threw him a glass of water and he caught it. His being blind doesn’t make that amazing. It just makes it more amazing.
And then there are the mellow love songs like “Angel Eyes.” Jeff was a mere 22 years old when this song was recorded, but in songs like this you can really appreciate the beauty of his voice. Not all rock musicians can really sing, but Jeff could. And that angelic face—are there any girls in the audience who don’t wish he were singing directly to them?