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thegalacticzoo-blog · 3 years

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Hope

Hope, Fred and I went on several day-long and multi-day adventures! This often involved my help in getting Hopes Toyota Pathfinder repaired (repaired and moved). Sometimes these treks involved overnight stays at motels while attempting to satisfy a laundry list of errands and chores in need of doing; and always lots of time spent in parking lots outside of fast food joints, convenience stores and the like.

They were like little urban safaris, complete with errands, shopping lists, laundromats, Taco Bell and Baha Blasts! As often as not with me and Hope waiting around wondering where-the-hell Fred got to, what bright shiny object has beguiled Fred into losing all sense of time and place...??

Those several times in the motel (with ALL the lights on all night) were an amalgam of night sounds, reality TV and fast food wrappers. Fred would set-up his computer and tap-tap away as we watched tv and chatted about celebrities and whatnot.

There were all those times on the way to work, phone calls in the car. One time in particular Hope mentioned the passing of Tom Petty. I remember this in particular because I have always been a Tom Petty fan, and her bringing up the circumstances of his passing stuck with me. Not so much many of the other celebrities she would update us on.

But she was like that - a kind of link to the current social zeitgeist, some of which I knew, and some not. Some of what she would talk about was meaningless to me (don't care about that one, never heard of that one! etc), but often a subject would arise, kind of organically, and suddenly a substantial conversation would develop. We would talk about some fairly weighty issues, offering opinions, observations and reactions to the happenings of the world around us.

She would talk about what concerned her, as we are all wont to do. Her kids were always right up front there. Her relationship with Fred. Not trusting or believing the Doctors, or the meds. I think she felt that she wasn't always being heard, or taken seriously when she offered her opinion, her take on what was happening. ---- Hope and I spoke on the phone numerous times over the last weeks and months of her life. The latter part of which, she and Fred had moved into a triplex on Portland Rd, up a few miles from where I was staying. I was glad she and Fred had finally settled on a place for her to be, hoping that she would finally be able to find a measure of peace and tranquility there.

It can be difficult to have peace or enjoy tranquility when one is being preyed upon by various converging health issues, as she was. It was during some of these telephone conversations with Hope, that I came to realize that with Fred working much of the time, it was fitting that I should try to buoy her spirits, try to alleviate some of her loneliness and worry.

In a sense all three of us were refugees of one sort or the other. The Wildfires, housing, Covid, health and other issues, all converging like a wildfire; a perfect storm of collective mishaps. Not just us three, but all of society as well.

So it was during this past year, she shared with me many of her worries and concerns. Yes she railed against this situation or that circumstance, marveling at how so much didn't make any sense at all. She would seem dumbfounded that more people didn't see things her way, that so much of all of this was perfectly obvious.

She had a habit that I used to have (and still fall into occasionally), and that is of talking too fast, trying to get ones say out there, from fear of being shut-down, not heard; not understood. Sometimes I would tell her to slow down, that I AM listening, not to worry about that with me. So over time, my relationship with her grew into a straight-up and honest one.

I realized that things were hard for her, that developing willpower and cultivating discipline is h a r d. It is often very hard to extricate ourselves from various predicaments we find ourselves in. I learned to keep these things in mind as regards Hope. She was in a health trap. One we should all be less blameful of, and more understanding of the realities that ARE.

I myself having some convergent health issues understand fully well how frustrating it can be. So it amazes me that right up until our last phone conversation a couple of weeks ago, that she still had a laugh in her. At her heart she was a kind and decent person, steered sometimes by fears and anxieties that sometimes eclipsed that aspect of her character.

I for one am thankful that I was able to know her well enough and long enough to see these excellent qualities of character and humanity that were there all along; waiting to be seen, heard, felt, and understood.

Have a Baha Blast on me, Hope. You will not be forgotten.

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