Yesterday morning I was awoken with yet another phone call from an old friend. Lee-Ann and I hooked up on the Oregon coast in my early twenties. We started a crisis line together for women which dealt with both rape and domestic violence. I was fresh out of college, and she was a mother and housewife on the front lines of domestic violence. She’d walk into a bar, talk to guys she knew who had a history of wife-beating, and come out with enough money for us to pay the rent and phone bill at our small office. Over the years she’s gone in and out of her great love affair with her husband and the father of her children. Their battles have been the stuff of legend. In Lee-Ann, he surely found a worthy adversary. I woke to the news that he is now dying of pancreatic cancer.
Years ago Lee-Ann dropped her husband’s name and took up Jones for the woman she admired so much; Mother Jones. Like Mother Jones, she’s had more than her share of personal tragedy. She’s lost a child and her fortunes have gone up and down wildly. Thru it all, she’s been a constant agitator for social justice, an outspoken feminist, and she always can make me laugh. She’s another of those who was conceived at Beltane and born at Brigid, and I love her dearly. I told her I’d come to the small town in Idaho where she now lives when she needs me. There’s been years when we haven’t spoken at all, yet, when we do, the years fade away and the connection remains solid.
In the last few weeks, I’ve thought more than once of Mother Jone’s famous quote; “Pray for the dead, fight like hell for the living”. Here at this equinox, I’m aware of the delicate balance of these two. Max will be dead soon, and I know I will pray for him. And I’ll be fighting for the living, and being there in any way I can for my friend, Lee-Ann. Oh, this may be a very hard winter.
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