A Week Of Extremes And Realization Of The Importance Of Being

A big week. A week of strange extremes.

Both children graduated this week: Em has finished Grade 8, Dee Grade 5. Both go to new schools in the fall, and while it's extremely exciting, it's also hard to swallow. Our children are growing up, and I'm not ready for it.

My beautiful daughter, Em. Fourteen, going on 26. We're very proud of our baby girl, who got Principal's Award yet again, as well as the English Award. Straight As across the board (except in Music, but that's because she readily admitted to being lazy and not caring...so we are punishing her for the summer with loads of music lessons and being allowed to only listen to classical renditions of hit songs, aka Musak, for the entire summer).

Our little Dee, full of glee and smiles, with his teacher. He did really well in all his subjects as well, but excelled in heading soccer balls. That's our boy.

And then, another hard few days at work. Too much disorganization, too many people taking time off, and impatient co-workers all come together to cause me a lot of aggravation, and an uncontrollable feeling of overwhelming fatigue and frustration.

I was looking forward to having dinner with my friend Slut on Thursday, ended up working really late, and then got stuck in a traffic jam that never ended up having a reason for being, so I was over a half hour late arriving at the restaurant. Thank god Slut is patient, and doesn't own a watch.

And then I found out two icons of our time passed away.

And although I can't say I've been a huge fan of either Farrah Fawcett or Michael Jackson, I can't pretend that it hasn't hit me like a heavy brick wall. Because they were huge, and affected each and every one of us in some way, no matter how much or little.

I got sucked into all the Michael Jackson hubbub when his skin started turning white, and when his nose began looking misshapen, and he denied having had surgery. I bought The Wall, and loved his music when I was younger. As Jackson became stranger, I started to ignore much of his life because it was all too weird for me and gave me the heebeejeebees. I'm not good at dealing with people who are too out-of-the-ordinary. They scare me somethin' fierce.

Now that he's gone, apart from the utter disbelief, I just feel really sad for him, because I think he ended up being a very lonely person, and very alone. And, although I think he dug his own grave, for the most part, I also believe he was very much a victim. I hope he's in peace now.

And then there's Farrah. All I knew about her was that I loved her hair when I was in Grade 9, and I tried to copy her hairstyle, but could never quite make myself look quite as lovely as she did. Marissa could, and I hated her. She and I shared many Grade 9 classes, and she was the epitome of Farrah Fawcett. And I wasn't. I hope Marissa now serves Dilly bars at the Dairy Queen. Me, bitter? Never.

I watched Farrah's documentary, Farrah's Story, the other night. And I saw a very different side of her, one I didn't know existed. The suffering this poor woman endured during her three years of cancer treatment is something no one should experience. It's inhumane. She went from being a beautiful, vital woman full of joy, to a thin shell of a person, her skin grey and scaly, her body racked with the illness that ultimately took her on Thursday. But somewhere in there, regardless of the torture she went through, her spirit kept on living, and hoping, and loving the life she was living. What touched me most was the fight she had in her to stay alive, to beat this disease. She never gave up. Even when everyone around her knew it was just a matter of time before the inevitable happened, she kept on, trying experimental treatments that would make her sicker than the cancer itself.

And perhaps what made this all the more awful was that this woman grew up being known for the most superficial of things: her beauty. And yet, somehow, she seemed to have transcended that superficiality that society had placed on her, and had grasped what life was really about: the sound of the rain falling, a surprise snowfall, the laughter of a child.

Which then led me to compare these two icons: one who had seemingly given up on life a long time ago, and was merely existing in a non-existent world, and the other, who fought with everything she had to continue living life to the fullest. Her love of life was based in the simplest our world has to offer: listening to the rain falling one day, she cried, hoping she'd still be able to experience that in heaven, if it ever got to that point.

Somehow, these two people touched me in ways I didn't realize, until their passing late last week. And although I feel sad that Michael has left us, he had really left this world many years ago. Or was he ever a part of this world? Whereas Farrah fought with every cell of her being to stay rooted in the here and now, feeling the rain on her face, Michael holed himself up in mansions he could not afford, and lived a life no one really knew (or wanted to know) anything about. He was merely a semblance of himself, a ghost, a man already gone.

They remind me to remember the little things in this life: the sun shining on my back, the birds singing in the early morning, my children giving me a hug just because, both of them graduating and being happy and fulfilled. I don't need anything more than that. Except maybe a perpetual bag of supersized Cheetos.