This column has always profiled the strength of a village called Tepehua, how, given the tools, it’s a matter of people implementing those tools. The strong pick up and lead and the rest follow. It is a choice, stay burdened in poverty or get out of it yourself.
This author would like to profile something else that is also a challenge and choice, it is a matter of life and death. Not too many of us are told we have an approximate time left. Our choice then is do we fight it with the hope we can change the situation or accept the position we find ourselves in? We know we cannot get out of life alive, but when numbers are attached it is pause for thought. How do they know, these people we hold in awe that sit in their white coats and act as God’s intermediaries?
The words “four months” sounded very short and most other words came from a very far distance, like “other procedures?” Mumbles of past diseases and figures tumble around in the echo chamber and the sun is just settling around the very outskirts of Guadalajara and you pull yourself back where everything is quiet now with promises to contact the man in the white coat with the choices made, to use the tools offered to prolong life just for a little while and to continue further into the Golden Years, or to gently be grateful for the incredible life already lived.
We are tapestries of all the people and the experiences we have ever encountered and eighty-eight years of incredible experiences make for a very rich tapestry indeed.
This second day of “knowing,” reflecting. Does the man in the white coat really know? When five months have passed and I am still here . . . what then? The situation will be back to the beginning and like everyone else I still won’t know. Will the man in the white coat know?
Colors are brighter everywhere, rain smells sweet, privacy has always been of great value but no longer needed as the need has changed to be with people, life, love and to be able to laugh which is one of the greatest healers.
This, the start of a New Year and the last Big Adventure for this author, I look to it with curiosity. Will the obdurate stalker, death, know more than the man in the white coat?
Editor’s Note: Monnie King passed away after submitting this, her final column. Moonie was an integral part of this community and her equal shall never be found. Our condolences to her family, her friends and to the community of Tephehua.
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