From: spamless_mr.sisyphus@shaw.ca   
      
   Just about ten years ago, my Doctor recommended that I see a Massage   
   therapist.  He thought that such treatment might overcome some problems   
   I had been having.  He specified exactly who I was to see, so I made an   
   appointment.  I was very apprehensive, what with me being a very   
   private, conservative and shy person--definitely not the touchy-feely   
   type.  The lady's name was A______ W______, and she scared me to death!   
   The treatment really did make me feel better and, because it was covered   
   under my medical plan, I kept up regular appointments for some months.   
   It took me quite a while to relax with her, but she was so very good at   
   what she did I kept going back.  I really didn't like her, and I found   
   out afterwards she didn't like me much either, but I kept going and we   
   kept talking and, after a year or so, when she moved to Vancouver we   
   parted as friends.   
      
   After a year or more of adventuring, she returned to Kamloops and we   
   connected again and resumed our friendship.  She called me when she   
   needed help with stuff around the home and office.  We spent a lot of   
   time together, laughing and talking as friends do.  Unfortunately, she   
   was best described as "Addicted to falling in love" and could not   
   maintain a relationship for any length of time, not even with her two   
   children from whom she was estranged.  She was so proud of them both and   
   never hesitated to show pictures of them, but couldn't handle being with   
   them for more than an hour.  The thing about her was:  She was the type   
   of person who could and did carve her way through a number of men but   
   often, when it was over, they not only would still remain friends but   
   amazingly enough become friendly with each other!  They were people who   
   had shared a loving, mystical experience.  She was special!  I was the   
   one she would phone in the middle of the night when things were falling   
   apart.  If she was lonely and perhaps drank a little too much wine, I   
   was the one who kept her out of trouble. I was the one she trusted, and   
   we would often talk for hours, discussing everything with no limits or   
   taboos--the way really close friends do.  I knew more about her and she   
   about me than possibly anyone else in our lives.  When I became ill, she   
   kept in constant contact, spent a lot of her own money on diet   
   supplements and other health food products for me.  She was a deeply   
   spiritual person and when she cared about you there was no doubt.  Over   
   the years, she invested a considerable amount of her time, energy and   
   her heart in me.  I came to consider her my best friend and I loved her   
   as deeply as anyone could.  I laid myself at her feet--I would do   
   anything for her and she never abused the privilege.  I lived for when   
   she would phone me and, after she lost her voice, the first thing I   
   would look for in the morning was an email from her.   
      
   Over the last few months she was becoming very agitated.  Her vocal   
   problems were stressing her out (the specialists could find nothing   
   wrong), she and the love of her life, W__, were moving to Fort Langley   
   where she was setting up a new practice.   
   Her spiritual beliefs were becoming stronger, but more   
   off-the-wall--there were quite a few raised eyebrows when she was   
   talking.  She became controlling and obsessive, becoming physically ill   
   when she felt she had lost control over things that you or I wouldn't   
   notice.  She literally did not hear what she didn't want to hear and she   
   was living her life in her mind, ignoring reality.  Last Saturday, W___   
   and I, having finished doing a roof on his rental property were   
   discussing over dinner her increasing irrationality and we were   
   wondering where it would end up and what we might be able to do.  Living   
   with her was stressing him out but he loved her too much to leave.  He   
   left Kamloops Sunday morning as he had to be in Whistler Sunday night   
   for three days of work.  She was not at home when he went through Fort   
   Langley.   
      
   Some time on Monday, August 29 (my birthday!), this lovely, talented,   
   beautiful, caring lady took her own life.  She did it in the meticulous,   
   well-planned and organised way she did most things, leaving letters to   
   her kids, writing her own (very revealing) eulogy and many pages of   
   instructions on how to wind up her affairs.  It's all so obvious now   
   that she had been planning it for some time.  The number of people who   
   are devastated and shocked is incredible.  If only more of us had talked   
   to each other....   
      
   If only!   
      
   I will forever miss the best friend I ever had!   
      
      
   Lee H., in no-longer-quite-so-beautiful Kamloops, British Columbia,   
   Canada   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)