Shtick This! Last Half of 2017 -- You Sucked.

I haven't written a post here for six months now because I've been angry, busy, sad, bewildered and grief-stricken. I'll begin, though, on a positive note with an update concerning my friend, Amy, who was diagnosed with cancer in May. 


She's essentially cancer-free, and another reason I didn't do any writing here is because I decided to focus my attention on sending her words of wisdom, inspiration and comfort as she fought her battle against the evil fiend we call cancer. I wasn’t about to let her give up or ever feel like she was alone in the fight. I turned to words of wisdom and inspiration from famous people throughout history, and I sent her a daily letter with a saying on one side and my take on it in relation to her battle on the other side. I totally believe in the power of words, so I sought out the most pertinent and powerful sentences from philosophers, religious leaders, authors, musicians, politicians and many more types of people. In all, my friend said I sent her ninety-one of these letters. She told me this when she told me she was cancer-free, and she told me I could take a break from sending her those letters. They were probably the most important things I’ve ever written to-date, and I’d like to think they played a small part in her recovery. She still has a ways to go before she's back to how she was before cancer invaded her life, but she's getting there, and I'm so thankful for that.


If only I could say the same for another great person I know, though. Her husband has lost his battle with the same kind of cancer as Amy had. I've watched how his suffering has worn away at her, and I'm so angry about this. I also feel a little responsible because I turned the focus of my attention and energy on my one friend and not enough of it went to my other friend and her husband. Why didn't I send him inspirational messages every day as well? I don't really know, and the reasons I can think of sound more like excuses. Now, however, I am determined to help his wife, my dear friend, recover and find the strength she needs to move forward. 

Another friend lost her first and only grandchild mere days before he was due to be born. Who can explain such a thing? A totally healthy baby simply dies suddenly while still safely ensconced in his mother's womb because something goes wrong. This happened years ago to my cousin, too, and she still grieves for her little boy. I'm sure my friend and her daughter will forever grieve the loss of their precious grandson and son. It's wrong on so many levels, too, that a perfectly healthy baby -- who could actually survive outside of the womb at that point -- just suddenly dies, and the parents and grandparents are left to suffer the sorrow of his loss forever. There is no explaining it, and there is no getting over it.

The biggest tragedy to hit home with me in the last few months of 2017 was the loss of a former student. I've taught for over a quarter of a century now, so I've lost my share of students, unfortunately, but they've been to things like car accidents, cancer and even suicide. This one was to murder, or so it seems, and it's definitely the first murder of a former student I've ever had to deal with, and I hope I never have to go through anything like it again. It's the mystery and the tragedy surrounding her death, though, that have been the hardest to deal with, and since I work with her parents and I taught her siblings as well, it's been so hard to know how to behave and what to say when I see them. There is no getting around the fact that her death was especially tragic. It has hit the entire community very hard, and I imagine we will be reeling from it for a long  time to come. Even when (or if) the true details of her death actually come out, they won't change the fact that she is gone and that she was taken from her family in a horribly tragic way. 

I know I'm not alone in thinking that 2017 was an especially sad year because I've seen many comments on social media saying things to that effect. Personally, though, it was a year of a few really great things in my life -- my daughter graduated high school at the top of her class and started college where she has excelled, my son got his first teaching job at a great school where he also landed a head coaching position that he's handling really well, my kids and I along with my boyfriend went on a wonderful vacation to Washington D.C. and New York City this past summer, my best friend and her daughter were able to spend a few months with us, I've managed to write a lot more on some of the longer pieces I'm working on, and I got a new car. (Here is a photo of me with my new car because sometimes we have to celebrate the little good things in life so that the big bad things don't destroy us.)

On the flip side, though, I've had to watch a lot of people I care about go through some really horrible things, and I am praying that 2018 will be kinder to everybody out there. So, as the last few days of 2017 go by, please join me in telling 2017 to Shtick This! and also join me in reaching out to anyone negatively impacted by something sorrowful in 2017 to give them a much-needed hug and a few words of encouragement that 2018 will be better. 

Vacate the Premises, Cancer! Shtick it!!

Vacation -- 2. An act or instance of vacating

Vacate -- 2. To give up possession or occupancy of

Until recently, I thought of a vacation as a pleasant period of rest away from the stress of work, household chores, bill paying, etc. Now, though, I have come to look upon the word vacation as the noun dealing with vacating something, and there is one specific thing that I wish would take a long vacation and never return.

Nope, I’m not talking about my ex even though I would really love it if he took a long walk off a short pier. No, I want the cancer that has invaded so many people near and dear to me to take a permanent vacation from their bodies. Mary’s husband, Tim. Nate, the best band teacher in the world. Zoe, a good friend of a good friend. So many others I don't personally know who are too numerous and who are suffering.

But the need for this vacation has hit me hardest since May when one of my very best friends (we met freshman year at UNL) learned after months and months of doctor visits that she has stage four lung cancer which has now spread throughout her body. This is a 49 year old woman who has never smoked a day in her life, never put any sort of illegal substance into her body, and never done a mean thing to anyone ever. Why she chose to have me for a best friend these past thirty years is beyond my comprehension because she truly is the best and sweetest and most compassionate and most generous person I’ve ever met. And while nobody, NOBODY, deserves cancer, she doesn’t even deserve a hangnail as far as I’m concerned.

To say that I’m pissed is an understatement. Devastated? Doesn’t even come close to how I feel. Useless and inept? Definitely.

Since I'm powerless to really do anything to help her, I am planning to go to Dallas to care for her at least. That will be a vacation for me; not the kind I’d usually like to take in late July when I normally go to Mexico to lie on a beach with a book, but instead one where I will do anything and everything to help her have a vacation from her disease. Anything to vacate her mind of worry and her body of pain. Anything to make the cancer take a vacation.

Until then I will continue to hope that a miracle will find its way to her, that the cancer will take a permanent vacation -- or at least go into remission for a few years -- and that she will take solace from my friendship.

I humbly ask for your prayers as she is a devout Catholic; I am not religious, but I’ve been doing my own type of praying. Please ask whoever you talk to to help make the cancer in Amy Beran take a long, long (preferably permanent) vacation. I do believe in the power of words -- they are all I really have to offer from here. Thank you.

Tammy Marshall June 2017

Dear Mr. President,

I wrote the following for my writers' group. They enjoyed it, and I thought it would be a fitting post for this blog because it's mostly written from my sarcastic, sick-of-bullshit, side; however, there is also a lot of sincerity within it. Agree with me, don't agree with me. I really don't care. That, there, is actually the beauty of free expression as so many people want to harp about these days while then turning around and trying to tell others that if you don't agree with them, your freedom of expression should be quashed. I call B.S. Like I said, agree with me, disagree with me -- I truly do not care. This is my blog, these are my opinions, this is a place for my freedom of expression. 

Dear Mr. President,

        I still remember the day you threw your hat into the ring – how I laughed and laughed in disbelief and certainty that you’d be the first person kicked out of the ring. Guess the joke is on me; or, as I prefer to think of it, on every American citizen.

        Oh well, Qué será, será as they say in Spanish. Oh, that’s right, you don’t have any interest in learning Spanish, I’m sure, since you’re intent on building a wall between us and the great people in the land to the south of us.

        I didn’t vote for you, but don’t worry, I didn’t vote for your main opponent either. I think you both are lacking the qualities that make for a decent human being, let alone any of those that make for a decent leader. I voted for the underdog because I like to root for underdogs. Personally, I thought Hillary would win, and I believe that if the country hadn’t gone downhill so badly over the months leading up to the election, she would have won; but the people in the heartland of this giant country are sick of so many things, and they are looking to blame someone for those things. Who do we look to blame when things go into the shitter? Our leaders. Since that leadership was coming from the Democratic camp, the Republicans rallied to say “enough is enough; time for a change.”

        I want to believe that despite your ignorant blustering, your idiotic racist and sexist commentary, your lack of political experience and your general petulant attitude toward everything that doesn’t go your way that you do, in fact, have our best interests as a country in mind. I want to believe that, and I’m willing to give you a chance even though I don’t like you.

        I ask that you don’t let us all down. I ask that you work to repair the horrible racial tensions that have erupted this past year or so; although I’m quite worried that you are simply going to shift them from black on white tension to brown on white instead. I ask that you support those who defend us on the home front and abroad. I ask that you play nice with other countries and not try to throw your weight around where it isn’t wanted. I ask that you make living affordable and get more people off the streets. I ask that you stop throwing out catch phrases and actually get something done. I ask that you represent this country in a way that makes us all look good.

        If you can do even one of these things, I will consider your Presidency a success and perhaps even vote for you in four years if you choose to run again. However, if you simply continue to bluster and carry on with idiotic tweets while doing nothing to further the good of Americans, then I will gladly join the millions four years from now to cast my vote elsewhere and hopefully be able to use your famous catch-phrase against you to tell you “You’re fired!”

        Time will tell. Use that time wisely, Mr. President. Use it wisely.

                                                                                                              Sincerely,

                                            A reluctant Republican