solidarity
after charlie was in his accident and we weren’t sure if he was going to make it, something started unfolding on the interwebs.
for a couple people, those in the immediate know, it happened that same day. over the next couple days, the rest of his friends caught on, and it spread.
whenever i logged in to facebook, and it was a lot because i needed some sense of otherworldlyness and community, slowly but surely, many of cha’s family and friends changed their profile pictures to one they had with charlie. one after another, i started seeing charlie everywhere in profile pictures, and it was so comforting to know he had so many people rooting for him.
it almost makes me understand the france profile pictures, but with charlie, his friends actually did stand with him and not just put a good face on. they visited. they gave money. they sent things in the mail. they left him messages on his facebook wall even though he might not ever read them.
****
tonight i went to my cousin’t wake. she had been battling cancer for a long time; this was the third onset she’d had, and it had spread to so many difficult places that it was a relief that she was out of pain.
it was just my dad and me, and my dad goes to funerals to see people he hasn’t seen in a while. at the same time, i saw people who i knew from our austin days and from when i was very young. what was curious is that every single person we talked to that we knew, and even many people we didn’t know, came up to us and asked how charlie was. there were people who knew he was doing great and came up to dad patting him on the back saying it was great news; others asked him how he was doing; even more were completely surprised when we told him or her that he had been released to home. i even had people i didn’t know at all ask me how my brother was doing. i don’t think i talked to one person about my cousin whose wake we were attending.
****
coming together as a community was such a huge part of this experience. one thinks that you just have to handle this on your own. not true. more people care for him than you’d think, and that’s by and far the most humbling part of what happened these past 2-1/2 weeks.
coalescing for charlie.
