Thank you, Andy, for showing us the way

We are Democrats. We rarely agree on anything. We do not support our leaders and our candidates at a whopping 80% plus the way the do. Even helping Andy with getting the funds needed for his operation caused a lot of angry posts and disagreement.

And yet, and yet, for two glorious weekends we did come together and we did collect a lot of money: $25,000 during each weekend. We gave fives and tens, many who lost their jobs, who are faced with mounting bills of their own. But we put our differences aside and we helped, some by merely "kicking" the threads to keep them on top.

The Internet made it easy for everyone to opine and to fight and to engage in debates and name calling and even in pornos that normally they would not do in a face to face situation. Yet, the fund drives made us more than just nodding and clicking. We dived into our resources and we helped the best we could. Indeed, this was our finest hour.

And you Andy, like Teri Schiavo, caused us to think about health care, about the cost of life, and death and accessibility.

It has been said that most people generate 90% of their medical costs during the last six months of their lives, and that opinion referred mostly to the elderly. And we are told that universal health care, like Canada, would end up rationing it. That health care are so expensive now that tax payers will revolt. Perhaps. I don't know. I do know that I first would like to eliminate the obscene compensations that "executives" in the insurance industry - I won't call it the health care industry - get. I first would like to eliminate the obscene amount that the pharmaceuticals are spending on TV ads for prescription drugs. $2 million for 30 seconds of Viagra during the Super Bowl?

Even for those of us that have health insurance. Take a look at your policy and you will find a life time limit, around $1 million. A woman once told me that once her mother reached the limit she could not get any more treatments and she died.

But I am glad that you escaped that "rationing." That we made sure that you got the best that you could. Perhaps it was futile, I don't know. But you wanted it and we gave it to you. It was your right to get the best treatment that was there.

And yet, and yet, it would not be enough for us to just be charged to demand health care for everyone. It is possible - I don't know - that even after we eliminated the obscene compensation and obscene TV ads - that with all our new steps in medicine that there will be a finite amount of dollars available.

And we will not be able to think about universal health care without looking at how we view death. It used to be that we all lived in the same place all our lives. Our homes included multi generations of family members and dying and death was a natural aspect of life.

But we moved away. And when that dreaded phone call arrives in the middle of the night, we rush back home and we want to do everything, we demand to have the best done, even though it is clear that our loved one has lived rich life and it is time to say good bye. None of us want to drag on like Teri Schiavo but when faced with a beloved family member or a friend - can we do this? We have had several heart wrenching posts here about DUers who had to "pull the plug."

So, yes, demand that no one be denied the best health care available, but we need to know of when to say good bye, with broken hearts and tears streaming down.

Would I donate again, knowing that all it bought him was few weeks? Yes, of course, In a heart beat, even though I have never heard of you until those long weekends. I am grateful for all the DUers - and many other liberals - who mobilized to help Andy. But most, I am grateful to sfexpat2000, flyarm, merh, skinner and so many others who facilitate these fund raising, who gave their all, and then some.

Go in peace, Andy. Your beautiful soul is finally free of your tortuous body but I feel for your friends and family who are left with a huge void in their hearts. We are hurting with you, there is nothing that we can say but only: we are so very very sorry.

Rest in peace Andy Dear heart :cry: I am so speechless, Such a shock

that made it hard for dial up people to access.

He died last evening after 9:00 pm Pacific time. flyarm first posted at around 3:00 am Eastern time and that thread got busy quickly in the wee hours of the morning.

And all of us are still in shock.

Because that's how he was, always turning his experience into a way to make things better.

He would have loved this OP.

Thank you.
:hug:

I wanted to add the last bit of Whitman's poem, "Song of Myself."


The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me
he complains of my gab and my loitering.

I too am not a bit tamed
I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the word.

The last scud of day holds back for me,
It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadowed wilds.
It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.

I depart as air
I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,
I effuse my flesh in eddies and drift it in lacy jags.

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love.
If you want me again look for me under your bootsoles.
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.

writings during the past 24 hours.

I think that I am going to go back and collect all of them.

The only thing that is playing in my head is Sarah McLachlan's "in the arms of an angel."