Musings on a Small Life

I've only just learned that Chris Hyndman, one half of Steven & Chris, was found dead last night, in a walk-way between two buildings in Toronto's east end, near their residence, I believe. He was 49. No cause of death is being released, though the investigation apparently is "open." http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/christopher-hyndman-co-host-of-cbc-s-steven-and-chris-dead-at-49-1.3178833 http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/christopher-hyndman-cbc-co-host-remembered-as-a-force-of-nature-1.3179002 I don't even have words. I'm absolutely stunned, it's beyond comprehension to me. I've watched Steven & Chris since the first season, it's been part of my morning weekday routine: coffee and the Steven & Chris rerun from the day before, before getting ready for work. Prior to their current program, I used to see them on a makeover show that ran on another network. Almost everything practical I know, I've learned from watching them. ...

We just lost one blogger to pancreatic cancer this week, and now we have word of another passing. I have no confirmation as to cause of death (sudden, not expected), but I'm hearing via the grapevine that it was suicide. I can't even tell you how sad, how ill , this makes me. I've struggled with depression for so much of my life, needed help for several of those years, and it absolutely breaks my heart to think that mental illness might have claimed another life. There is help, but sometimes the stigma is so great that we don't seek it out. Or we don't have an understanding of what's happening to us. I know I didn't, I thought it was just something I could talk myself out of, and it took a long time before I truly understood that depression (and other mental illnesses) are just that--illnesses, like any other. My thoughts and "prayers" are with this person's family and friends. My heart is so heavy, I just haven't words. Pe...

Remember that book title? And the ending to it -- "and it's all small stuff." At least that's how I think it went. There was a woman on the bus going home yesterday, whom I'd not seen in quite some months. She lives in the townhouse complex below mine, is retired, has grown kids. I asked if she was getting ready for the holidays (she had a shopping bag in hand) and she said she wasn't sure what she'd be doing this year, because her husband died suddenly in the spring. She took him to the hospital on April 30th and five hours later he was dead, utterly unexpectedly. They had just bought a trailer (to camp, for the summer) and he was looking forward to enjoying their retirement together. You know, she calls me by name, but I can't for the life of me think what her name is, if I ever knew it at all. She said she had been at the hospital, getting the paperwork in order to volunteer, because she didn't want to sit home all winter lo...

Today a former co-worker (the other cat lover who has fostered for an area shelter and who has four of her own cats) came upstairs (she works in the same building, different department) to update me on one of her cats who had dental yesterday (two broken teeth, nerves exposed--poor cat, no wonder she wouldn't eat). She also came to tell me that one of their staff members passed away suddenly last night. In fact, he had been looking ill at the office--she said the upper part of his face was utterly paper white--and that she told him to call his wife to let her know she was taking him to the hospital. We don't know what happened--they don't know either, just that it wasn't a heart attack. The man's wife--now widow--called the head of the department this morning to tell her he had died during the night. Everyone was in shock, of course. He wasn't old, perhaps late 50s. My former co-worker told me to make sure I ate my chocolate, because you just don'...