Still in the Dark

Posted on October 29, 2014 by edcol52

Yesterday was October 28th. Ten months since our son died. I wasn’t really aware of the date until today, but my body knew what day it was. I woke up early to take a friend to the airport. Returning home, I fully intended to begin my day, but a wave of weariness broke over me and all I could do was climb back into bed. I slept until nearly noon. For the rest of the day I felt as if I was walking through a viscous atmosphere without quite knowing why. It was an effort to pull myself together and go teach the class I am now leading two days a week. These teaching days anchor my week, give me a bit of a renewed purpose, and a chance to pass on a bit of my knowledge and experience to a new generation of image makers.

I teach a black and white darkroom lab at Venice Arts, a community organization that offers classes for young people in a variety of media arts: photography, filmmaking, animation, comics, story telling. I started volunteering, mentoring in a photography class in February  just to get out of the house and my head. I continued mentoring one day a week during the spring, and during the four-week summer session I upped my involvement to every day for a few hours. When the fall semester began I made the commitment to mentor (volunteer) in an ‘Old School’ photography class and the two darkroom labs for a total of three 3-hour stints every week. When the lead instructor of the two-day darkroom portion left to take a real job, they offered the position to me. I truly enjoy working with these young people teaching them both the basic skills and concepts of photography and the specific techniques for developing and printing black and white film. Yes, film. Those long plastic strips with all the tiny holes along the sides.

I began my photographic career right around the age of the kids I am working with this semester, and 50 years later there is still magic when I see a printed image start to appear as it develops under the red safelights. There is magic when I see them get excited about it too. There are a few that are really into it, have started to grasp the concepts and basics and apply them to their work. Jake was an accomplished photographer and printer who also began his darkroom ‘career’ around the same age, and working with these kids, somehow allows me to spend some time with him. I am not always conscious of his presence there, but knowing I might be sparking a lifetime of creative expression is something I think he would approve of.

I miss him terribly. Some days more than others. I don’t know what makes the difference. As I said, it is the most random things that spark the deeper sadness that pierces the gauzy veil between the light of my daily life and the dark room where my bottomless sorrow dwells. Every day brings a new dimension to this tragedy. I read a post somewhere where the writer made the distinction that it is his tragedy, our loss. To me it is our loss and our tragedy too. We took a trip to Phoenix this past weekend for a cousin’s 85th birthday party. Cousins who knew Jake from birth. We had a subdued Shabbat dinner on Saturday night, and I almost made it through the Kiddush. The last few words caught in my throat and I whispered them in the silence that surrounded the table. I am usually able to recite it now without breaking down. Recite but not sing. I cannot bring myself to sing. Anything. My muse has truly deserted me. Not only deserted me, but cursed me with an abiding sadness that shows no signs of abating. I haven’t picked up an instrument in months, although I did strum a uke briefly a while ago. There is so much memory wrapped up in that little instrument. Terry gave me one as a wedding present. I played it for Jake at bed time. I played it during our halcyon Hawaiian vacations. ‘Hanalei Moon’ was a family anthem. Now it lies silent. Stacked in my office along with the other dusty black cases that once brimmed with music. Tragedy upon tragedy, loss upon loss.

So I still stumble through that darkened room every day. I am beginning to learn where the furniture is. Like in the photo darkroom, I do many things by touch; I can’t always see what I am doing. I move slowly, cautiously, hands out groping forward. I still bark my shins on the coffee table from time to time, but less frequently. Sometimes I think I can perceive a glimmer of light, but mostly it is still very, very dark.

 

 

 

 

Posted in Honoring Jake, Jake Colman, Photography, Sadness | Tagged , , , , , | 11 Comments

An Open Letter to Amazon

Posted on October 23, 2014 by edcol52

Food for thought. Makes me reevaluate my shopping habits.

Shane Brown's avatarMental Health, the Media, and Me

Dear Amazon,

Over the last couple of Halloweens, social media websites have had people commenting more and more on inappropriate and offensive attractions and costumes that are seen to be demonizing those with a mental health condition, and linking mental illness with violence and psychopathy.  Despite these issues having been raised, Amazon continues to sell such items.  While the UK website appears to limit itself to a strait-jacket costume when it comes to such costumes, Amazon.com goes a lot further.  Various costumes on Amazon.com refer to them representing people from a “psycho ward.”  Another is a “skitzo” costume.  There is also a “mental patient” costume.  It’s thought that around 50 million people in the world are “skitzo” (your term, not mine), is the following the way they should be represented and portrayed?

schizophrenia

One has to wonder why, in 2014, Amazon (or any other retailer) believes it is OK to represent such illnesses…

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What to Say and What Not to Say

Posted on October 14, 2014 by edcol52

I have written about some of these things before and shared links to other articles. This is one of the best and most concise compendiums of what and what not to say to a bereaved person. After nearly 10 months, I have to say they are as true as anything and still apply. Originally posted on Grief and Gratitude, one of the blogs I now follow. Thank you Robin for your clear insights and sharing this with all of us.

http://www.griefgratitude.com/2014/10/what-to-say-and-not-to-say-to-bereaved.html

Trust me, time does not heal all wounds.

Posted in Coping, Friends and Family, Grief, Healing, Support | 2 Comments

My New Blog

Posted on October 12, 2014 by edcol52

Hot Eddie’s is my new blog dedicated to what’s hot in the kitchen and everywhere else.

After many months of chronicling my personal journey through grief at here at The Infinite Fountain, I thought I’d start a blog with a little lighter theme. I have been cooking for many years now, and want to share some of my experiences in the kitchen as well as some of my favorite ‘chile’ themed recipes. While all of the recipes I post won’t have chiles in them, they will all be delicious. I will be posting recipes for some of Jake’s favorite foods and some of his own recipes too. It is another way for me to honor him and remember him. Food and cooking was a big part of our family and our family adventures, so it is only fitting.

I might have some restaurant reviews, maybe share a good cook book or just random and personal thoughts on food, cooking, eating and other culinary and not so culinary activities. We’ll have stuff I like to cook, (and eat) and more often than not the preparation won’t involve elaborate techniques or equipment. Stop by often, we’ll have new stuff up all the time. Come on in and taste what’s cooking.

Posted in Food, Honoring Jake, Jake Colman | 2 Comments

Sukkot

Posted on October 11, 2014 by edcol52

We are in the midst of celebrating the 7-day holiday of Sukkot, the Jewish “Harvest Festival”. After all the fasting and atoning and spiritual soul-searching we are supposed to do during Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, Sukkot which comes just three days after Yom Kippur, is a time of great joy and exuberance. We build temporary houses, sukkahs, (which translates to ‘booth’ or ‘hut’) to commemorate the shelters the Jews lived in during the 40 years of wandering in the desert after the Exodus. They also symbolize the “Clouds of Glory” that protected them during their journey. Another aspect of these ‘dwellings’ is they recall the temporary shacks that farmers built in the fields and lived in during the harvest. We are commanded to “dwell” in the sukkah for the duration of the holiday. The sukkah takes many forms; it can have four walls, three walls, or two and a half walls. The walls can be made of wood, cloth, plastic, grass mats, almost anything. The roof, however needs to be covered with branches, palm fronds, bamboo mats, corn stalks, pine boughs; there is a lot of leeway here too. But the roof cannot be nailed down, there must be spaces enough to see the sky and it must be of plant origin; no visqueen or plywood allowed. The whole point is that the sukkah is fragile, impermanent, and transitory. The idea is that even though we are removed from the comfort and protection of our concrete walls and shingled roofs, we are still under god’s protection wherever we are.

The holiday is fraught with symbols and symbolism beyond the sukkah itself. There is the ????????????????????????????????????????lulav, made from a palm shoot, a bunch of brook-willow leaves and a bunch of myrtle leaves bound together. There is the etrog, or citron, a corrugated yellow football-shaped fruit. These four species have numerous symbolic meanings you can read about here.

We eat the seven species of fruit listed in the Torah; wheat, barley, figs, dates, grapes, pomegranates and olives. Fruits that grew in Israel when the Jews came to claim their homeland after those forty years of wandering.

We take all our meals in the sukkah. Each evening we welcome supernal visitors, the ushpizin, as guests. Part of the whole point of Sukkot is to have guests come to the sukkah both human and spiritual. These ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, Joseph, and David have their own unique merits and divine energies. They all come every night, but there is a ‘leader’ each night and on that night we reflect on the individual attribute of that leader. Abraham is kindness, Isaac is strength, Jacob is beauty, harmony, and truth, Moses is victory and endurance and so on. Last night, Shabbat, it was Jacob’s turn. We dined with our family and close friends, and when I began to speak about the ushpizin, and Jacob, I broke down. Jacob, our Jake was beauty and harmony and truth. He brought so much beauty into this world, was so beautiful. He had a way of creating harmony and unity wherever he went. I couldn’t say for sure that Jake was there last night. Sometimes I have a distinct sense of his presence. Last night it wasn’t as strong as other times, but I can’t say for sure that he wasn’t either. I think he was there with his own posse of ushpizin.

I didn’t grow up with this holiday, my parents never built a sukkah. It wasn’t until Jake came along that we began to observe this wonderful occasion. The sukkah we have is a kit sukkah014of sticks and bolts we got when Jake was a toddler. One year, the temple we belonged to back then, nearly twenty years ago, made these kits as a fund-raiser and we helped assemble the kits. We bought one for ourselves and have been building it every year since. It has gone through many changes. We enlarged it, made it a little shorter, the walls went from bed sheets, to beach mats and bamboo, to custom sewn canvas panels. The roof is usually made of long palm fronds, but in years past Ficus branches and pine boughs had to serve. Every year we would go through the last-minute panic of procuring enough greenery to cover the roof until our friend found a secluded palm garden where we can trim the needed number of fronds.

This year, we weren’t sure if we would, if we could, even build the sukkah. It was such a happy family activity for so many years. Jake’s absence makes it so difficult to relive those days, days we will never have again. A few days before Yom Kippur, I had a flash of revelation. We will build the sukkah and Jake will come to visit us. We put it together on Sunday, the day after Yom Kippur, and had it finished, wired, and roofed by Monday. A new record for timeliness.

The amazing thing about our sukkah, any sukkah, is that during the days of the holiday there is a tranquility and comfort present. Sitting in the sukkah during the day, the unbleached canvas walls glowing in the afternoon sun, the little specks of sunshine leaking through the palm-thatched roof, the sound of the nearby fountains, the music of the chimes, all blend together in a peaceful calmness, a sense of repose, a restful retreat from the maelstrom of our lives. It is hard to imagine how a simple little canvas and wood shack can create such a sense of well-being, if even for a moment. We tend to leave it up for a few days after the end of the week, but what is curious, when the holiday is over that tranquility isn’t present. It is just a little hut with some drying palm fronds overhead.

So this year, our celebration is muted. There is little joy in our lives still. Even though it is nearing ten months, it seems only yesterday we were having lunch with Jake, munching pastrami sandwiches. Just a few hours ago we were watching the sun break over the third fairway as the morning mist dissolved in the golden light. Just a minute ago I was sitting on his bed, playing “Mr. Tambourine Man” as he dozed off. Just a second ago I held him in my arms for the first time, late that August night in 1989. Where did the time go? Where did Jake go? How will we get through these coming seconds, minutes, hours, days and years without him? One tick of the clock at a time. That is the only way I know how to do it.

Posted in Ceremony, Food, Friends and Family, Grief, Honoring Jake, Jake Colman, Jake's Spirit, Memory | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

The New Header Photo

Posted on October 6, 2014 by edcol52

carousel1Jake made this photo of a carousel, taken in London’s Covent Garden, during our last trip to England. It was 2006, the year of our family adventure in Italy. Jake attended a month-long cooking and language school in Bologna and we met up with him in Tuscany. We had an amazing three week road trip through Tuscany to Sorrento and across southern Italy to Matera and Puglia. Back in London visiting Terry’s sister,  we had been walking through the city at evening looking for Cornish Pasties. Meat pies. How can you go wrong with meat and pie? Together. A helpful pub bartender suggested we try Covent Garden, and sure enough, there we found the West Cornwall Pasty Company. Many varieties. They were pretty tasty. As we strolled through the gathering darkness, we saw this carousel spinning merrily and Jake snapped this picture. Now we are on a mad carousel of emotions, spinning through the entire spectrum daily. We miss you Jakey Jake. More and more each day. Ride on.

Posted in Food, Jake Colman, Jake's Spirit, Memory, Photography | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Here it Comes. Here it Is. There it Goes.

Posted on September 29, 2014 by edcol52

Last Thursday was Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. Early last week I had it in mind to write a post about the impending holiday, but for reasons described elsewhere, I didn’t. Now that the first of the High Holy Days has passed, and with the impending arrival of Yom Kippur, some of the thoughts I have been turning over in my head have coalesced. First a little background on the Holidays.

There are four major holidays in quick succession this season starting with Rosh Hashanah, then comes Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, followed closely by Sukkot, and ending with Simchat Torah. Rosh Hashanah is the head of the year, a time for new beginnings, reflection on the past year, and anticipation of a good, sweet year to come. The ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are called the Days of Awe. On Yom Kippur, we fast and pray for forgiveness for any and all of our misdeeds, omissions, commissions, wrongs we have done others, and forgive others who may have wronged us. It is the holiest and most solemn day of the year. Many Jews who never go to synagogue any other time come for at least part of Yom Kippur. Observant ones spend the entire day praying. A few days afterwards comes the joyous holiday of Sukkot. It is the Jewish “Harvest Festival”. We build a sukkah (booth), a temporary shelter roofed with branches to remember both the impermanent dwellings we lived in during the 40 years in the desert after the Exodus and the structures farmers built in the fields to provide shelter during the harvest. We are commanded to “dwell” in them for seven days. The sukkah possesses a spiritual power and peace during those seven days that is quite remarkable. We usually take all our meals there, hang out during the day, and have gatherings of friends and families. It is really one of the most lovely holidays, my personal favorite. Immediately after the last day of Sukkot is Simchat Torah. On this day, we complete the reading of the Torah for the year, and because Jews are eager to continue studying Torah, we re-roll the scroll and begin reading it immediately. It is a time for great joy, dancing with the Torah, and in the Chabad custom, plenty of L’chaim (drinking).

Up to now Rosh Hashanah has been a very festive holiday. We usually have friends and families gather for a festive meal the evening before. We celebrate the coming new year, dip apples in honey, and wish each other a sweet new year. This year the holiday, as with all holidays now, Jake’s passing has sucked the joy out of it. For the first time I can remember, we didn’t have a dinner with our  friends and family. We didn’t celebrate, we didn’t go to shul; we left town. We fled to Ojai for solitude and whatever solace we can find now. In fact, our normally lavish Rosh Hashanah dinner was take-out pizza we ate at home because we forgot the keys to the Ojai house, had to return to Venice to get them and then drove back up the mountain that same night.

On Rosh Hashanah, our Sages tell us, the great Book of Life is opened and the events of the coming year are inscribed. Who will live, who will perish, who will succeed, who will fail and so on. Naturally, we ask to be inscribed for life, success, prosperity, health and happiness. On Yom Kippur, this Book is sealed for the year. Theoretically, before it is closed, we have a chance to change the decree. This is why we spend all day atoning, confessing a litany of sins, repenting, and asking that we be granted a favorable inscription. So my question is, last year at Rosh Hashanah, was Jake written in this Book for death? Did God know then that he would die just a few months after sealing the book? Why? I know some will say, God has a plan that we don’t understand, that God needed Jake more than we did. I call bullshit. No one needed him more than us. Surely God could have done without him for a few more years; what’s another eighty years or so when you have all eternity? And by us, I mean all of us. This world. All the people who loved him, all the people he touched, all the people he would have touched. All the beauty he brought into the world, all the beauty he would have brought. All the light. What kind of merciful god is that? Aren’t we taught that Prayer, Repentance, and Charity can avert the severity of the decree? Well, we prayed our asses off, gave charity frequently, read Psalms, blessed him every chance I got, tried to be good and caring and honest and righteous people; did that change anything? Am I angry at God? If I truly believed in a being that controlled the universe in that way, a guy writing in a giant journal decreeing life and death, I might be. Am I disappointed? Indifferent? Losing my faith? Did I have enough faith to lose in the first place? Along with the joy, most of the meaning has been drained out of these holidays, all the holidays. If not wholly absent, those meanings are now transformed. I reevaluate my relationship with “god” every day, every hour. Do I even have a relationship? What is god anyway? Men have asked these questions for millennia. Some find answers in religion, some in nature, some in science, some in meditation. For me, there are far more questions than answers.

Yesterday was the 28th. Another 28th. Nine months. This 28th didn’t have quite the impact of the first few. One month. Two month. Six months. Nine months. So what. What does counting the days accomplish? To remind me how much I miss him? I don’t need any reminder, I miss him every waking moment. To remind me how much farther we have to travel? How many more 28th’s will come and go? All of them without Jake. As we get farther away from that first 28th, grief has deepened into a lasting sorrow; not as raw and immediate but far-reaching and more profound. It is difficult to articulate; there are no words to adequately explain my emotional state. It is like a stone in one’s shoe. Irritating at first, almost unbearable, but over time one gets used to the irritation, resigned to the discomfort. This is a stone in my heart. A huge gaping hole in my soul. A void that can never be filled. I am resigned to this unendurable sorrow, and somehow must find a way to endure.

These next few weeks will be difficult, as is any holiday or any occasion without Jake. We may not spend all day in shul on Yom Kippur. We will probably only go for Yizkor, the memorial service. We won’t have the existential delight that Sukkot usually brings. We won’t dance with the Torah with unbridled jubilation. We will trudge through these Holy Days as best we can, as we trudge through every day. One day after the other.

Posted in Ceremony, Coping, Daily Ramblings, Grief, Jake Colman, Sadness | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments

The Tiniest and Most Random Details

Posted on September 9, 2014 by edcol52

We get dozens of catalogs in the mail every week. I was leafing through one of them the other day, the Fall catalog from Sur La Table, an upscale cookware and kitchen supply company. It has the usual Le Creuset cast iron casseroles, snazzy knives, improbable gadgets, dishes, aprons and such. I love this stuff, but of course don’t need any of it. It also has a few recipes, which are intended to direct you to buy something necessary to the preparation of them. I saw a recipe for a Pesto Stuffed Pork Roast. I don’t do pork, but I thought it might be good do to a whole boned turkey breast with a pesto stuffing. I had seen a similar recipe for a Wild Rice and Cherry Stuffed Pork Roast last year that I made with turkey. (It was delicious.) Suddenly I flashed back to that moment. I had stuffed the breast and rolled it and was standing in the kitchen with a long piece of kitchen twine in hand. I knew there was a way to tie the roast using a single piece of string, but I couldn’t remember how to do it. Jake came into the kitchen, and I asked him if he knew how to do that. Silly question. Of course he did, and showed me in a matter of moments. He helped me get the roast secured and into the oven. “Thanks, Jake”, I said. “No problem, Pops”, and he was off. As I was reliving that lovely little moment, sitting at my kitchen table with this stupid catalog addressed to ‘Jake Colman or Current Resident’ in hand, my eyes filled with tears and I broke down sobbing.

It is these tiny, seemingly insignificant details that have the power to incapacitate me, even if only for a few moments. The pool of sorrow shimmers just below the surface in an uneasy equilibrium. Most of the time it is calm and quiet, but it can erupt at any instant; triggered by one of those millions of details that make up our lives and memories. It doesn’t happen as often as it did at the beginning of the year, but as always, it strikes without warning. What I haven’t quite figured out is why those moments, those details, have such power. I can contemplate the incalculable tragedy of this whole thing, the fact that I have no heir to whom I will pass my lineage, that Jake’s death lops off two huge limbs of our families’ trees. I can reflect on the far-reaching implications, all the people who miss him so dearly, all the things we did together and will never do again, all the untasted experiences we didn’t get around to, and usually remain dry-eyed. Usually. The 28th’s pass without much drama, those milestones are losing their sway somewhat. These are all ‘big-picture’ thoughts and memories. However, it is the details, like the bus schedules we found in a briefcase while cleaning out his room, that so clearly illuminate the extent of this tragedy, the fullness of Jake’s life, and how he touched everything and everyone he came in contact with. It is the specific and random memories that overwhelm me from time to time. The mere thought of a word, a look, a picture, an object, something we did, or said, or shared, has the potential to unleash the grief spasms.

Today, while I was writing this, I came across a post from another grieving Dad about this very same thing.

We come across these talismans from another time and place another life, a lifetime ago, in the most unlooked for places. They are not always physical objects. It can be a smell, a taste, a sight, a sound. Anyone who has lost a loved one knows what I am talking about here. These details are so potent precisely because they are so tiny. They are the Lego blocks that make up the complex and intricate structure of our lives. There are untold millions of them. If a few go missing, we can still go on, but there will be spaces here and there; the rocket ship or boat or fort we are making won’t be whole or complete. That is how I feel now. There are holes in the fabric of my life. I am no longer complete. The loss of Jake has burned a myriad of holes in my being. Different sizes, different places. Some of the big holes I have learned to avoid, but those darn pinheads of memory are so insidious. They creep up and attack without any forewarning. It is impossible to know what or when. I have come to the place where if these spasms grip me when I am out and about, I really don’t care what people might think about this guy sitting at a table with fat liquid tears rolling down his cheeks. Sometimes I put on my sunglasses, sometimes I just let the tears roll unselfconsciously. I have nothing to hide nor apologize for. If someone should happen to ask what is wrong, I tell them. Mostly people just look away.

These tiny little grief bombs will always lurk in the shadows and will detonate when I least expect it from now on. So be it. I am learning to live with it. What other choice do I have?

Posted in Coping, Daily Ramblings, Grief, Memory, Sadness | 5 Comments

The 10 Minute Ride

Posted on September 5, 2014 by edcol52

A perfect analogy.

miragreen's avatarA Working Grief

Imagine yourself standing on the platform of the world’s largest roller coaster. Stop and really imagine the sensation. It’s a beautiful sunny day as you stare out to the mountains in the distance. To one side of you are lakes and forests and to the other is a bustling city. From below you hear the soft murmur of voices and happy noises. The sun is shining, birds are singing and the breeze is gentle. You are nervous, excited, and a little afraid as you anticipate the ride, but you are certain it will be a good one; all the others have been.

As you step into the front cart with the world at your feet, someone wraps a blindfold around your head. You have no idea what’s going on or why this is happening, but before you can say anything, the cart jerks into motion and you are now holding…

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A Very Worthy Cause

Posted on August 21, 2014 by edcol52

On June 15, 2014, Los Angeles resident Anne Lower, known in the indie filmmaking world as The Princess Scribe, suffered a broken neck in an implausible accident.  Upon examination, doctors discovered an extremely rare tumor.  Further testing revealed the cause of the both the fracture and the tumor:  markers have indicated that Anne has Multiple Myeloma, the clinical term for bone marrow cancer.

Anne now faces a very long journey, and her prognosis is guarded at best.  Specifically, she will undergo surgery on Friday, August 22 to repair the missing/damaged vertebrae, which will render her neck permanently immobile. The tumor will biopsied at this time.  Should it be determined non-cancerous, Anne will have to undergo a second surgery almost immediately to have it removed. A team of seven specialists will have to approach her tumor through the back of her throat.  From there, they will detach her skull from her spinal cord, remove the tumor, replace the missing vertebrae with prosthetics, attach a metal plate to her skull, and finally screw her spinal column back onto that plate.  And that is just the beginning.  She also faces radiation and chemotherapy, a bone marrow transplant, and a possible stem cell transplant.  Life as she knew it has just ceased to exist.

Though her insurance will cover part of these surgeries and treatments, her out-of-pocket expenses will be devastating; and should her health care costs exceed her insurance cap, as is often the case with illnesses of such serious nature, those costs may well be ruinous.

The Anne Lower Fund is comprised entirely of a team of volunteer, fellow creatives.  We are an organization developed for and dedicated to providing the means through which Anne can achieve the health care that she desperately needs.

They put together a website with a wealth of incentives donated by this community: books, writing consultations, vacations, entertainment tickets, services, all proceeds from which will go towards Annes medical care. 

www.annelowerfund.com

WHY WE CARE

Anne Lower is a silent pebble, from whom so much good has rippled across our global community.  Beyond the endless hours she has invested into her own screenwriting and filmmaking, as well as those invested in the screenwriting and filmmaking of those just starting out, beyond all of the promotion she has freely given to filmmaking kickstarters and new screenwriting projects; thousands of women are safe today due to rape crisis centers that she has made possible.  The previously homeless have Anne to thank for the hospitality of their own guest rooms, and a chance to start again.  And recently, one suicidal stranger was given a new lease on life, when Anne stopped to listen to what nobody else cared to hear.

This world simply cannot afford to lose her.

And so we call on you, her colleagues and community, to help us get Anne back up on her feet; if not for the benefit of her health, or for the screenwriting and filmmaking community, than for the benefit of our shared society.

Go to the website. Browse. Shop. Donate. Help. Anne is truly one of the “good guys”.

Anne Lower Fund Website

Thank you.

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Posted in Friends and Family, Support | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment