Our science fiction non-profit club, Heimdal Science Fiction, just celebrated our 42nd year as an organization with a big, fun anniversary party on April 18. We had a karaoke DJ and it was a Star Trek episode costume event. I was surprised and delighted at the number of us that got up and sang … without being self-conscious at all because we’ve known each other so long that we are comfortable being ourselves with each other … or something like that. We had door prizes and dinner and a really good time because, even though we’re 42-years-older than we were when we launched our organization, we’re not too old to play. My goal for our club members is that we never lose that ability and never grow into grouchy old people. That’s simply not who we are.
This post, although beginning with comments about a wonderful anniversary party, is actually about Glenda, a special club member who wanted to be there but told me from her hospital bed in mid-March, “I’m afraid I won’t be there this year.”
I’m saying that so you won’t be expecting a couple more pages about a fun night of celebration. The post is, though, a celebration in its own right … a celebration of a special woman that I hope will be remembered
At most of our anniversary parties one or more of our previous members will come because no matter how long it’s been since they left us … most of them moving on to start a splinter organization of their own … they will always be a part of us. This year Jerry drove all the way from West Virginia. He is one of our early members that left and launched a splinter chapter from us sometime in the early 1990s.
In a private moment Jerry said to me, “I don’t know about you, but I’m getting tired of burying people.”
Jerry’s statement, even in the midst of the costumes, karaoke songs and festivities was a statement of where we are. We’ve grown up together and now, 42 years later, we’re growing old together. We are reality in the midst of the science fiction atmosphere we’ve created. Rather than Jerry’s statement being a downer, it was a statement of truth and in some weird way it was a testimony to longevity and the depth of the friendships we’ve made and held onto for all these years. I’m encouraged that we’ve been around to usher each other through the good times, the bad and sad times and the ending of chapters as we move on to what comes next. But I understood what Jerry was saying.
Our club has lost people to accident and disease through the years and most recently members of our core group, those who signed on with us early and have been around for the long haul and have left us within the past few years. Those are the losses that I’ve felt the most deeply: Martha, Jeanne who refused to die until she knew in 2020 that trump had lost the presidential election and died just hours after the election was called in favor of Biden, Dennis who called me ‘Admiral’ and was always there and suddenly wasn’t, and most recently on March 28 we lost Glenda to a cancer diagnosis she received just 3 months earlier. I knew exactly what Jerry meant. We didn’t dwell on it but we understood the grief we shared deeper than words at a party could express. We KNEW.
In the 36 years that Glenda and her husband were members of our organization she and I grew closer and more like sisters than friends in the same club. In all that time we only had one disagreement about a club thing, which is an amazing track record, I think. In our sisterhood (from other mothers, as the saying goes) we may have been a little like all sisters by blood, dysfunctional sisters sometimes, and that was OK
Glenda was the kind of club member everybody wants … caring, helpful, willing to take responsibility and to volunteer … all the while enjoying what she did and making new members feel at home. She was Chief of our club’s Communications Department.
Like Dennis, I assumed Glenda would always be there. I miss her already.
I remember the joy of helping her find just the right dress for a formal gala she was invited to through her job for the city and how lovely she looked. She shared with me that she hadn’t been to her own high school prom and that the gala was her first formal affair. I remember how much she enjoyed club Halloween parties and anniversary parties that were costume events and how much she enjoyed putting her costumes together and those for her husband and enjoying an evening of being someone other than herself and how much fun it was for her. She was dedicated to shopping and purchasing gifts for the senior citizens our club adopted each Christmas and bought gifts for. She was personally disturbed that our gifts were in many cases the only gifts those elderly people would receive for Christmas. She shopped wisely and personally for just the right gifts for each of them.
Always in the background the glue that held Glenda and me together was that we could talk to each other as friends and sisters and there is no substitute for that.
My husband and I, Beth and other club members made sure Glenda had us as visitors that final month of her life in the hospital. It was important to us that she saw us, understood how much we cared and knew that we loved her. We told her we did because that’s what people do … who DO.
There is a lovely garden in our city called the Awareness Garden made especially for remembering and honoring cancer victims who are in their personal battle with that awful disease, those who have survived the battle and those that have lost the battle. There is a huge bell in the center of the garden hanging there especially for survivors to visit and ring at the end of their cancer treatment, which is empowering.
The garden is filled with seasonal flowering trees and shrubs and plants and flowers of all kinds. Friends, families, businesses and acquaintances are encouraged to purchase a commutative brick paver inscribed with the names of the brave cancer victims in their honor or in memory of their courage and their fight. The pavers make up the walkway that winds throughout the garden for visitors to see and read and be inspired by. As an animal lover my heart is always touched by several pavers dedicated to pets and inscribed with words of deep love and memories for the special animal family members that have battled cancer.
With a third of the cost of a paver coming from our club’s treasury and the other two thirds donated by the department chiefs and me from our club we have purchased a paver in Glenda’s memory. It will rest for decades to come where it can be seen and be an inspiration to all that see it in a place of light and peace and beauty. And that’s what I wish for Glenda … to be surrounded by light and peace and beauty.
Inscribed on the paver will be:
In Loving Memory: Glenda Blanks
Heimdal
Heaven: The Final Frontier
Surrounded by the members of our club, which are more like family, and buoyed by the good things we are able to do year after year in our community, among the important things I’ve learned as I’ve gotten older is this – NEVER be afraid to tell your friends you love them. It’s one of the last things I said to Glenda … and to Jeanne and Dennis and Martha before her. In only three words you can sum up years of shared experiences and the depth of feeling you have for someone.
It is probably the most important thing we will ever say and our greatest gift.
heimdalco 