-=> Quoting Sondra Ball to Robin Arnhold <=-
Hi, Sondra,
 RA>I'm glad to hear he went peacefully, at home with his loved ones around
 >him.  I recently heard that most people in this country die alone and in
 >pain, which makes me very glad his family had the courage to stand up
 >against the medical profession and save him from that fate.
 SB> 
 SB> I'm glad they stood up to the medical profession too.  It helped that
 SB> they had the strong support of several friends.  I think it must be
 SB> much rougher for folks to stand up against the medical establishment if
 SB> they are feeling isolated.  Doctors can be an overbearing lot.
Yes, they can, and people encourage this by looking up to doctors,
respecting them, and believing that every doctor knows everything there
is to know about medicine.
 
 SB> I have a friend who went through an
 SB> absolutely awful childhood.  Her father died while she was very young.
 SB> Her mother was an alcoholic and a prostitute.  Her uncle sexually
 SB> abused her on a regular basis.  They often had no food in the house.
 SB> She wore ragged clothes to school. No-one loved her or wanted her.  
It is so sad to hear this.  
 SB> She
 SB> said the beginning of the turn around in her life came when she was
 SB> still a child; and was an encounter of only a few minutes.  She was
 SB> downstairs looking for something to eat when her mother's "trick" of
 SB> the night before came downstairs.  She was young enough, however, that
 SB> she hadn't quite figured out what was happening with all these men
 SB> passing in and out of her life.  She looked up at the man, and asked,
 SB> "Are you going to be my father?"  She said the man stopped, and looked
 SB> at her with a strange, and pained expression.  "No," he said, "I'm
 SB> not."  Then he stopped and talked to her for a few minutes, talked to
 SB> her as one might talk to a lonely child.  The exchange only took a few
 SB> minutes, and she never saw him again.  But in that dialogue she
 SB> realized she was a worthwhile person, and began moving towards healing.
 SB> She says that her memory of that man, which is a cherished memory, has
 SB> convinced her that even the most casual of encounters can bear great
 SB> significance. 
I get the feeling that your friend had as much influence on this man as
he had on her.  It sounds like he woke up and realized that what for him
and the other men who visited your friend's mother had no meaning beyond
relieving sexual desires was having a destructive impact on an innocent
child.  He must have been a decent man at heart, and I suspect your
friend never saw him again because he never came back--he seems to have
had a greater sense of decency and responsibility than your friend's
mother.
Take care,
Robin
--- Blue Wave/DOS v2.20
---------------