Trust Fund Brats

This story is dedicated to my beloved Terry Dwyer

My friends have watched me go from a spoiled rotten trust fund brat, burning through his inheritance, then landing on his feet and clawing his way up to become a star. They watched me as I struggled with trying to figure out being famous. Later on they watched me leave that all behind, sit down at a desk in a skyscraper and slowly but surely ascend the corporate ladder.

Many more years later found them talking to me on the phone as I sat in the executive office on the very top floor with my feet up on the desk and watched the cargo ships lumber into the San Francisco Bay.

They visited me in the hospital and they sat at my bedside praying for hours on end watching the clock because the doctors had just been in and quietly asked them to make sure I was comfortable because they didn’t expect me to live through the night.

They sat with my mother and my siblings giving them loving support as they made that very difficult but loving decision to remove the life support system.

They stood by me after I rallied around and kept on fighting and finally after having been in a coma for twelve days, I woke up. They checked in with me every day until the doctors let me go home.

They were there at the house when I got home. They tucked me into bed and tried to think of everything I might need. They came to the house every day and brought me hot meals in covered casserole dishes. They sat by my side, day after day and night after night. They took shifts so I’d never be alone during those two years that I was virtually confined to my bedroom.

They stood by me and helped me try to accept and ultimately adjust to my reduced financial capacity when it became clear to all of us that I would never be able to work again. They helped me through the anguish of watching my life of expected and accepted and comfortable wealth, privilege and security slip through my fingers.

They were there to help me close up my house and pack everything in boxes after together, we had all decided that the best thing would be that my ninety two year old mother and I should join my sister in Mérida where we could both have a good life and begin to recover.

Well, you know by know that Mom has passed away since then. I don’t know if you know that my stark reality is my health, although it hasn’t gotten worse, thanks be to God, hasn’t gotten better and it never will. My condition is chronic and there is no cure. I could go on like this for many years and I could die tonight. I just never know.

So yes, these friends know me and they know how long it took me to swallow my pride and ask for help. They’ve been encouraging me to put one foot in front of the other all along and in just they way I’m still doing now. They helped me set it all up and they check in with me every day to make sure I’m sticking with it and that I keep putting that one foot out there and they make sure that I don’t give up before I reach our goal.

So yes, these people know me and they know me well.

One can never have too many friends. Somebody famous must have once said that. If not, I’m saying it now.