From Where I Stand

[edith love <elove59@xxxxxxxxx>]

My dear Friends,

Often I think of the shadow world in which we live and how much the caring
and togetherness of PIEN contributes to our lives.   For some it is the only
family that makes a day bearable.  For others it is contact with those who
truly understand the twists and turns our bodies take as we traverse through
another day.

Depending upon where we sit or stand under the PD umbrella, PIEN is the
saving grace for the pain, the nausea, the daily unexpected raids upon the
little self esteem and id we somehow continue to grasp.  It is the saving
grace for the loneliness, fear and exhaustion that often overpowers us.  It
is a means of touching on the medical triumphs and discouragements going on
in our world for there isn't one of us who doesn't hope for that much needed
cure which some of us have waited for for thirty or more years.  More than
anything, it is the hand of those who understand, the hand that signifies we
are not alone.  Someone out there will offer this  hand no matter what the
hour.  We are blessed for we are never alone!

Look at this family.  Like any other there are differences of opinion and
misunderstandings.  Sometimes when disagreements occur, without meaning to
do so we allow the frustration with which we live to overcome and offer an
opportunity to lash out against the cloud within us, to be vitriolic, to
castigate without truly meaning to do so.

Please consider:
We have many new PIEN family members who may not be fully aware of nonPD
postings.
We get the form.  It doesn't mean we read or even remember what is says!
Our error!
We have many older PIEN family members who have always felt the freedom to
share information without intentionally breaking these rules.
We, like many other families, represent many points of view.  We just may
not agree!
And by all rules we have the right to disagree with one another.  That is
our right as Americans.  The important thing is how we do it.

Words are like the wind.   Once they are pronounced they can never be
retracted for they become the knives that cut into caring for one another.
Nothing is so important we can't discuss it intelligently and with
understanding.  Nothing is so important that it is allowed to swindle our
humaneness toward one another!

We are tiny voices of the microcosm that together take our places in the
vast macrocosm.  We are each one point of a forever chain where each depends
upon the other for the survival of all!  May wisdom temper how we treat one
another!

In friendship and caring,
E of the headdress

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