Eight

Date: December 23, 2022 at 3:50:27 PM PST

Dear friends,

It’s been several weeks since my last update about Betsy. I’ve held off on that because things have been extremely chaotic and I was hoping for more positive news before sending out an update.

Two MRIs in the past couple weeks show that Betsy’s tumor is now larger than it was before the surgery eight weeks ago. It’s that aggressive. About two weeks ago, Betsy lost motor function and sensation on her right side - her arm and leg. About a week later she lost the ability to talk, or to at least make sense with her words. She would look right into my eyes and talk what sounded like latin to me. Then we would laugh together, both of us knowing that the words coming out of her mouth were not the words her brain was trying to deliver there. So she’s been back in the hospital since the 19th.

Betsy’s medical team wanted to do surgery right away to reduce the size of the tumor. She’s in the hands of wonderful medical practitioners - a neurosurgeon, oncological hematologist, and radiological oncologist - who care about her longevity and her well-being. They wanted to follow surgery with radiation and chemotherapy.

Betsy opted to forego that intervention. The team informed us that to reject that plan of surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy would mean, given the aggressiveness of the tumor, that she has only several weeks of life. They tell us that with the surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy, her life expectancy would extend by just several months. With that prognosis, Betsy opted to NOT agree to their plan in favor of investing in having more quality of connection with her family rather than investing in a bit more quantity of life amidst an institutionalization of what is left.

She’s going to allow nature to take its course rather than clutter the time ahead with recovery from surgery, daily visits to the hospital, and debilitating side effects. Collectively, our plan is to be together as a family in the time ahead. We’re not sold on the rigid prognosis that was handed to us and we’ll be as creative as we can in addressing options ahead. Along the way, we’ll call in the angels of Hospice.

As I’ve shared in previous updates, Betsy is in good spirits. The journey this far in these past 8 weeks has been rich with reflection, insight, transformation, and empowerment. It's quite hard on the girls and the navigation through this reality for them is still evolving. Betsy has been a best friend, a major supporter, and nurturer extraordinaire through their soon to be 34 and 31 years. And, for me. what can I say - Betsy and I celebrated our 36th anniversary just two days ago, and, youngsters that we are, I was looking forward to us growing old together.

Many of you may not know the unusual threads that have connected us through life. While we didn’t know this, ourselves, until just a few years ago, we were born next door to each other. Before getting to an age when we could form memories of the experiences we had back then, our families moved across town and, eventually, we ended up around the corner from each other during our elementary school years. We rode to school on the same school bus and played in the same tree house, the girls occupying it for a time until us boys would yell up that it was our turn. The one-year difference between us kept the girls and boys disinterested in each other so Betsy and I never interacted, other than to say hello now and then. That changed in junior high, though, when hormones nudged the intermingling of the sexes and of the ages. But that was when I left my community of friends and went to a private school. I missed the opportunity to connect with Betsy and it was then that she became friends with my old group of friends.

Some years went by and I ended up in Boston, becoming director of a holistic education center, Interface Foundation. When I left there to go off the Findhorn in Scotland, she somehow found her way to getting a job as receptionist at Interface, exercising a second instance of becoming friends with my old group of friends, this time at Interface. When I left Findhorn I created an in-road for people from Interface to come to Findhorn and she was the first to follow suit, even staying with the same person there who I stayed with. Findhorn was now the third community of friends that we have in common, each group from different periods in our separate lives.

Eventually I became director of the Omega Institute in New York and one day I got a call from a woman asking, “Do you remember me, Betsy Kranich, from Harrisburg?” She let me know she was enrolled in a program at Omega and wondered if I could help her out with a place to stay there. The program she was enrolled in was the one and only training that I had brought to Omega, myself, in my 4 years running the place. I let her stay in my “zen sanctuary” cabin in the woods with me and the details of the days that followed are pretty rich - nothing too juicy, just the discovery of our common paths and shared communities and the electricity that sparked from that. Okay, there was more that happened, too, but maybe that’ll be in another email.

If you’re receiving this email from me, there's a very good chance you’ve in some way played a part in the journey Betsy and I have shared and you’re someone we hold in the mythic domain we make of our lives. We cherish the journey we have had and appreciate the adventure we are now on. Thank you for holding Betsy, and me, too, in your hearts as well as our girls, and reflecting on memories that we can cherish together with you.

With love for the precious blessing that is life, and love for you,

Jimmy