Pea Nation
A surreal coincidence of life
My world shrunk this week
Two people died
They didn’t know each other
Their networks barely overlapped
But the loss of them
Gutted me
Susan
Social Media brought us together
Back when it was all new
Our networks overlapped
Our interests did too
She needed to lessen
The pain of cancer
Frozen peas were the answer
We came together to make her laugh
The whole big group of us
Spent Friday’s helping
People understand
What cancer takes from us
Her cancer went away for a time
We lost touch
Connecting only when
A mutual friend
Brought us back together
Her cancer came back
Then went away
Over the decade that’s gone by
We knew her cancer was back
Those of us who knew her when
We just didn’t expect this
To be the end of such a wonder
The road between
If it hadn’t been for Susan,
I wouldn’t have stepped
Out of the box
I would have kept on
Not knowing how to find myself again
Because of Susan, I became known
Not to the world, but to enough
Thanks to that I got a job
Totally outside my plan
That job required
I hire community peeps
One applicant, Adriel, stood out
Adriel didn’t join us,
But that turned out ok
Years went by, a company
Caught my eye
Their reason for being?
Helping people share
Their passions with the world
I applied out of the blue
Adriel led a team there
He was looking
I interviewed
That company was run
By Jim
Jim
Founded a company that became
My home for a few years
Friends made, lessons learned
People helped, bugs found
Sick before I knew him,
Sick again while I was there
Cancer and it’s sided effects
Took him from us in the end
I can’t imagine my life
If I hadn’t worked there
I can’t imagine where
We would be
I disconnected from him
When I left the company
Letting myself acknowledge
The company had changed
But that he never would
The end
They both died this last week
Taking me down memory lane
Too late to make amends
Not sure there were
Amends to make
Together these two
Helped me see
Speaking my truth was worth
The cost — in effort, in pain, in time
They reminded me
The world is tied together
Emotion and coincidence
Is the thread that joins us all
Knotting these two threads
I try to separate reality
From memory
I look upon the surreal
Road that tied me
To them both
They changed me
That was worth
The double loss
Knowing them
Made me better
