Wednesday, July 2, 2014

The Primal Scream

This walk is about diabetes. I have lost family members to its ravages. I have relatives who have survived for decades balancing there lives with the disease. Some fight it, some ignore it, some strive to prevent it before it is too late. I walk to encourage everyone to be active daily to prevent, control and turn diabetes around.
In recent days I have met many with diabetes. Some told me about their experience. One young man and his mother lost three stones each. He got healthier and she was able to cease taking medication. A woman shared that she is able to reduce her medications on days when she exercises and stays within a healthier diet. Too many tell of family lost while they strive to keep it in control. Some are on dialysis awaiting a donor organ or a cure from science. Sometimes it is overwhelming to hear of loss from nearly everyone who I speak with, to the point I could cry out. To who? What good would it serve? I shoulder' on...

This morning I was rolling the world on the blacktop edge, high-stepping thru tall grass in the ditch, surrounded by fields of corn that I can almost see grow higher as I pass and hear it expand in the silences between the roar of cars and big-rigs' when I heard the excited cry of a primate. What I thought was my imagination revealed itself as the thick-barred cage under a barn shed came into view. The frustration and anguish of the animal behind the heavy enclosure was palatable. It eventually fell silent as it watched us amble by. Many minutes later, when I fell from its view , one last, desperate, hopeless, primal scream pierced through the drown of eighteen-wheelers as they passed.
I, very much, did not want to write about either of these things...





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