I learned of the passing of an aqaintence last week and thought it may be of some interest to you guys.  It certainly has me feeling weird as I don't know what to make of the news.  This is a strange read but worth it if you give it the effort.  There's a number of lessons here just in the telling.  

Ten years ago I met this couple through school activities.  Their daughter was in my son's class.  Through mutual friends, we were thrown together socially on many occassions.  For the sake of this story will call the husband Ron and wife Jill.  From outward appearences they were what many would define as a Hippie couple.  They kind of dressed and looked very retro but two distinctly different people.  Though Ron had long hair his roots as the son of a minister were still very strong.  He is the type guy who built his own home by hand, runs his own contracting business, and took his parenting responsibility very seriously.  Needless to say, I took instant liking to Ron.  His easy going trust is everything nature most people would have.  Jill on the otherhand was the exact opposite of Ron.  She saw herself as Janis Joplin reborn and dressed the part and acted it on many levels to include alcohol.  Loud and abnoxious, she had a real talent at pissing people off for her opinion was the only opinion.  Having been raised by a lesbian couple, her politics were the extreme left.  You may have heard of the bra burning women rights advocates, well this girl lived it.  Her big pilgramage was the the womens right convention every year and flaunted her braless over weight boobs to the point of nauseum.  Upon our first meeting she took exception to my son's nickname, Billy, and I caught her telling him so.  Needless to say, I never got along with Jill.

When GW got elected, Jill about had a cow.  Her involvement with the extreme left politics increased as she now attended anti-war demostrations.  The more involved she got the more enthralled with living up to her Janis Joplin self impression she got.  She took to the bottle even heavier.  This added strife to the marriage as Ron tried desperately to pull his family together again.  As you would expect Jill saw this push by Ron as an assault on her individualism.  This led to fights and literally Jill would assault Ron.  She had become the devil and even the police responding to the now frequent domestic calls were advising Ron to divorce Jill.  Ron being as he is took yet one last desparate move.  After Jill attacked a police officer responding to one of their fights, Ron had her committed to a lock in drug rehab rather than face jail.  Well Jill met another left wing activist with a drug problem in rehab and upon getting out, divorced Ron, and washed her hands of both her husband and daughter.  

Armed with her new activist soul mate, she did what any good left wing radical should do.  They packed up and moved to California for that's where the action is and Janis Joplin would be not only welcomed but looked up to.  The only communication Ron or her daughter had with her was through her sister which she had moved in with.

As habit, when I go to school events Ron and I would set together and catch up on what's going on in our lives.  After the usual, your house done? etc. eventually the conversation would get around Jill.  At one event, he tells me the boy friend is gone.  He got tired of Jill beating the shit out of him.  At another, Jill's sister kicked her out.  Our children started highschool and the highschool is on a different calender so Ron and I don't see each other all summer until this week.  It was great catching up but eventually the topic led to Jill where he thought I knew.  Jill was found dead of an overdose.  Apparently she had been living on the streets in California.  As Murphy would have it, she died on her daughters birthday.

This really bothers me for I didn't know what to say.  I had watched this PTA mother go from active caring parent to raving left wing radical to junky yet I feel no remorse.  None, which is very different for me.  I felt more remorse for my dead enemies during the war.  I guess, I have to face the fact I never really liked her but then I've known others that I didn't like that I could at least feel some pity for.  I often think she was doomed to this fate from a child.  Shame she is leaving the legacy of that childhood with her child which will never enjoy a birthday again as long as she lives.

Tj

Quoted: It is too bad she abandoned her family in pursuit of her "ideals".

Well uh, yep, when the real motivation appeared to have been drugs and the bottle.