Senior News August, 2002 Vol. 21. No.  8

 

Published by the Humboldt Senior Resource Center in Eureka, California. HSRC is a non-profit community-based organization offering services for senior citizens, multi-generational families and caregivers.

Ferndale celebrates 150 years: Two residents are enjoying early and later years there

Remembering Spirit - Rachel Windsong

SCSEP sets record: Local senior employment ranked seventh in nation

Ferndale celebrates 150th

Legislative inaction endangers nonprofits

Del Norte-spend two days with authors

Eel River Alzheimer's Resources

HSRC August Events

Eel River swimming hole guide available on web

Pick up a copy today! Better yet, subscribe and never miss an issue!

Remembering Spirit-Rachel Windsong
by Barbara Clark

Senior News Editorial Board Divas - At an early spring 2002 editorial board meeting, Rachel Windsong, left, Lucile Manley and Alice Foster enjoyed clowning for the camera. As committed volunteers the three have been strong supporters of Senior News every month for many years. Payment is made in hugs and smiles, and personal satisfaction of a job well done is high. We all will miss Rachel. Photo by Barbara Clark

When Rachel Windsong died July 14 of a brain tumor, she left a large gap in Senior News. Since February 1998 when Rachel and I met through a mutual friend who lives in Seattle, Rachel contributed 41 stories to our pages, served on the Senior News Editorial Advisory Board and became a cherished fellow-traveler.

She asked the tough questions, went to the top to get answers, kept asking, kept rabble-rousing and kept contributing until the June 2002 issue-because she still had so much more to say. Her latest and final mission was to die in the comfort of her own home with round-the clock care of friends and staff and without the help of family members. It was an amazing challenge which her Temple Beth El and Hospice helped her meet.

Some of her Senior News topics were: What it is really like to be homeless (2/98), the first run of the Ask Yenta column (7/98), Brown Bag Salon report on retirement (8/98) and her first Dial-A-Ride story (10/98). Her first Y2K (Year 2000) story was in November 1998, and her Y2K series ran 15 months through January 2000.

Following the millennia change, Rachel contributed both as a reporter and as a woman with an opinion. Determinedly traveling the city on Dial-A-Ride, she was an advocate for seniors, for independence and for access to public transportation after hours (9/00, 11/00, 10/01). She was active with the new CR program serving grandparents who are raising grandchildren (3/01). She advised readers when Dial-A-Ride was proposing rate increases (10/01). She wrote about how certain recipes bring back favorite holiday memories (12/01). She revisited emergency preparedness a year after Y2K (11/01), and she called for balance and temperance with one another following the horror of Sept. 11th (10/01). For her final article in our June edition, she dictated her opinion piece to me while she was undergoing radiation treatments for the brain tumors.

Bon voyage, Windstar (her e-mail name). Your chair at the Senior News editorial board table will forever seem way too quiet.

Barbara Clark is editor of Senior News.

Threads of many colors
by Kelley Devlin-Lake

Rachel Windsong was many things to many people-friend, advocate, mentor, crone, neighbor, activist, writer, artist. She gave each role the fullest attention possible and was present for life with all the vitality of someone much younger than her nearly 78 years.

She was my neighbor for five years and became a close friend and confidante, a wise woman, a crone-and I watched her mentor and share her life with many others. Over tea, a meal she had generously prepared or a committee meeting she had organized, I learned more about Neighborhood Watch, Emergency Preparedness, Y2K, and other concerns such as personal safety, access to appropriate health care and the need for adequate transportation to get there.

At one point several years ago, she invited another woman and myself to dinner to discuss her needs for surrogate decision makers should she ever need well informed advocates for her well-being in the milieu of the current health care environment. She told us what she wanted and asked us if we would accept that role for her; she was definitely anticipating the need for this and was visibly relieved when we both consented.

The role of surrogate became advocate in many situations that Rachel experienced in her health care continuum. She would talk and I would listen to the latest event or current concern-and she made her own decisions until her death July 14.

I had very few answers but believed I was getting my next homework assignment. There were experiences Rachel wanted to share, talk about, write about-in the same way she empowered me as her advocate and her surrogate, she also bequeathed me her legacy of activism and requested some help in carrying her message.

Inasmuch as Rachel lived her life on her own terms, she trusted that I would deliver her message in my own way. Hers was a colorful life, like one of her fabric creations or furniture paintings. It was woven with fabrics of many different textures and every color of the rainbow.

A memorial for Rachel will be held on her birthday, Sept. 8. She would have been 78. It will be held on a local beach at low tide that day.

Kelley Devlin-Lake is the Oncology Nurse Clinician for St. Joseph Health System-Humboldt County and friend to, advocate and surrogate for Rachel Windsong.