RIP Kay Yow

If you were to ask me which sport I gave the least of a fuck about that gets significant funding to prosper and grow, I'd probably say women's basketball; it just feels like such an exercise in futility to me. Yes I said it, but that said, when someone gives a damn about their job and what they do does more good than harm, and when the harm is essentially harmless because it manifests from skewed perspectives like my own, they deserve recognition.

In the curious case of Kay Yow, a long, impressive career came to a close as she was taken by a notably long-winded battle with breast cancer. My heart goes out to all those personally affected by this. ESPN pays people to do this so, you might want to officially read about her accomplishments before I start ranting about my own grandmother.

Bea Borenstein was a caring and loving woman who I only really know through black and white pictures inside dusty frames. I can remember the texture, but not the taste of the matzoh ball soup that she so kindly stewed for me at the age of 4. I remember her sympathetic hands and face. Her personal struggle with breast cancer was not the stuff of myth; she was just a human being living, dying, day by day with a disease that hadn't the mind to consider that there were to sides to the battle.



Mom and Dad used to tell me how much time and effort both my mother's parents had put in to help raising us. How much they must have given before I was old enough to realize what was what. I kind of feel the same way about Otis Redding; we're constantly left thinking what could have come if that flight had made it through Wisconsin.



My father told me a story once, that at his grandmother's funeral (or in the case of the Japanese a cremation) his family showed him the ashes and bones that were left and told him, "when you die, this is it, nothing more,"; besides probably scaring the bejesus out of him at the time, it served an interesting lesson. I've never met a man who had more love to give to his family and friends in such a faithful manner than the man whose balls I once resided in.



So, I've got time today to reflect on how lucky I am, even if superficial things like being broke and having no friends around are trying to drag me down. Free Condoms!