Monday, November 1, 2010

Caregivers Too

We were living in the women's ashram in west Los Angeles and I was working down town at the Bonaventure Hotel every day. I was riding the bus and was the sole breadwinner for our little family. We had nothing. All of our belongings were in Arizona in storage and we had no car.The Westin Corporation had no slack for its employees. You could not come in late, you could not deviate from the dress code or the behavior set forth for you. We were also not paid very much, but I did get insurance for the first time.
A lady appeared at the house from Northern California. She was a Sikh and the other ladies in the house knew her. She had left her husband of 10 years, because all he did was smoke dope all day long. She had a van that looked something like the one above. Nice lady, she didn't have the commune attitude or the strict notion of lifestyle because she hadn't ever lived in the communal setting. She was trying to figure out what to do with her life. She stayed at the house and helped out here and there. 
Heather had a bad ear infection and so I took off so that I could take her and my ex- to the doctor and back on the bus and I had promised I would be in at noon. We went and came back and Heather, as we returned to the house started acting sleepy. I left and ran for the bus to get to my forever important job. When I got to work, the ex- called me from the hospital. Heather had gone into convulsions and Sava Kaur (her real given Sikh name) had rushed her and the ex- to Cedars to the emergency. I ran back to the bus to get there. (This was before the day of the cell phone) Went I finally got there, Heather was in stable condition and was expected to recover. The doctor said another half hour and she probably wouldn't have survived. The little flowered bus will always have a place in my heart. Along with its owner. I think she ended up going back to her old hippie husband up north.  


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