Inside Delphian

Death in the Family? Here's an unpleasant collection agency story...

This is a real story. It's not related to my business, so I want to share with you the two reasons I'm publishing it here. The first is that if you have someone close to you die, you won't want to go through this. The second is that it's too lengthy--don't worry, it's only a few hundred words--for most social networking sites. But it needs to be told so you'll be aware you have rights and should not be harassed by the uncaring.

After spending several quite awful months in the hospital, my mother died of cancer in October, 2008. I obtained several copies of the death certificate, and, duly distributed them. One went to Toronto Housing, the umbrella company that rented her apartment to her.

Fast forward...

Today (May 6, 2010), and less than a week ago, phone calls came into our home phone number for "Helen Neilly" (yes, my mother). I tell the callers she's been dead for 1 1/2 years. They don't have proof, so they don't believe me. This collection agency--I don't know how to spell their name, but it sounds like "IKO"--tells me I have to submit a death certificate to them so they can close her file. I was my mother's executor, so I asked them for details: was there, for example, an outstanding debt? They would not tell me because the matter was confidential. Go figure! Stupidity rules.

When I told the guy today that I have a fax confirmation to Toronto Housing from November, 2008, well, that didn't count. The fax wasn't to the collection agency, so they didn't believe in it. It was my problem, or it was Toronto Housing's problem. I couldn't figure out which, as this guy hung up pretty quickly.

Also, and this seems merely an inconvenience for this collection agency, it's *against the law* for them to make these calls without having first contacted me in writing. In Canada, collection agencies must conform to The Collection Agencies Act. Among other things, one of the first statements in the Act is "A collection agency may not: Contact you until six days have passed from sending you a written notice of the following:..." (emphasis is mine). This agency has not only not contacted me in writing, they will not even bring themselves to tell me what the issue at hand is. 

Icing on the cake? I was told in my second last call that unless or until I comply with their vague demands, they will not stop phoning me.

And the legitimacy of collection agencies is where? Certainly, it goes down the toilet with the kind of uncaring, insensitive, rude people that continue to harass me. It really causes me to question the 'skills' these types must have had to have been hired in the first place. Sure aren't communications skills.

Next stop? I know something about my rights--and you should too if you're ever put in this situation--so will probably be contacting the Ministry of Consumer Services. I would truly like to see this or any other agency like it put under the scrutiny of the public eye, to somehow account for their actions. Would they, if they could, defend themselves on the basis of their "bottom line"?

Collection agency 'people': how do you live with yourself? What if you were on the receiving end of calls like the ones you've been making to me; would that be okay with you?

On the beach

"No beach to walk on."

As the Enterprise and life spiraled to what seemed a fated disaster, that's what Captain Kirk said in a Star Trek first season episode called The Naked Time. It turns out he and his valiant crew would live to see another day--and episode of course. Maybe Kirk caught his beach later on, in the Nexus.

More important, have you taken your walk on the beach recently?

This summer has been interesting for me. I've been busier than usual. I've had the privilege to teach a couple of classes at Humber, and my VA business has brought me work and good fortune. Life's so good this summer, so busy, that there will no summer vacation.

Last summer, when my 'ship' was spiraling out of control, and when I had a beach to walk on: I didn't. I should have done so then more than at any other time. I needed it. In the moment, in his crisis, when our fictional character Kirk wanted to be assured he'd one day have a beach to walk on, he couldn't have predicted the future. Any more than I could have last year.

Though I don't have time to walk on the beach this summer, I'm not sad about it. I know that there is a beach. If you can, take a walk on your beach now. If you can't, take comfort in knowing it's there for you when you're ready for it.

No "failure to communicate"

I've been talking to a few people recently about one of my favourite topics--overriding almost--and my message has been simple: overcome distance. By distance I don't mean geography. I mean any distance that is between you and anyone else you seek to understand.

Many of us mouth things like "I hear you", or "I'm listening", but in fact we may have placed our biases or upbringing or training or indoctrinations ahead of our ears. If we're guilty of that (and yes, I've been), chances are we will not hear the full message, nor the most important part: the cause or intent.

Here's a case in point that happened to me.

In one of the college classes I taught this past winter, I was setting out ground rules for an upcoming test, and one of my students outed me in front of class. It was too much to study, too much to learn, and there wasn't enough time. At that moment, all I could think of (far too logical, I know) were things like wasn't it true that the test date had been announced earlier, and that the general content had already been taught, and so forth. All eyes on me [something you need to get used to if you're in front of a class often enough], I had to sternly, but politely, tell her I'd be available to talk about this further during break or after class.

She approached me at break, and as she walked up, I consciously tried to open myself up to her, and to close down the frustration I'd felt earlier on. Whether it was her or me, the energies changed, and before she'd said anything I said to her something like "you're stressed, aren't you?" Well, that was it. Happy ending. Sounds simple doesn't it? And it was. I had been guilty of not reading her, or not being open to what was really going on. Until I could remove my blockages--the distance that *I* had put between us--we weren't communicating effectively.

Working hard to remove barriers and distance may not always pan out (after all, the other person has to do the same thing), but more often than not it leads to the most wonderful rewards. Many potentially failed communications succeed because we 'go the distance' to remove distance.

Back to work, or, what will I do in 2009?

In late 2008, I made the decision to stop publishing a monthly e-zine.

Well, I say "monthly"; but for a number of reasons I felt that wasn't the right schedule to follow, nor the best way for me to get my thoughts out there. This, my first post of the New Year, is dedicated to my e-zine subscribers, and indeed to all of you who are pondering this newly minted year.

While I don't make New Year's resolutions, I do review the past year--I always do in the closing days of any year--and I make some decisions about what I can or cannot not do moving forward, or can or cannot hang onto. For starters, my commitment to spirituality (to living life fully in body, mind, and spirit) has increased. It's a "keeper". One part of my reason has to do with the fact that my mother died in late October. Another has to do with my continuing relationship on a number of levels (including the spiritual, but if it works better for you, the "psychic") with several important people in my life. That part has never wavered, but I do think 2008 made it all the more stronger.

Another key area I revisited or reviewed was the always-interesting question of what I do, or will do, for a 'living' in the New Year. I think I've concluded that I adore my fellow virtual assistants, and yes, there are lots of reasons to adore the teacher's hat I wear several times a week in any active semester. In each of those two areas, I've increased my commitment and focus. In fact, on the virtual assistance front, I've already committed to being a facilitator for a workshop at FoVA 2009.

When you have "one of those days" (in my case, it was 2008, and it was "one of those years"), among the many things you want to do is make sure it doesn't happen again.

On the elevator on the way up to our floor earlier today, two other gentlemen and I engaged in a brief 45-60 second conversation (all the ride would allow). As we spoke briefly about the weather, we also touched briefly about what 2009 might bring. We all agreed that we were fortunate not to be mixed up in some of the very unfortunate (loathsome?) misfortunes in other parts of the world. My concluding remark was that there was only one direction for us--all of us--to go in 2009: and that was up.

I sincerely hope that's where you're headed in 2009 too. Happy New Year!

Endings that bring beginnings

Avoiding letting religion or other partisan beliefs seep into this post, I want to talk about something—someone—near and dear to my heart. That someone is my mother.

My mom, Helen M. Neilly, died at 6:00 a.m. on Saturday October 25, 2008. Her children, their spouses, and some of their children, were there for most or all of the 20 hour vigil. During the vigil, several friends dropped by. Hell, even Vijay, the lady who rents the televisions at the hospital, dropped by to share her grief. Most people that saw my mother during that time were in shock at her deteriorated condition. Fortunate for her, she did not regain consciousness.

How many times have you talked or mused or wondered about the mysteries of physical death? What happens after the end is in question only to us. Those who have moved on already know.

Over the past few months—since the summer, really—I’ve struggled, privately and sometimes publicly, to maintain my virtual assistance practice, continuing to attract new clients and service the ones I have (or had). And at the start of this school semester (my mother had already been in the hospital almost two months at that point), I struggled to have a strong start for all of my students, at the two colleges I teach for. I guess the operative word here is “struggled”. Now, at least, my mom’s struggles, and her pain, and her fear, are gone.

The saying “life goes on” is so over-used; but so true. No matter your degree of compassion, and I like to think I have it in abundance, until death visits your own household; it’s always about someone else. It’s a stranger, or it’s someone you know or knew, or it’s someone that another friend knows or is connected to. It’s another generation. It’s the father down the street, or the elderly lady in your apartment building. Ultimately, it’s always someone else. But when an immediate family member is diagnosed as being critically ill—and yes, actually has an estimated life span attached to her/her illness—then it’s no longer abstract.

I think the thing that really got to us was that my mother’s estimated life, post-surgery, turned out to be haplessly inaccurate. The 18-months we were told about in July of this year turned out to be three months. And her condition, about two weeks ago, rapidly (incredibly so) went downhill.

My thoughts on the afterlife are varied and span several belief systems. I won’t get into them here—as I said, I’m trying to avoid partisan or religious thoughts about all of this—except to say that without a shred of doubt I believe mom has continued her existence. And in fact, on a very personal note, I felt what I believed to be the direct touch of her spirit, some hours before she passed. It was quite a wonderful, peaceful, blissful feeling. Quite amazing.

Helen Neilly lived just beyond 84 years. While she had a few major illnesses in her life (two of which occurred over the past dozen years or so), and aside from the cancer diagnosed earlier this year, she was fairly healthy. She always wanted—insisted upon—her independence. She earned it. In fact, even a few scant days before her surgery, she was walking around with her walker, and with one of my sisters, went to a department store a few minutes away from her senior’s apartment building. Over the past several years, and for most of her life, she rarely asked for help. Instead of troubling me to pick her up some groceries, she would meet my sister sometimes, or sometimes slowly make her way across the street with her walker and pick up a few things at the variety store. She talked to almost anyone she met (that used to drive me crazy!), and most people she met liked her. Her three girls, several grandkids, and even great grandkids, along with me, played sometimes active roles in her life. She enjoyed that.

On the occasion of my mom’s 84th birthday party, another sister and her husband got permission to take her out of the hospital and to a luncheon in her honour. She was dressed nicely, in a new outfit bought for her, and still retained her beauty, humour, and passion for life. Dave, a singer she had met several years earlier, dropped by. He personally sang two songs to her. My sisters and I, and our spouses, were there to join in the celebrations. We had thought (hoped?) we would soon be able to get my mom out of the hospital and into long term care. That was just over a month ago. A lot can happen in a month.

What’s the ‘right age’ to die? I can’t answer that question any more than most. What I do know is this: I understand and accept death as part of life. What I would have wanted or changed is this: that my mom could have had a better—a much better—year.

All of us have been talking about certain times—any times other than her last 20 hours—that we remember her best, or that provides us with the fondest detail and clarity. For E and me, it’s when we took her out for her annual Mother’s Day dinner. Back in May, mom had not yet been diagnosed with her disease. She knew she wasn’t well, and was in near-constant pain, but she was still very much her own person and depended very little on the ‘system’. We picked her up at the back of her apartment building as we always did. She was dressed smartly, in colours she always liked, and walked out of the building under her own steam (with her walker, of course). We drove her to a place we liked in the Beaches. It was the last time E or I recall her eating a full dinner. She talked a lot, smiled a lot, and reminisced about how she used to shop and walk around and spend time with her friends in the very area we were in that night. She seemed happy. She seemed to have made up her mind that she’d had a good life. We thought so too.

As many of you have probably felt at such times as this, with memories so fresh in your minds, it is we, the living, who are now suffering and who have an empty place where our mother used to be. We know that it’s her in her human form that we’ll miss the most, and I think I can speak for all of us in saying that we know she’s still ‘here’, much more so in spirit than while in her physical form.

Soon we will all gather—all of us that have been around these past months, plus many more—to celebrate her life. Mom, if you’re looking in on us; don’t be sad. We think that now, right now, you’re enjoying a pain-free existence whose liberation and freedom is all but beyond our earthly understanding. We think that your deceased sister, and boyfriend, not only visited you months ago as you’d told us, but are in fact with you now.

We haven’t gone anywhere mom, and neither has your living, loving spirit. Thank you for everything.

No, life isn't "fair"

I am a realist. Still, when I'm put in a position of lasting anguish for whatever reason, like many people I'm inclined to say "life isn't fair". Not long after, the realist in me says 'I know that, Rob'. That old cliché about life is so over-worn and ridiculous as to have been rendered academic ages ago. But still: we say it. We say it out of frustration or exasperation or fear or anger. But ... we say it.

When isn't life fair? It isn't fair when undeserving people--in our minds--get wealthy. It isn't fair when they get their way. It isn't fair when others damage those we love, or damage us. It especially isn't fair when the undeserving get gravely ill.

So who or what do we (or should we) rail against when "life isn't fair"? No one. Nothing. The little cells that make up the big diseases--while possibly intelligent, or even sentient in some respects--don't know the names of their victims. They only know that it's their function or purpose to spread. Don't get me wrong: I am not taking the side of germs or bacteria or disease. But if we were able to ask them--to stop spreading, for example--what do you think their answer would be? "Just doing my job, man" might be one answer.

When we feel that life isn't fair or just to someone we care for, we want to act. We do not want to feel impotent. We want to do something. But as people, we're only empowered to act in certain ways or to affect outcomes in degrees. In my case, I am already functioning as a supporter, cheerleader, and hopefully a stable bit of business that ticks off the disease to no end!

None of my efforts will be enough to stop the ravages of cancer. But if it means something to that special someone else, it will be worth the energy and effort.

Life ... According to Life

Unless you actively court disease—go out of your way to get sick—illness is a strange thing indeed. It is without boundaries. It is without prejudice. It does not engage in rules of fair play. And while individual diseased cells arguably possess some level of isolate or group intelligence, disease strikes according to its own timing. All people—good, bad, neutral (if that’s possible)—may be side-lined or even struck down completely by illness.

Right now in our family, we’re dealing with someone who is very ill. This is not the first time my mother has been such. Nor does she hold the distinction in our family of being the only one who ever has been seriously ill. All of we siblings have had our brush with fate, to a greater or lesser extent, at some point in our lives. And I’ve lost a grandmother, aunts,uncles and others due to the ravages of disease or malfunctioning bodies.

I have some ‘reservations’ when it comes to traditional, allopathic medicine; but this won’t be the place or the time I get into it. I also have reservations (and maybe an equally skeptical opinion) about naturopathic or holistic practices. I know in my own mind when I’d take one ‘over’ the other, or even to the exclusion of the other. In my mother’s case, due mainly to the stage of her illness, the path must be traditional medicine. Perhaps in the past she might have sought out alternate treatments (even preventative treatments), but this is not that time. Also, there may be a generational principle at work here, where her trust has always been in traditional medicine.

When others are ill, it’s a given that besides what care each of us is capable of giving individually, and the times we want to or have to spend with ill ones, our lives will still have to go on +/- as they always did.

For the ill person, daily life may not go on +/- as it always did.

My mother’s ‘normal’ day-to-day life and routine have been interrupted and will get more chaotic before becoming more settled. As I consider what’s going on, I think about how important the balance factor is. While she may be suffering a physical imbalance (though I give her loads of credit for a stoic and strong response so far), I know I need to think about balance. Balance will be one of the key ingredients to allow me a strong and stable ‘operating environment’; it will be part of my platform moving forward. I’ll endeavour to use it as a surgeon might use her arsenal of resources (to use an apt metaphor), and in doing so, I anticipate being strongly rooted.

Without waxing too heavily into the spiritual, I know I have a different take than others on what illness and the human condition means. I find strength in my ideas and in the mechanisms that help me cope. And I already know that others will share their strength with mine. My family shares in the concern about my mother’s current condition, and the next steps that need to be taken so she’ll get better. My mother will not be facing this out alone. I guess that’s the shining light in this otherwise sorry situation.

When you’re in the position of supporting someone who has fallen victim to ill-health, think about this: the stronger your own footing, the better you’ll be able to help those in need. And as I plan to do, think about getting sound advice from others who have been through similar situations before.

Responsibility and Responsible Actions

As I continue to work on winding down the amount of teaching I do–it's not the hours in the classroom that are a killer–and ramp up the time I spend as a virtual assistant, working as a teacher offers me little pearls of wisdom about responsibility just about every week.

Depending on the timetable, the second last or last week in April ends winter term. Definitely the time to expect some of those pearls I just spoke of...

You know, they're going to have to rename the "eleventh hour" to something else: too many of my students have burnt out its original, elegant meaning. Here's a case in point. One of my students, in one of the two programs I teach in, is usually not in class except for test days. A fine example of the old adage about clockwork. He was, again, not in class for a test this past week. (Actually, make that an exam). Yawn. He e-mailed me to request a make-up test because he 'didn't know there was a test this week'. Yeah, right.

It gets more complicated. This is a good student, who has a full-time job. He has (had?) high marks in my class. He's polite most of the time, and except for almost never showing up in class, is easy to manage. In fact, when it looked like his job was conflicting with his class time, we (the College and I) agreed to transfer him into another class.

Of course, he never showed for his new class. I had not heard from him since we transferred him into the new section, until this week, when 1/2 of the final exam was written in class.

Agonizing over students' marks, performance–and indeed futures–is a bad habit and it's one I repeat all the time. It's "bad" because often enough the students I'm worried about have not been responsible. Often enough they have been virtually incommunicado (like this fellow), and come up for air only through an emergency they themselves create.

If there's one thing I've gladly learned that I don't have to tolerate, it's management by emergency. (Thanks, AssistU, for that one!)

So what to do? Should I turn away with a not quite blind eye, in simple acquiesence, and give him a shot at the make-up? Should I lecture him on the perils of being irresponsible? Should I tell him he has to choose between work and school? All of these are pretty solid stepping-off points.

The message is really, very straightforward. It's a message about personal responsibility, follow-up and follow through. It's about Newton's third law. It's about figuring out and owning up to 'challenges' that people bring onto themselves everyday. The times I've decided to step in and take responsibility for someone else's actions have often caused me some regret. I mean, I shouldn't have to do that; right?

By the way, the verdict isn't in yet on this particular student...