Every once in a while as I flip through channels (all six that I get!) I find the Olympics, and I pause, and I get interested, and then I notice that I am getting tense. I am actually afraid to watch! I'm so afraid the broadcast might be live, and that something awful will happen while I'm watching. On 9/11/01, we saw the second plane hit the tower in real time (I saw. Jay, being blind and paralyzed, heard.), and Jay's reaction was so bad. He knew he was unable to protect me, and he was frantic that I would have to face alone whatever happened next. I had never seen him so distressed, not even through the diagnosis and three recurrences and all that he had lost. It was difficult to soothe him. I think that's what finally took his strength. The tumor didn't kill him - it was an overwhelming infection. He had fought off similar infections before, but this time the hope/fight in him was gone. It's unfair that he was not counted as a 9/11 victim.
But anyway, that's not where I was headed when I started this. I was thinking about the swimmer who "gave up his place". I haven't been paying attention, but I gather that the great hope of the Australian(?) swim team, the guy who might break Spitz's records [8/20 update - Ian Thorpe], somehow screwed up and just missed qualifying for the Olympic team. So another guy who had made the team "gave up his place" so this guy could go. I put it in quotes because when you do something you technically don't have to do, but you can't NOT do, it isn't exactly voluntary. And what's even sadder is that I heard no reporter mention his name. He will be forgotten. He's officially nobody. I feel so sorry for him.
The reason I am sensitive to this is that (disclaimer!!! - according to my mother!!!) a similar thing happened to my cousin. It was, ironically, the year that Marc (Mark?) Spitz won all those medals. Spitz had qualified for the team, but had refused to go. Something about finances, accordingto Mom. My cousin was on the team. Then, just before they were to get on the plane, all packed to go and everything, Spitz changed his mind, and my cousin was bumped off the team. I have lost contact with him, and at that time all information was filtered through my mother, but I gather it was a crushing blow. My cousin, the unknown swimmer behind Spitz.
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