Sometimes it's never enough

My friend Marsha was one of the most stylish 10-year-olds I'd ever met. She could wear those jersey pants that were weirdly pleated at the top and then fully tapered at the bottom like no one else. Plus she had a cute blonde bowl cut and more plastic bracelets than anyone else in our class. (It was 1985, so cut her a little slack.)

She was also my only friend who had a pool in her backyard, which was something very foreign to me. Until that time in my life, I had only lived on military bases that had row housing or apartments. If you wanted a pool, you had to go to the rec centre.

I don't ever remember feeling weird about Marsha having cystic fibrosis. So she had a tube in her stomach and was hooked up to machines at night. So we'd spend a couple of hours every afternoon in her basement while her mom or dad pounded rhythmically on her back and used this large machine that looked like a floor sander to help massage the mucus out of her lungs. So she had to go into the hospital every few months.

To me, she was just Marsha. She'd still sleepover occasionally, but in order to do so she'd have to have what I've always assumed was a big transfusion of the medicine that she wouldn't be hooked up to that night. We would still throw her plastic bracelets into the pool from her second storey bedroom window and then go down and dive for them. She may have been the poster child for CF at that time, a photo of her wearing an oxygen mask on information posters and brochures across the country, but to me she was just another girl on the cusp of puberty struggling to figure it all out.

Marsha died when we were 11. My dad took me and a friend to her viewing. For some reason, I don't think I was sad. I remember her mom hugging me very tightly and I remember how she looked in her coffin - just like she was sleeping.

I still think of Marsha a lot. She's the reason that I make a monthly donation to the Sick Kids Hospital here in Toronto. It's not a big amount, just $15, but it's important to me. When they run the telethons on TV, the boyfriend makes me turn them off, because I can't watch the stories about the kids without wanting to sign over all my worldly possessions to help in any way I can. They're all so brave and strong, like Marsha was, and they remind me that the problems in my life are small and trivial.

That's why I cross the street when I see someone on the corner canvassing for donations. Not because I don't want to give - I already am giving - but because I feel guilty that I can never give enough.

Total debt: $7221 and a bit
Spent today: $20 (A wee goodbye gift for a dear friend.)
Weekly total: $63.24 (But the wallet is empty. I guess I didn't give myself a full $90 this week.)