Every once in a while, someone comes into your life that changes you and/or your life forever.

Now, that said, some come into your life and make ruination of it, and others come into your life and enrich it. My friend Bets was one of the latter.

 

We met on some online dating site. We didn't hit it off as a potential couple, but we sure did hit it off as fast friends.

 

Bets was from just south of the Twin Cities of Duluth, Minnesota and Superior, Wisconsin. Like myself, she was a farmer during the daytime, and a paper carrier at night. I delivered mostly rural subscriptions, and she delivered urban dealers (stores).

 

Bets knew hardship. She lived it every day. She'd been married, and had four children to an abusive husband. His abuse escalated to the point that she had to move out of their farmhouse into a tiny trailer on their dairy farm with her children. He decided he didn't want to farm anymore, and, to make Bets give up on the place, he sabotaged as much as he could before he left. The house was in devastation. Two of their tractors were left so bad the only option for them was the scrap dealer. The barn cleaner was destroyed, so the manure had to be taken out by hand. Bets didn't give up.

 

She stayed there, resisting the pressure to go with her husband. A divorce followed, and he gave her the children and the farm and it's maxed mortgage, and walked away.

 

Struggling to raise her children and run the farm, Bets bought a double-wide, and had it moved onto the farm. It was nice, and she moved in with her family of four. There seemed to be a light at the end of the tunnel, but it didn't last. Their new home caught fire and burnt up two years later. Now without the financial means to do it again, she reluctantly let the kids move to town on their own, as they were teenagers. In the meantime, a cow had tackled her in the barn, and caused internal injuries. After surgery, Bets found she could no longer bend down to clean udders and attach milkers. The dairy herd had to go. This was a crisis beyond the others she had already endured, as the dairy herd was the only steady income she had, but she no longer could manage it.

 

The farm still had a mortgage. Her banker told her she could never pay for it, and urged her to sell out. Bets didn't give up.

 

She took a nighttime job delivering newspapers to stores in town. She had several newspapers to deliver. It certainly wasn't great pay, and it certainly wasn't great hours, but it was a steady income, so she stuck with it.

 

At home, she switched operations to sheep, and miniature horses, as she could handle both. The milkroom no longer required with the dairy cows gone, she renovated it into a modestly appointed apartment, and moved in. She had no other choice given her income and financial limitations if she was going to keep the farm. Most people would have thrown in the towel at the thought of having to live in part of their barn just to keep the farm, but not Bets. She wasn't a quitter. It just wasn't in her vocabulary. Bets didn't give up.

 

She was left with a John Deere 4020, and an Allis Chalmers 175 with a good loader, and a New Holland 479 Haybine, and a rake and round baler I forget the makes and models of. She sold off a small piece of land she didn't need, and built a large pole shed for her equipment with the money.  Winters are harsh in the north of the Midwest, and Bets had a very long driveway with a bridge over a creek, and curves, so she eventually bought a new snowblower, which also went into the shed. Without someone to show her how to use it, she left it two years before she dared try it, afraid of damaging it if she did something wrong. Everybody knows the feeling of something unfamiliar sometimes being daunting, and seeming like rocket science or brain surgery. After we met online, I coached her through hooking it up to her 4020 and operating it. She was thrilled at how much better she could keep her driveway with it over the loader and bucket, and, once she was on to it, she thoroughly enjoyed sending the snow gracefully arching away in a white, feathery plume, to land flat and almost invisible on the snow in the field, and not come back to haunt her with drifts. The 4020 had lots of power to do the job, and a big snowstorm lost a lot of it's menace to her after that.

 

 

On the route, Bets ran a big Ford 4x4, because, like all paper carriers, she had to get out, no matter what the weather. Once on the road, and then into town, things weren't nearly so bad. She also had a big old 1 ton van, which she used in better weather. It and the truck were tough old workhorses, and could take the beating running a stop and go paper route dishes out in plenty. With the snowblower, the driveway was so much better she now could run a conversion van she'd picked up on the cheap. It was a major help to her, as all her bundles of paper were inside, and she could do most of her work 'indoors', sheltered from the worst of the weather. It was warmer than the 1 ton, and more comfortable, and easier to get in and out of than either of the old workhorses. It wasn't as tough, so she had to baby it, but it was easier on her injures, so the tradeoff was worthwhile.

 

Every morning, after we got home, Bets and I would email each other, and discuss how our runs went. Mine was usually a little more eventful than hers, because it was 100 miles of backroads running. A breakdown usually meant either one darn long hike home in the wee hours, or sticking it out for hours until people were starting to move around. A breakdown for Bets was usually in town, and not so big of a deal--but still a pain, as a breakdown is only the beginning of a carrier's trouble; you still have to finish your route, no matter what.

 

I'll be direct about this next part: newspapers are crooked. They are cheap, sleazy, underhanded and untrustworthy. The lower down the line you are from them, the doubly-lower they treat you. They are notorious for ripping off anyone in their distribution system whatever way they can. That goes double for carriers. Bets sure had her share. She had one supervisor that treated her well, but the rest treated her like rubbish. Working for several papers, she had to keep an eye on all of them and their shifty ways of continually trying to rip her off. While my emails to her were mostly about my backroads adventures, her's were more about the sleaze in the circulation department of the papers she worked for (her runs themselves, being in town, were fairly routine). This is not to say I wasn't ripped off on my run--nearly all carriers are, and for what they promised me for pay when I started, the paper I worked for owed me about $22600 when I left; they don't rip you off just a little. I get a kick out of news agencies 'holier than thou' attitude; they are the crookedest people you could ever work for. They are hypocrites of the highest order, and Bets knew the reality of it first hand and well. You had to be the type of person Bets was to withstand the treatment you get as a low end employee of a newspaper.

 

Sometimes Bets would have a mechanical issue she wasn't sure she could handle or not. She'd describe it to me in detail, and I'd tell her if she could manage it on her own or whether it might be a good idea to get professional help with it. If she could, I'd guide her through it, and if she couldn't, she fortunately had a mechanic in town she could trust, and he'd take care of it at a reasonable cost for her. Thank the Lord for good guys!

 

I'd guide her by email through maintenance and repairs of her trucks, tractors and equipment. Like the thing with the snowblower, although Bets was actually far more capable than she realized and gave herself credit for, she'd been knocked down and trampled, literally and figuratively, so many times she'd lost her self confidence. As determined as she was, the erosion of belief in one's self becomes an extra obstacle from within. It's an insidious process that plays itself out in a lot of good people, and Bets wasn't immune to it.

 

If she had a problem, her email would start out, "Oh, Danno", and then she'd lay it on me. I'd help her through it the best I could. Whatever it was--the papers, something on the farm, relationship problems, whatever--I tried to help. Some things I was better qualified to advise on, and some things I really wasn't at all, but Bets trusted me and respected my input, so I did my best to be of use to her.

 

Bets had relationship problems. One guy I wanted her to throw in jail. He got mad at her one day, and, waving the running grinder around he was pointing at her, he accidently cut her hand right to the bone! (I don't CARE if it was an accident--you don't make gestures at anyone with a running power tool! I can't believe such a thing even needs to be said, but the likes of that guy proves it necessary.) After that, he should have been overcome with guilt, but he wasn't--he wouldn't even drive her to the hospital! She had to roughly bandage it, and drive herself. I was wild, furious. That was WAY over the top. He only came around when he needed money, and never paid her back, the deadbeat bum, and I always just detested his preying on her lonliness, but that was the last straw. I told her she needed to get rid of him, once and for all, because she deserved better. She conceeded she knew she did, too, but it was so hard being alone. She turned him down for money shortly after, and he hardly ever showed up again. No surprise there. 

 

Bets got a new boyfriend, and I got a new girlfriend. I had misgivings about her new boyfriend, and she had misgivings about my new girlfriend. She was right, and I was wrong, in both ways of looking at it. She went on to get married, and I went on to be humiliated. At long last, Bets was happy. Her kids loved their new 'Dad', and he loved them. He moved in with Bets into their cozy little milkroom apartment, and things finally seemed to be going right for her. He was handy, and she didn't need me as much. Her future looked rosy. My parts business was picking up, and, my confidence restored once more, I was chasing women. Although we'd conversed with and confided in each other daily for years, we now both had lives that veered away from what they were, so Bets and I lost touch. We only emailed once in a blue moon, whereas before it was every morning, and then maybe once or twice again during the day if there was something big going on, like a repair of her Haybine. She made me feel needed and appreciated. Not many people ever made me feel that way, but Bets did. She knew how to make you feel worthwhile. It wasn't the same not talking to her, but I was so busy...

 

One day, the eldest of her children, Christie, emailed me. Things weren't so good over in Superior. Bets had leukemia. She was coping as well as she could, but it was a hard battle. Chrissie asked me to email her Mom more often, because my constant fumblings added a little comic relief to her life. I tried, but I was so busy... In December, 2005, after getting home from my girlfriend's place late one night, I routinely checked my computer before bed only to receive the most shattering email of my life: Bets had succumbed to the leukemia. The news hit me like a vicious kick in the stomach. If you've ever said or thought, "If I died, it wouldn't make any difference; the world wouldn't skip a beat...", you're wrong: my world momentarily came to a screeching halt at the news. I just thought Bets would always be there. She survived everything else; a wonky blood count shouldn't be such a big deal for her. Her dying from it? Unimaginable. Yet here it was. I could never talk to Bets again.  I instantly felt a hollowness that was never there before; something died within me. My best friend was gone. The world shifted and heaved. I shakily eased myself down into my chair, and the tears welled up in my eyes. The old adage, 'you don't know what you've got til it's gone' resounded in my ears. My life was enriched by her, and now she was gone. My heart ached. I felt hollow, empty. And bereaved.

 

Bets had such a hard life. This heavily condensed relation of it doesn't begin to tell you how difficult it was, and the number and severity of the trials and tribulations she faced. I believe fervently in God, but I won't for one second pretend to you that I understand His mysteries. I don't. Why Bets had to have it so hard for so long, and then find happiness for so short a time, only to be overcome with such an awful disease as leukemia is beyond me. It doesn't seem fair at all. I don't understand it. The only consolation in all of it is that Bets did find happiness, if only for a short time. And that's what I have to take solace in.

 

Everyone comes into your life for a reason. I'm no genius at figuring out what those reasons are, but Bets made me feel smart and industrious and worthwhile (my self confidence was very low when we met). I helped her realise how much better a person she was than she thought, also. I'm not sure, but we both had someone we could trust with our worries, and we bolstered each other's self esteem and sense of worth. There aren't many better reasons than that. And, let me tell you, you will MISS someone like that when they are gone. And I do.

 

Be good to each other, and appreciate each other, and realise how important each person is in your life, and hope they do the same, because one day, one of the two of you won't be there any more. I think that is part of the multitude of reasons we were given the Golden Rule--so we won't have regrets that we otherwise might have when the time comes; consider the Golden Rule 'regret insurance' that always pays off. 

 

Christie still sends me a Christmas card every year. It means the world to me.

 

Rest in peace, Bets. You've earned it.