Reub's journey

25 April 2014

Ringing o' the bell


 Here's a salute to the group at Friday My Town Shoot-Out, and especially to my first blogging friend Barry, who died almost 4 years ago.

 
Some words of explanation written by Ginger V:

We, the FSO Gang, got started in the early part of 2009 and one of the original 10 or so, was Barry of An Explorer's View.  He quickly became a favorite within our group plus 600 odd followers out in BlogWorld.  Almost from the beginning, we knew he had been diagnosed with a rare throat cancer and was battling for his life.  His writing brought us in and made us care about his struggle.  We got to know his wife Linda, and his special dog, Lindsey.  The battle became very personal to us all.

During a post about one of his visits for chemo, he talked about the bell that stood outside of the hospital that was rung by patients in celebration of a completion of another round of Chemo.  The idea flew around the globe, at 2 O'clock his local time, he would ring the bell and we, wherever we were, within our own time zone, we would ring a bell with him. 



This week the participants at FSO are posting videos and pics of local bells. The bell I show you here is one I have known since I was a small child. My mother would send me out to ring this (terrifically heavy) bell at mealtimes, calling my dad and brothers in from the field. BONG BONG BONG! I think it was forged in the nearby town of Saukville, Wisconsin, and it was super loud. It still stands in my mother's back yard, quiet now, except for the twittering of birds at its feeder.

29 comments:

  1. i got chills reading about the bell ringing you all did for him.

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    1. It was a a beautiful & strange experience, twg. It made me realize that the word "community" really did apply to groups of bloggers.

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  2. The synchronized bell ringing is so special. :)

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    1. It is special, a tradition at the Toronto hospital where Barry was a patient.

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  3. The bell ringing is such a good idea...there's a bell very much like this one in my grandparent's backyard. I never hear it ring anymore.

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    1. Maybe it's the same bell, RG! How many bell-makers were there who made big cast iron bells like this in the '60s?

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  4. Such wonderful memories of Barry! I often think of him and Lindsay. Is this the bell you rang for him? It certainly has a history and your own special memories, anyway.

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    1. Pauline, this is not the bell I rang. I used a pretty little bell from India that I have here in Oregon. This big bell is located far away in the midwest where my home town is.

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    2. Hi Pauline, Lindsay is with Barry now and I am living with my daughter and having fun with my grandchildren. I still have the big bell Barry's company gave to him when he retired. I think of our mutual blogging friends every time I look at it or touch it. Our blogging time together was very special and will never be forgotten.

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  5. It's frightening how fragile we all are.

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    1. Yes. But how strong the support was in this group of people who had never even met Barry. It was amazing, and Barry is still special to all of us.

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  6. I read this and sat here and cried and thought about it. I wanted to run out and take a picture of our special cast iron bell. I wanted to start ringing it every day to celebrate those endless chemo treatments. It would become a special tribute not just to your friend Barry but to my beloved Ron. But I could only imagine the grief it would ring up day by day. As Laoch of Chicago said, "It's frightening how fragile we all are."

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    1. Aww, Granny. Ron is so recently gone that I bet this post hit you hard. I'm so sorry. But you know, you really could ring the heck out of that bell for Ron. It might feel real good to do that.

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  7. Keep ringing those bells. There are cancer survivors.

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    1. Thank you Ruth. Those are kind and true words.

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  8. Moved to tears. My father is a cancer survivor.

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  9. Beautiful post. I love the bell - and the bird feeder.

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    1. Thanks AS. It's a neat old thing, and the bird feeder keeps it company.

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  10. Kerry, We have a bell like that at our farm. I tried using it to summon my family, but they totally ignored me! :) So, it too, is just sitting there adorning the landscape.

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    1. Haha! I imagine my brothers were listening very closely for a reason to get out of the hot sun; they always heard this thing.

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  11. We have a fairly new oncology center in our town at our local hospital. Many of my friends work there. When I told them of Barry's story they began the tradition of ringing the bell at the end of chemo. I now hear about the tradition in many centers. I remember you were part of the group back then too.

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    1. Oh wow. If Barry knew that he would be so happy;it's a wonderful tradition.

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    2. Hi Peggy, Barry absolutely would be very happy to know that his connections through blogging provided new hope for cancer patients in other cancer centres. I am sure every time a bell rings and someone is finished chemo, they hear it in heaven.

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  12. thank you for passing my words, the responses you got from your readers was great. I'm choosing your bell to be our spotlight this week.

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    1. Thank you Ginger. It was good to revisit the idea of ringing bells for Barry. Sure miss that guy.

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    2. Hi Ginger, I hope you are keeping well and I am glad to hear from you again. This is wonderful that you will be spotlighting bells this week. It was such an awful year 2010 for our family but it made so much better by our blogging group who stood by us and helped us through. There is no way to ever return the strength you gave to Barry and I that year. So many blessings.

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  13. Kerry, Thank you for suggesting that I come and visit here. I will make an effort to search out all the blogs about your bell. If you could leave a new connection to the blogging site where I can access all the posts in my FB mail that would be great. Mine is not connecting now and I used my own old blog list to get here.

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