Unana Joy

I want you to meet Elda Costigan. She is a very important person to me and to my charity. In fact, my charity would no longer exist if not for her. During the pandemic, because of her generosity, we were able to save hundreds of lives. But first, a I need to tell you all about this woman I love dearly.

To that average American, “platonic love” is love without sex. That’s the stupidest definition you’ll ever find. Platonic love is the highest form of love there is, beyond the physical, into the ethereal, and as close to spiritual as mortals can get. This is the love we shared and it all started in an AOL chatroom over 30 years ago.

Her screenname was UNANA. Whenever I came in and saw she was in the room I’d type out: Unanananananananana! Today she’s my Unana Joy.

I’d never seen a foul word issued from her keyboard. While the rest of us hurled open insults at each other (it was really just part of the game we played: trying to be as nasty as possible without getting TOSsed [kicked off AOL for a period of time]). And being human, I played that game. Lost a few times. But it was entertainment. Nothing more.

When we moved to Facebook, many of us from the chatrooms found each other on Facebook and we all friended each other.

Because my memory just ain’t what it used to be, I really don’t recall how she and I got so close. She’d often ask me about my work, especially since I was writing my book on cardiovascular wellness called, Bypassing Bypass. She loved to send me articles she’d found that would give me fodder for articles I could write in the future. In fact, she sent me so many that some of them were never opened. This past week I found an old email from her with a subject about physics and one of Einstein’s theories, and apparently I never opened it. I loved her for that. She’d always send me something that interested the eternal student in me . . . even if it was a deluge.

It was some time after her husband died when we got really close. She asked if she could help me with my work, and since I’m one of those airheads whose attention to details has always been less than perfect (I specialize in strategic oversight, especially the small stuff), I gave her the job of proofreading my pieces. She ended up proofing my book of short stories which I sent to her in the form of a quarto. To this day, that has been her most treasured object.

She kept it near the front door. In case of a fire, it was the one thing she’d be taking on her evacuation.

Suddenly we were best friends. She came to visit me three or four times (yes, my memory sucks). It was in 2019 that she came for 17 days. She brought me some Italian sausage from New Jersey, supposedly the best in the world. When she got here I told her we’re going north to Canada so she could wave at her country of origin. On the way up we stopped in Duluth where we bought some Italian sausage from a little shop there (we were going to compare them). We’d brought marinara sauce and a bunch of baguettes. We’d rented a cabin on a lake. On the other side of the lakewas Canada.

We fell in love with that place. We had a hot tub and a fireplace. It was fall so there was a chill in the air. And that night, after devouring our goodies, we determined that Duluth’s Italian sausage was much, much better than New Jersey’s.

The next day we went moose hunting . . . with a camera. While on the road we saw cars ahead that had pulled off to the side. One car drove away as they scared a fox into the woods. We stopped there and Elda rolled her window down. She called lightly into the woods, and sure enough, the fox returned and posed for us.

Then other foxes showed up. One was heading toward the car parked about 300 feet behind us, but as she called, it made a U-turn and came to us. I took a bunch of photos of the foxes around us.

We continued on and drove for hours not seeing a moose, and the thing was, everyone kept telling us about the mama moose and her baby (a big baby). We gave up and headed back to our cabin. One car approaching us flashed their brights and waved. We slowed down and saw they were our neighbors from the cabin next to us. They opened their window and he said, “Hey, what’s with you people and foxes?”

Elda laughed. I said, “Even I didn’t know she was a fox whisperer.”

“Are you looking for the moose?”

“All day long.”

“Right around the next corner. On your left.”

When we got there, I rolled down my window and took a photo and wouldn’t you know it, the camera seized up. I wasn’t able to get a second shot.

The next day we headed home, but first she had to see the Naniboujou Club. It’s quite famous, with a few legendary figures among its first charter members: Babe Ruth, Ring Lardner, and Jack Dempsey. If interested, go look up its history.

Then we just had to visit Duluth and the famous lift bridge. She just loved that lift bridge.

Back home, she asked me if she could take me out for hot wings. We both loved hot food. So we went to Applebee’s. While we sat and chatted, a group came in dressed up like 1900 turn of the century and as they were sitting down, I asked, “Were you people just in a play?”

They laughed. Of course they were. We started chatting and one of the group spun towards us and asked, “So how did you two meet.”

Before I could say a word, Elda started talking. So I just listened.

“A while back my boyfriend took me along for a checkup. At the end of the checkup his doctor invited us into his office where he told him it wasn’t good. He wouldn’t be with us long. Six months at the most. My boyfriend turned to me and said, ‘Well now you do have to marry me.’ I told him only after we visit my friend’s site and go through his book. David here had written a book called, Bypassing Bypass. So we created a regimen for my boyfriend to follow and I made him promise he’d follow it religiously and we were married. Long story short, he lived 17 years longer, mainly because of David here.”

The fella was impressed. And to tell the truth, so was I. That was the first time I’d heard that story. And during that trip she kept asking me my favorite book. When we got home I finally brought it out: One Hundred Years of Solitude. I told her I’d read it 15 times.

A few weeks later I received a package from her. I was in shock when I opened it. There was a first edition, signed by the author, One Hundred Years of Solitude. She’d sent me a $3,000 book.

At that time, since she had been proofing my newsletters and articles, I’d also been finishing up a book that I’d been researching for over 20 years. It was about a substance that looked like water, tasted like water, but it was an anti-pathogen, and one teaspoon cured malaria. A bottle cured AIDS. I’d even discovered that if taken right away at first symptoms of a cold, it cured the common cold.

And I did actual research, driving a few thousand miles to interview people associated with this liquid. I’d found quite a bit of info online about this “solution,” but it had to be debunked. Things like this come with a lot of mythology that has to be unraveled.

When COVID19 appeared in the news, Elda asked how much would it cost to get this stuff and . . . she donated nearly $40,000 to the effort. This was how we saved lives. And I made sure she never caught the damn bug. She’d moved into a care home and every time she left her apartment, she brought along a spray bottle and a nebulizer in her purse. She sprayed, nebulized, and never once caught the bug. Her health hadn’t been good for a while, and COVID would have killed her. But I made sure she had enough to fight off even Ebola should it hit our shores.

Elda is the largest contributor to our little charity. She’s kept it alive and she’s kept me alive. Unlike her, I wasn’t worried about catching COVID. I had the stuff and I could cure anything that hit me.

It had been called Covalent Silver Solution when I’d first heard of it, and later I learned it was was called BACO, for Blessing Aquatic Company. The inventor was Wm Blessing. I had it and I could cure any bug that hit me but the only problem was, nobody ever suspected long-haul-COVID and today that’s what I’ve got. Hindsight tells me I should have prevented rather than cured the damn thing.

Having moved into a care facility, she really didn’t need her new Toyota Prius that had just 600 miles on it. She donated it to my charity. I now drive a company car with so many technological doodads that I’m not sure what they all do. I tell people that the other day I put it in reverse and a video came on of some guy being run down in a parking lot.

And now, today, as I write these words, my Elda, my precious Elda Joy, is going into hospice. She was terribly lonely living in New York. I was her only family, it seemed. We chatted daily, played Words With Friends (she got really good at it and one day confessed she paid $12 each month for a “cheat” so she could beat me), and watched movies together. Saturday night was our Noir Alley night. I always watch with my phone open to IMDB and I’d send her trivia about the film and the actors.

Every day I sent her jokes and stuff. Whenever I’d post a funny she’d get a copy first. We were each other’s lives. If she needed me I was here and if I needed her she was there . . . always for each other. Sure we had our kerfuffles but they never amounted to anything. We were always there for each other and now that she’s leaving, I want to say I can’t do this, but I can. It’s just so fucking painful.

You see, for over two years I’ve been trying to get her to Minnesota. She was in contact with two places, and they were no help. This spring I took over. I found three places I could get her into but she didn’t approve of two of them, and the third she was on the fence over, but then she suddenly realized that her health wasn’t good enough to make the journey, and that was the beginning of the end.

She fell.

Falls for us oldsters are bad.

But this was no ordinary fall and when I heard about it I broke down and cried.

I knew. I fucking knew.

She’d given up. Her time had come.

Her body shut down in the hospital and it looked like she was leaving, but modern medicine brought her back and stabilized her.

She can’t call out on her phone because everyone’s tried to get into into it so much that the phone locked up. But I have gotten through and able to talk to her and she’s been blessed a little. She’s not healthy at all. She’s being kept alive, but now only on palliative care. But at least she was able to get a message to all who loved her that she’s okay with leaving and that she’s loved them more than they’ll ever know.

She so wanted to come and meet my latest rescue and lil bastard, Bumbus. The place I found for Elda had a window looking out over a grassy area where she could watch Bumbus catch Frisbees.

When last she was here, I had Coco, another rescue, and Coco knew she was a goddess from the get go. Her first night here, Coco jumped up in bed and snuggled up against her. Coco had hardly ever done that with me. But Coco loved Elda and snuggled her nightly.

I am losing my precious angel. I don’t know what I’ll do. Though we were a thousand miles apart our hearts were one.

I’ve told her over and over how much I love her and how I’m going to talk to her every night for the rest of my life, and I made sure she got this text:

“Bumbus says he loves you and to meet him where the dusk touches infinity.”