Tribute And Farewell To Winsome Wright

All my life I've felt that I had too few friends. Sometimes that was based in perception and sometimes that was based in reality. Lately, it has been based more in realism than perception.

I just this very moment found out that I have one friend fewer.

I met Winsome Wright when we both worked for the North York Public Library system (now Toronto Public Libraries) at the Don Mills Regional Branch.  Winsome was a funny woman in every sense of the word.  She had a great sense of humour and more than anyone I've ever known didn't care what other people thought (of her).  She could be outrageous, irreverent and flamboyant (etc.) as well as confrontational, stubborn and reactionary (etc.).  Winsome held some strong opinions: she knew what she knew and was unabashed at telling everybody what she knew.  She was also fiercely independent.  Winsome lived life as though her personal philosophy required that anything worth doing was worth doing loudly and demonstratively.  That's not a bad way to look at life or live it, but it certainly raises a lot of eyebrows along the way.

I was young, naive, eager and ambitious and appreciated her colourful manner.  (She was several years my senior.)  We became friends.  We spent countless hours on the phone, lunched frequently and attended many Toronto Blue Jay baseball games together, maybe a movie or two as well.  (Winsome was one of the Jays biggest fans, and almost assuredly Cito Gaston's number one fan!)  She often invited me over for dinner or to watch games on television, but I always demurred.  (While I can be passionate and can become quite animated,  primarily I am shy -- intimidated even.)  More than ever I wish I had said 'yes' at least once.

Winsome had friends, some whom she thought of as family, but I wasn't aware of her having any blood relatives.  I'm sure she had family but I don't know if she was in contact with any of them anymore.  Certainly, if she was in contact with even one of them it was a long distance relationship either to England or Jamaica, where she had previously lived.  You don't get many hugs out of long distance relationships.  It also seemed to me that Winsome kept her friends, or at least groups of friends, separate.  She was comfortable talking about one group friends while with another group but I'm not aware of her allowing 'foreign' friends from meeting one another.

I had expressed an interest in meeting what I considered her 'family'.  Before working at the library, Winsome had worked as a housekeeper/nanny (or something similar) for a (Jewish) family of four.  It has been so long since she's discussed them with me that I only recall the names David (father/husband) and Shaina (one of 2 daughters).  Their last name is lost to me (at least at the moment) as are the names of the other two family members.  In any case, Winsome spoke of them as though they were her flesh and blood.

My health suffered for a protracted period not long ago and during this time I became estranged from nearly all my friends, Winsome included.  I bumped into her on the bus a couple of years ago and got her new contact information.  I very frequently thought about calling her but only actually tried a couple of times and that was after a long delay.  Unfortunately, the number didn't work.  I had written it on a moving bus onto a matchbook and my handwriting is arcane at the best of times -- I couldn't read my own writing.  I tried every combination of numbers that I could envision the scrawl translating into, but none of them worked.

I could have gone to her place of work and gotten the correct info, but I was incredibly reluctant to do so, and ultimately, I didn't.  Winsome worked in public/customer service and had far too strong a sense of self for the demands of this type of work.  This work requires that you temporarily divorce yourself from your ego and your temper and basically take whatever the customer is dishing out.  Your one saving grace is that you can opt to bring in your supervisor/manager and hope that they can resolve the matter in a more satisfactory manner.  Winsome had a hard time taking abuse without reacting so she was seldom, if ever, popular with her bosses.  A personal visitation would have exacerbated this strained relationship and the last thing I wanted to do was make her professional life worse.  I should have done it anyway, but I tend to think in terms of what is best for all rather than just what is best for me, so it didn't happen.

Fast forward to today.  Winsome apparently contracted cancer.  We don't even know what kind (I mean other than terminal).  She never told her employer or coworkers of her plight.  Instead, she ended up getting in trouble for excessive requests for time off work.  She didn't reach out to me at any point -- ever -- including after she found out she was sick.  (I can easily see this being a symptom of old school upbringing; women simply don't call up men for any reason.)  I can't even find anyone who knows how long she was sick or whether or not she had been undergoing any kind of treatment.

I'm confused by this.  The Winsome I knew was (best guess) 80+% likely to fight tooth and nail to survive.  She might have tried to recruit as many allies as possible or she might have tried to handle it on her own without bothering anyone else.  On the other hand, she was probably 20% (max) likely to just accept her diagnosis as fate and do nothing if only to not inconvenience anyone.  My sincerest hope is that she didn't go through this on her own, that she contacted either her family or 'family' for support.  I also hope that she fought the cancer like a wild-woman.  (And I wish she had told me.)  Those are my hopes, but I don't have the slightest idea what to believe.

This news is so fresh that I don't even know if there has already been a funeral/burial or not.  I haven't found an obituary yet and there's no guarantee I ever will -- if she did in fact go this alone there may not have been anyone to write and/or submit one to the local newspaper(s).  It has not been posted online, either.

I'm sad.  How could I not be?

I'm shocked.  There were no warning signs given the way that Winsome handled the matter.

I'm angry.  I'm not sure I like or respect Winsome's decisions (though I can understand them) but I'm quite certain that I don't like or respect my own decisions/procrastinations where Winsome is concerned.

All I have left is the hope that Winsome can continue to be outrageous, flamboyant and irreverent to her heart's content and not have to deal with confrontation forever more.

Goodbye Winsome.  You are and will continue to be missed.