Sadness

Dear Friends,
here's my best translation of a message sent to all ISOSHADO Members, in Italian, yesterday, June 10, 2005.
I am sorry that my English will probably not allow you to get all the love and the feelings expressed in the original message, but hopefully it is rather close to it.
teresa
ISOSHADO

--------------------------


Dear Friends,
as you have already learnt from the various emails and websites, Mike Billington and Ed Bishop have suddenly passed away on two very close dates this week.
No words can describe our feelings in this very sad circumstance, but we understand that we owe ISOSHADO Members some account of the information we currently have thanks to Paolo Malaguti who, as you may know, was constantly in touch with Ed and Mike.
We have decided to put on hold our activities and to temporarily disable our website as a sign of respect for these terrible losses.
I warmly thank you and send you a big hug.
Enrico Quaglia
Secretary and Treasurer
ISOSHADO

___


Dear Friends,

I had to choose how to approach this letter between two ways: either writing a cold cronicle of the events or writing an account much closer to my personal and definitely tragic experience on the sad happenings which you already know.

I chose the second option, not to grieve you more as much as I did and still do, but to let you know that many times it is very hard to know everything or to be able to answer all questions, even the most detailed ones, which are often asked.

I always had a timely and constant link both with Ed and with Mike; with Ed it was mainly thanks to phone calls and sometimes email; with Mike mainly email, though sometimes we spoke over the phone. I had not been receiving emails from Mike for a couple of months, but that was not unusual, being Mike often out of town. Ed called me in early April, for my birthday.

Some common friends recently sent me some emails indicating that Mike had some health problems, but unfortunately he had already discontinued correspondence with me. Also, he did not answer my phone calls.

Ed wrote me about one month ago, telling me that he was not feeling well, but also that it appeared not big problem. After one week with no news, I resolved I needed to understand the situation and called Ed's wife Jane a couple of times. Jane was reassuring, telling me that Ed would have written me soon.

Our two Friends, respecting the boldness that was their own, did not disclose their illness, neither to their closer friends.

Mike was hospitalised because his untreatable illness got worse; he has had cancer for four years, but told nobody about it.

Ed was taken to the hospital two weeks ago for an unspecified infection (presumably lung infection) about which, so far, a cause has not been identified.

Despite intensive care Mike had in his latest years, and the exceptional treatments he received recently, his illness won on him on Monday June 6, 2005 (*).

Ed was defeated by the said infection on that damned June 8, 2005 just two days after Mike's death.

When Jane called me two days ago telling me that Ed had just passed away, I can't recall how I could carry on; when 15 minutes later I got a call from Andy (a close friend of Mike, and mine as well) I had already realized... When he let me know about Mike, it was just like I knew that already.

It's a tragic coincidence one did not know about the other one and I just realised at that point what was happened.

I'm only asking you not to ask me any more questions now, as I would not have anything else to say.
Don't ask me about the funeral services, nor anything else. Both services will be held privately. This is all I know.
Don't ask me about ISOSHADO as decisions taken lightly and quickly may often turn out wrong.

Let me just add how painful it is now for me when I think that last event with Ed was in September 2003; how much I feel responsible for turning our attention to the wonderful George Sewell first, on Mike and Gito in December 2004 then, taking for granted that, as always, Ed would be happy to join us anytime, and that for some time we should focus on other guests.
It is true: Ed was always ready and happy to spend cheerful days with us. But those times are gone. Time was about to go and I did not realise it until it was too late.

I can feel somehow less guilty, because I know that I've done all my best (with my friends of ISOSHADO Marco, Paolo, Enrico, Teresa, Luciano, Massimo etc.) to spend as much time as possible with Mike in last December, but I can't forgive myself for not doing the same with Ed in the past 20 months.

If I think about Mike, his carrying on with such an illness without sharing it with anybody, keeping worries and pain inside, living desperation on his own, trying not to upset his son's day by day life, a life already upset by the loss of his mother; well, that can only mean that not only Col. Foster was a hero, also the person who played that character was...
I don't believe I would have the same courage and strenght as Mike to keep such an illness inside without sharing it with anybody on order not to make them suffer.
Now Michael Jnr is in true pain, but at least he has been living the past four years with his father _ as we did.

Sorry for the long message.

Paolo



* it was lately reported and confirmed that Mike passed away on Friday June 3.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]