[DeTomaso] Where's my Profiles?.....

[Christopher Kimball]

Dear Mike,

I just returned from a trip, and as I began reading my emails, from newest to oldest, I came upon the series of emails that portended the terrible news contained in your email.

 I am so sorry, and wish there were something appropriate I could say.  Sadly, there really are no words that are adequate to express the depth of emotion involved with this.

You have been and will remain, in my prayers.

Sincerely,

Chris

   

> From: mikeldrew at aol.com
> Date: Sat, 23 Jan 2010 13:50:43 -0500
> To: detomaso at realbig.com
> Subject: [DeTomaso] Where's my Profiles?.....
> 
> ...a very valid question, that.
> 
> Ever since I took over Profiles production back in 1995, I have been behind 
> schedule, although usually it was rather consistently behind.   The last 
> issue of a given year would normally be printed in the first few months of the 
> next year.   2008 was no exception, as the 2008 No. 4 issue was printed in 
> February 2009.
> 
> But things change for me as I started to put the 2009 No. 1 issue together 
> last year.   My girlfriend of some 13 years had been diagnosed with and 
> received a horrible surgery for a particularly nasty form of oral cancer.  Even 
> in the best case, we knew that she only had a limited time left, and were 
> determined to make the most of it.   She had a pretty good bucket list of 
> places she wanted to go and people she wanted to see, and I was determined to 
> let her achieve as many items on that list as possible.
> 
> And so I found myself traveling to places and doing things that had 
> absolutely nothing to do with Panteras--a rather foreign concept to me.   We went 
> to New York for the US Open tennis tournament, we went to Denver to see her 
> long lost brother, we went to Hawaii, both for the sake of going there and 
> also to see her best friend from college, etc. etc. etc.
> 
> Finally, in the fall, she became too sick to travel any more, so she stayed 
> at home.   Our trips then were confined to this doctor's office, or that 
> test, or an occasional sightseeing trip to Costco or Target.   Eventually she 
> required hospitalization, on several occasions, for a week at a time; I 
> would get a cot and move into the hospital and stay with her the whole time.
> 
> Due to her condition, she was unable to speak after about October, so she 
> needed an advocate to advance her cause when she was in the hospital, and 
> ensure she received her medication in a timely fashion.   Her esophagus had 
> completely closed off in February (almost a year ago now), so she was unable to 
> swallow, meaning she had a feeding tube in her stomach, and all food and 
> medicine had to be administered in liquid form via large syringes.
> 
> My work schedule was extremely flexible and I was able to scale back work 
> to a bare minimum, in order to allow me to spend more time with her, helping 
> to care for her.   For the past few months she has been at home, suffering 
> mightily and bravely, requiring ever-increasing doses of pain medicine just 
> to remain barely functional; I would typically spend half the week with her, 
> and the other half at work.
> 
> Generating Profiles is an extremely intensive process, one that requires 
> commitment and focus for many hours at a time, many days in a row.   I found 
> that as much as I tried, I was unable to make much forward headway.   I could 
> sit next to her in the hospital, or at her house, with my laptop on my lap 
> while she slept, and participate in this forum, because that was something 
> that just took a few minutes here and there.   It also provided an escape 
> from the horror that was unfolding before my eyes, as her condition worsened 
> and new and horrible symptoms would crop up, one after the other.   (Her 
> latest symptom was to just continually bleed from her mouth, for hours at a time, 
> requiring me to sit next to her as she slept and wipe the blood away every 
> 3-5 minutes without waking her--obviously that makes concentration on 
> producing a quality magazine an impossibility).
> 
> But the circumstances of her condition, and of my life as a gypsy, 
> continually flitting back and forth between my home in Northern California and her 
> house in So-Cal, conspired to create what amounts to writer's block, I think, 
> and the Profiles can kept getting kicked down the road, even as more 
> material would trickle in.
> 
> I was literally packing my suitcase last night at midnight, to head down 
> there again this weekend, when I got a call from her sister--she had suddenly 
> and unexpectedly died a few minutes earlier. :<(
> 
> The general feeling had been that she was likely to make it through January 
> and well into and perhaps through February.   I had cleared my work 
> schedule and had planned to spend much, if not all of February with her--as much as 
> her time left would allow.   Nobody predicted that her condition would 
> suddenly turn for the worst, and by the time it had happened, it was too late 
> for me to get to see her one last time.
> 
> Now she's gone, and suddenly I'm faced with the prospect of once again 
> having considerable time available to me to devote to perpetuating the club's 
> magazine.   I can't promise that I'll be particularly productive in the next 
> few days, as there are arrangements to be made, services to be held etc.   
> But soon, before too long, I'll be back in the saddle with my spurs on and my 
> fingers will once again be flying on the keyboard.
> 
> POCA members pay good money to be in the club and deserve to receive what 
> they've paid for, so my ambition is to knock out the 2009 issues in rather 
> quick succession and then get working on the first 2010 issue.   I'm blessed 
> with a surfeit of material to get me started, but would still invite 
> contributions, as this material will be consumed by the semi-rapid production rate 
> and the unusually high volume of magazines I hope to generate in a relatively 
> short amount of time.
> 
> Too, the vendors are on very rocky shoals, and have pulled in their 
> advertising budgets, so there will probably be fewer ads in the magazines, which 
> will make them slightly smaller in terms of page count as a result.   But the 
> quantity and caliber of the content should remain unchanged--particularly if 
> further contributions flow in, which I'm again asking for.
> 
> Thanks to everyone for your patience and understanding during what had been 
> the most trying time in my life.   I'm sorry I've been unable to fulfill my 
> obligations to each of you in the past year, and I promise I'll do 
> everything in my power to make it up to you, as soon as I can.
> 
> Mike
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