Requiem for an EastEnders Fan
By Irene Feldman
Dear Larry,
Back in December of last year, post-BBCA cancellation of our show and during the formation of the Transatlantic Tape Train, you handed me a phone number and said, ÒShe wants to be on your tape train and she's not on the Internet.Ó I let out a groan only because this meant coordinating with phone calls rather than e-mail. But, I know how this show is important to all of us and was happy to see how it touched yet another soul, even if this soul had to be phoned occasionally.
When I did speak to Dorothy, I learned that this was a woman who had only watched EE on PBS. I couldn't imagine WHY she now wanted to jump aboard a train, watching episodes four-plus years in her viewing future. She explained that if BBCA could do this to her show, she was fearful that WLIW might do the same and she needed her EE any way she could get it. (sound familiar?)
Dorothy was an older woman, that much was evident from her voice. After we got to know each other better, I asked her how old and she told me she was 79. She was sharp, having been a detective, and proud of the two lawyer sons she raised. She also told me EE was her life and that watching the show kept her alive, because she needed to see how her friends in Albert Square were doing. At the time, I didn't know she meant it literally. I sent her Sam-n-his-dog's wonderful synopsis to help her catch up and try to make sense of her four year gap. She told me she read it like it was the holy grail. (Thank you, Jerry.)
v One week when I called her and didn't get an answer, I left a message, but worried when I didn't get a return call the next day or the next. About four days later she returned the call, saying she had been in the hospital, that something was wrong with her blood, but that she was OK now.
Again she told me the show was keeping her alive.
She also told me that before she found our train, any time she went into the hospital and her family wanted to know what they could do for her, all she requested was Òtape my show.'
Over the next few months, she was hospitalized twice more. When I called mid-June, she didn't sound well and I told her I'd call in a week's time to see how she was doing. When I called again, she told me she'd been in the hospital again for more than a blood disease. She said, ÒI have pancreatic cancer and you know that's not good, no one comes back from that, it's what Michael Landon died from.'
I later learned from Dorothy's friend that she was again in the hospital, this time in a coma. Soon thereafter, sadly I learned that she passed on. I also learned that she had been in a lot of pain, something you'd never know from talking to her. I feel that she is finally at rest and at peace.
We all love this show (or we wouldn't still be watching and going to the lengths we do to get it!) and for some people who can't get out or are unwell, it becomes even more important. I heard many times that this was her life, that this kept her alive.
Dorothy's friend, like Dorothy, is Jewish, and her friend said Òsending her the tapes was a mitzvahÓ Ñ a very good deed. I learned that she did not have much material in her life, and that these tapes were like diamonds to her.
I just wanted to let our tapers know about at least one life that was greatly touched. There are undoubtedly others that we don't know about. Thanks from Dorothy.
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