Elizabeth Brougham, July 1999

I wanted to choose some of Betty's own words here to share with the readers of this web page ... to show you the real reason's why she has touched so many of us and why we have chosen her as our Wolf Woman of the Month ... and so much more.

From her webpages:

On Mother's Day, 1999, I was a survivor of leiomyosarcoma for 2 years and 1 month. I am doing chemotherapy at the present time. Every day and every minute of every hour of every day has become very precious. A visit with a friend is precious, knowing I may not see that friend again. Seeing a flower bloom is precious, knowing next year I may not see that flower bloom. But no-one knows if they will be here tomorrow, really. We all only have today for sure. That's why it is important to treasure the gifts each day brings while looking forward to many more. I like to start my day with this little childhood prayer, and you can end the day substituting "ever this night" for "ever this day". Maybe you would like this prayer too.

And a very private part of Full Moon Wolf, from a selection of the e-mails that she shared with us in our den at WWWW ... these notes are edited and sliced here to just give you a brief taste of the woman that we wish to honor here.

March, 1998 -- her introductory post to the wolfpack ...

I read the latest mail from the den while I ate breakfast this morning and plan to have coffee with all of you every morning that I have time for breakfast.

I live in Omaha and from the mail there are some others plowing around in this snow. Bottle it up for August. As I read I am listening to tapes. One is from my son, who lives with his wife and daughter in Washington (state), is a musician (and has a construction business) and got acquainted with some other musicians when they visited Hawaii. This tape is by some musicians from Hawaii, T. Mar Liebert and Jesse Cook Gravity. The other tape is from my youngest daughter who recently moved back here from San Francisco. It is a compilation of "world music" she likes. One of my favorites on the tape is "Pump Me Up" by Krosfyah. Good wake-up music. I am NOT a morning person. I have another daughter who lives here with her family and three college-age grandchildren, one married. No great-grandchildren.

I am an artist and I started an artists’ cooperative gallery here in 1975. After ten years as director of the gallery (a group of 30 artists is very much like a den of wild wolf women and it can be exhausting), I retired to concentrate on some health problems. I got involved with Women Against Violence in 1989, and worked with them for eight years. Volunteers staff a 24-hour telephone crisis line and I also helped train new volunteers. Our group has a very intense training course lasting about 35 hours minimum. I also volunteered as a legal advisor which required more training and involved accompanying women to the court house, which can be very intimidating, to get protection orders, file charges or appear in court. My health, once again, forced me to leave WAV and for the last year I have been concentrating on beating the cancer challenge.

I do love chocolate but, since I am trying to eat organic, it has to be Rapunzel or Paul Newman. Paul Newman has an orange flavored chocolate bar!!! I would like to have a wolf name. I would like to be MoonWolf because I love the night and the moon and follow the moons phases.

The Rocking Chair Memories

When I had my wonderful visit with Prairie, we talked about "Rocking Chair Memories". This morning in the wee hours, I watched a thunderstorm roll by. After it was over, something in the look of the sky reminded me of Paris when I went as an adult accompanying a college art study tour. I remembered early morning breakfast at the youth hostel. Big urns of hot coffee and steamed milk and fresh croissants. Walking on a Sunday afternoon and someone buying me violets. Eating lots of ham sandwiches because "jambon" was a word I felt confident using. I think the word is Jambon. It was eons and eons and eons ago, wuffies. Rocking Chair Memories.

We all have a vault where all the deposits are dark and painful and ugly. We go there sometimes. Some of us have shared those deposits with this group, singing over the bones. Amber just left us breathless with a remembered deposit. We need to look at those deposits, evaluate them, and be grateful for them because they make us who we are. They make us wolf women. Like metal tempered by fire, they make us strong and we know what we have done so we're not afraid to go on. But we need to leave them too and go across the street to a bank where all the deposits are prescious little gems to take out and smell and taste and treasure. This morning, the look of the street lights against the sky and the smell of rain sent me across the street to that bank. Rocking Chair Memories. And I went to sleep smiling.

April 18, 1999

My seeds have sprouted and I just have to share my awe. It is like the birth of a baby. Every single time is a miracle. I put this little seed in it's earthy bed on top of the refrigerator and by the end of the summer there will be a sprawling vine that I can't support full of enough tomatoes to feed a big family. The little sprouts have been moved to a sunny entryway that is cool with a heated grow mat under their little bottoms. Little threads of green that will grow into big, healthy bushes. Isn't it just unbelievable?

And then just a few months later she wrote:

A bunny ate one of my two tomato plants. These are special plants I grew from special seeds. I do have one more plant that I was going to give to my grandson but I guess I will keep it and I guess I better put some protection around the plants till they get a little bigger. This never happened before. There is so much other stuff to eat, why did the little varmint have to eat my tomato.

April, 1999
Dark wolf had asked if Full Moon would be her Grandmother  ...

Dark Wolf, what a sweet idea. So I have a new grand-daughter and I am thrilled. I think you will be as much of a handful as the ones I already have. I would dearly love to be  "grandma" to anyone who needs one. I have lots of practice.

One of those WWWW question of the day things ...

A major motion picture is being made about your life. 
What song or songs  should be on the soundtrack?

"Shiver Me Timbers I'm Sailing Away" by Tom Waits
"Try (Just A Little Bit Harder)" by Janis Joplin
"No More 'I Love You's" by Annie Lennox
"Get It While You Can" by Janis Joplin
"Something So Right" by Annie Lennox
"Take it To the Limit" by the Eagles
"A Whiter Shade of Pale" by Procol Harem
"Please Don’t Bury Me" by John Prine

April, 1999

I appreciate very much the kind things that were said about me and it was a relief. I have to tell you that I considered that I should leave the list (and I may have to) because my situation was just too overwhelming and I didn't want to let it color my relationships here. Probably the worst thing about the cancer is the terrible fear that I am going to bring pain and unhappiness to those I love the most and, because I love all of you very much, I don't want to bring pain and unhappiness to you either. But I do so much need to know there are people who care about me and I need to feel that love and support. I think, very definitely, that my association with this group has given me strength and some new perspectives to respond to the situation. All the things going on here, the problems as well as the deep thinking and the good and happy things, the diversity of the pack members, this has given me a reason to get up in the morning and go to the computer to see what is going on, how you all are.

When I started an art gallery in 1975, a cooperative with 29 other artists, people joined up for a year at a time. Every year, when people would leave, I would be despondent. I would think no-one could ever replace that special person. It was as if a member of my family had left. After about 3 years, a woman was leaving and when she came to tell me, she got right in my face and said, "You have to stop getting all bent out of shape every time someone leaves! I know you hate it, but if no-one left, no new people could come in and you need new people, new ideas. This group needs to change and be refreshed every year and you have to learn to appreciate that." She was absolutely right, of course. So I think I understand a little what you go through and I admire you very much.

April, 1999

I think when you have a child at 18, you have to get it together but I need to remind myself that everyone can't. Clinical depression isn't controlled by will power and I'm sure it is very hard  to move. I think sometimes women who don't look like they are moving really are, inside, and may not even know it themselves.

When I would talk to women in abusive relationships I would often ask them "What would you like to do if you could?" They would first look surprised because they didn't see the point in telling what they would like to do, since they couldn't, but usually they had a plan, a very well-thought out plan, but they just didn't have the courage to do it and there was nobody to tell them they could. If the plan was really bad, you might have to say "Could we come up with a plan that wouldn't get you put into prison?" but usually there would be enough in their plan to at least make a start. Even if the culmination of a plan is going to be 5 years down the road, thinking about it as a reality and working out the details of the plan is movement, but it doesn't show.

I think it is good we are talking about this. Obviously, people have been thinking about it. Just remember, and everyone has said it, you can say whatever you want to say. Repeat: You can say whatever you want to say. "Remember that you are not a human being having a spiritual experience - you are a spiritual being having a human experience"...

It reminded me of something I read once and if anyone can tell me what I am talking about it would be a tremendous help. I had a book called "The Watercourse Way". It was my spiritual guide for awhile. It may have been written by Alan Watts, I'm not sure.  There was a passage in it that I used with an artwork I did.  The passage was something about whether he was a man dreaming he was a butterfly or if he was a butterfly dreaming that he was a man.

Her views on chemotherapy ...

I imagine the chemo, Gemsar, is a shining sparkling white light rolling through my body, sweeping away debris and dead cells. It glows in the dark (not altogether a good thing). The background music is "The Ride of the Valkeries". When it comes to a cancer cell, it whips out a space age tool and just tweaks the little receptors so the cell can’t attach to anything. The cancer cells look kind of like Mr. Bill and they cry out "Oh, no-o-o-o-o-o". That’s my story and I’m stickin to it.

June, 1999

I just put my sister on the plane with many tears. She doesn't have the money to visit very often and now that she is self-employed, taking time off means no money coming in, so who knows when we will see each other again. I appreciate so much that she took this whole week and we had so much fun. I always miss her so much.

Don't be alarmed but I fell on the steps last Tuesday. Landed right on my tailbone and it is sore but I am doing much better than I had expected. I knew I was going down (I missed the last step) and my past life didn't pass before me, my lack of a future life passed before me. I was sure I was going to die. But I landed right on my seat, just hit the tailbone on the previous step on the way down. Sure brought my sister out of bed in one jump. The doctor said he did that once and it was awful and hurt for a long time. I said how long did it hurt and he said, "Long enough for me to move to a ranch-style house." Anyway, moving around is a little painful but Tylenol helps. Bending over is the worst and I am avoiding the stairs. I hope you've all been behaving yourselves.

I would want to take the memory of the day I finally figured out that you have to take care of yourself before you can take care of anyone else, that you have to make your own happiness and not depend on anyone else to "make you happy". "Love Thy Neighbor" is Love Thy Neighbor as you love yourself. That means you have to love yourself first before you love anyone else.

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