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Monday, January 19, 2009

Divorce and Illness

from The Daily News

Sunday, January 18th 2009, 11:34 PM

Her split from Dr. Richard Batista has been painful enough, dragging on for four years, and mostly, she’s been worried about the children.

But just as their trial was about to begin, the surgeon upped the ante. His lawyer announced that Dr. Batista had donated a kidney to her, and now he wants it back - or its supposed $1.5 million value"

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Speculations

Sometimes love can become a Steven King novel - you know the ones, about a killer car or a killer prom queen or a killer caretaker at a snowed-in, isolated moutain retreat.

How does this happen? How does a couple go from "I do" to "Gimme my kidney back?" From "love and honor" to "wound and maim?" Demanding a kidney refund is so much more mutilating and vampirish than taking back the diamond engagement ring. It's hateful.

And how does love become hate? Does that happen when such a critical mass of disappointment has accumulated that the pile starts to fester and breed hate bacteria? Does it happen when two people have been so blinded by their own illusions for rescue that they enshroud their partner with expectations no mortal could meet? Does it happen in the day to day, inch by inch annoyances that eventually crescendo into an unscalable wall of misery? Does a moment arrive when all murmurings of tenderness disappear leaving only a banshee shriek of hate?

How can you take back the kidney you once gave as some form of loving sacrifice?

And what role does the illlness that required the kidney in the first place play? (Dawn has supposedly had 3 kidney transplants and a double mastectomy). I can imagine illness as an amplifier. Whatever strains existed in this couple's relationship perhaps got overloaded by the extra burdens illness brings. Many of us have struggled with this.

But how many of us have demanded a body part be returned?

And finally, a woman's body is never, never to be used as a field of negotiation. This is the fundamental women's health right.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I just love reading your posts. I couldn't believe this when I first saw it on the news a while back. I wondered many of the same things you posted -- but you have a great way with expressing these thoughts. Thank you.

Bongi said...

the man is an idiot and now the world knows he is an idiot.

Anonymous said...

This guy is an undisputed jerk, and I expect he's been a jerk way before the "indian giver" in him surfaced! I remember hearing something about this some time ago, and raising my eyebrows about it then. I can't believe there is a Judge on the bench that would give this jerk and his "wants" the time of day. My ex-husband, the father of my children, "hates" me so much he doesn't want to be in the same room as I am. He's an alcoholic who, I believe, feels so guilty about his disease tearing the family apart, and he feels so guilty about it that seeing me at family gatherings makes him so very nervous. He's done some damage with the kids, (now adults with their own children)by spouting untruths about me. Ah, well that's on his soul, not mine. I have enough to deal with on my own plate with a chronicaly ill husband who @ 82 is in end stage COPD and is a semi-invalid. Surely, this poor woman can get over this jerk with some support and therapy!