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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 16, 1998)
CONTACTING US NEWSROOM: ADDRESS: (541)346-5511 Oregon Daily Emerald E-MAIL P.O.BOX 3159 ode@oregon. uoregon.edu Eugene, Oregon 97403 ONLINE EDITION: darkwing uoregon.edu/-ode EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Sarah Kickler EDITORIAL EDITOR MikeSchmierbach NIGHT EDITOR Nicole Krueger The President’s i CHRIS HUTCHINSON/Emerald University President Dave Frohnmayerfound a variety of outlets for the grief of losing close family members is none for three rainy winters where it is always three o’clock in the after noon. We don’t want to lose. We do. (The Bulls should lose more. They don’t). Parents shouldn’t outlive their children. They do. University President Dave Frohn mayer reminds me of the recently ac e didn’t ask to be born. We were. We don’t want change. It comes. We want change. There OPINION Hannah Dillon quired notion that if one’s child dies first, we deem it an aberration. Chil dren should outlive their parents, and if they don't, the nat ural order of life is out of order. Histor ically, it wasn’t so. If children made it to the age of 5, they were on their way to beating the odds. Such a historical perspective has been a component in helping President Frohnmayer “cope” with the loss of two of his five children. “What else?” I asked. I came to his office because I wanted to know how he has managed to head a large, pub lic institution, with its incessant de mands and responsibilities affecting a significant number of people, while living in a fish bowl and expe riencing one of the greatest losses one can. Frohnmayer graciously al lowed me a glimpse into a few of the factors that have provided him with sustenance. “You can’t deny grief,” he says. “You can’t run away from it. When the last casserole is gone, it’s there. And when two people, a couple, are grieving, you can’t rely on each other to meet the emotional needs of the others. You have to find it within yourself.” “Did you take a leave of absence?” Three weeks. President Frohnmay er claims to be extremely fortunate because he loves his work, which he did not seek, which makes it even better. It has sustained him through his grief. “Work has been my salva tion," he offered. Because it is the kind of work that affects people’s lives in important ways, much is de manded, much is at stake. So, the need for his complete engagement has made it imperative that he extend himself beyond his sadness while not ignoring its presence. There were a few times when he had to postpone labor-intensive work because he sim ply did not have the necessary con centration. “My staff stepped up in incredible ways and provided tremendous backup.” President Frohnmayer’s first pub lic appearance occurred 10 days after Kirsten’s death. He was scheduled to give a very public speech in Portland, and because he felt the need to step back into the realm of stability, he de cided to go ahead with it. But before the onset of his address, he knew it was important to acknowledge to his audience what they already knew — that he and his family had lost anoth er family member and were devastat ed. The audience’s response to his candor was heartfelt and appreciated as he had given himself and them permission to interact in a very real way. President Frohnmayer commented that being a part of the University community, and the ways in which this community has responded to his family and given so much support, have been a major factor in their abil ity to manage as well as they have. He wondered how others with terminal ly ill children and few support sys tems could possibly deal with any of it. “We received, at the minimum, 2,000 responses. So many people sent such wise words and shared themselves in incredible ways. Their support was an invaluable source of connection and comfort. The law school, too, was remarkable in its at tention to us.” We talked of the difficulty of being patient with and giving time to peo ple who are preoccupied by the small stuff of life — that which seems in consequential when one is con cerned with the multiple health is sues confronting the lives of one’s children and the toll it takes on the entire family. In the midst of our conversation, President Frohnmayer got up, grabbed a book from a table and handed it to me. This volume is an other way he and his wife Lynn have managed to face, with seeming equi librium, the loss of their daughters. “Fanconi Anemia — A Handbook for Families and Their Physicians,” sec ond edition by Lynn and Dave Frohn mayer. "We have lived with the diagnosis of Fanconi Anemia since 1983. This is not how we had expected our lives to go. It has been vital for us to do something, to take action.” And so the Frohnmayers created a handbook as a "result of many hours of research and consultation, and years of experi ence. It is written for lay people by lay people. We are not doctors, but we follow progress in FA-related sci ence on a daily basis.” They were also the pivotal force in creating the Fanconi Research Fund Inc. in Eu gene, “founded to provide support to FA families and to raise money for scientific research.” His and Lynn’s efforts are all so that another child may not have to suffer the “grim prognosis" of Fanconi Anemia. I asked Frohnmayer what he thought of his own mortality and if he was afraid to die. He thought for a minute and then said softly, “No, I’m not afraid to die, but I am a father, and I still have young children to take care of." We don’t want to die. We do. But before we do, may we know what it is to love and be loved. The Frohnmayer family does. Hannah Dillon is a columnistfor the Emerald. Her work appears on alternate Fridays. Her views do not necessarily represent those of the newspaper. Thumbs PAYING THE EUGENE CITY COUNCIL: As The Register Guard pointed out Wednesday, Eu gene's city workers regularly turn in 40- : hour weeks and re ceive no compensa tion. Of medium-sized cities in the region, Salem and Eugene are alone in not paying their city councils. Obviously, this is unfortunate simpiy because many hard workers do not re ceive fair compen sation tor hard work. Inaddition, it has the unfortunate effect of limiting the available poot of candidates tor city posts. After all, in order to work asa council member, you must have an alternate source of income,eitherasa business owner or an independently wealthy individual. To allow more peo ple from a larger numberofback grounds to partici pate in city politics, the council needs to be paid, ADVERTISEMENTS FOR PRESCRIPTION DRUGS: Unless you keep yourself completely wrapped In a Eu gene-colored haze, you’ve probably seen the ads for pharmaceutical products on televi sion and in maga zines. The ads en courage consumers to pester their doc tors about specific drugs if the con sumer has any ota vast range of symp toms. In essence, the ads encourage consumers to view drugs as an easy solution to a vast range of problems, in addition, they cause patients to demand drugs from doctors that they might otherwise not have prescribed, ei ther because the doctor would have chosen a less ex pensive alternative or because he or she might not have assigned any med ication at ail.
