A man is not dead until he is forgotten. -- African proverb

Saturday night, the vice-president of our Friends of Faire group delivered a well-worded "toast to the immortal memory", in which he named Robert Burns "the Bard of Scotland"  in the way that Shakespeare is "the Bard of England" (not to mention most of the rest of the English-speaking world!). As our festivities were dedicated to a member who had recently and unexpectedly died, her life was also celebrated in this toast, and her passing, mourned.

In all of our lives, we have lost colleagues, neighbors, friends, and family -- to many causes, both avoidable and not -- at ages too young, and with dispositions too full of life to be taken from this one. We read in the news of children dying because their parents don't understand the seriousness of their children's illnesses, or because they cannot afford the cost of lifesaving medications, or because they live in areas where healthcare is unavailable at any price, or where vital medications cannot be safely transported to those who need them. In terms of diabetes alone, many of us have seen the dLife segments on Insulin for Life, traveling with diabetes in Guatemala, the institutionalization of diabetic children in South Africa, and how -- even in the midst of readily available medical care and safe insulin -- conflicts between faith and medicine cost lives. We understand the risks of denial, and how insufficient self-care and mind-body medical issues such as depression, diabulemia, and diabetes-related eating disorders cost the lives of teens and adults. We sympathize with those adults who cannot afford proper healthcare or healthy, sufficient, and appropriate food.

We also praise those who, living and dead, have dedicated their lives to the understanding, treatment, and reversal of disease in general, and diabetes in particular. A number of us expect -- or at least suspect -- that in a generation or so from now, the more... parochial... World Diabetes Day celebrations may include toasts to the memory of Dr. Banting similar to those we offered Saturday to Rabbie Burns.

As for the pot-luck... Years of dealing with people with differing dietary restrictions ranging from the religious to the medical, from simple preferences to potential anaphylaxis, make me perhaps a bit more obsessive than some when it comes to segregating dishes with specific ingredients or from specific people's kitchens, and keeping serving utensils separate. I may have been the only one so concerned: while a few members with multiple severe food allergies came for the meeting, they left before dinner; those who stayed were able to tolerate low levels of cross-contamination. There were almost more foods than our hostess's house could put up to display, making it a bit of a challenge to direct folk to -- or away from -- a specific dish, or to keep allergen-free items away from items with high levels of those same allergens. In the end, though, things sorted themselves out, and everyone who stayed found something to his or her dietary needs.

Selkirk Grace

Some hae meat and cannot eat.
Some cannot eat that want it:
But we hae meat and we can eat,
Sae let the Lord be thankit.

Here's to friends and family, to the new foods and altered recipes that give us healthier (or at least, less injurious) ways of enjoying traditional dishes, to the medications that keep us alive and well when our bodies would otherwise fail us, and to those who have dedicated their lives to finding ways of repairing or eradicating the damages of disease. And to the memory of those who have left us, far too soon -- may their lives inspire us to live ours to their fullest.

And there's a hand my trusty fiere,
And gie's a hand o thine,
And we'll tak a right guid-willie waught,
For auld lang syne. -- Robert Burns