 Aloha. I'm Marsha Joyner, and we are Navigating the Journey. Navigating the Journey is dedicated to exploring the options and choices for the end of life care, and to assist people to talk about their wishes and their choices. It's time to transform our culture so we shift from not talking about dying to talking about it. It's time to share the way we want to live at the end of our lives, and it's time to communicate about what we want and what we don't want for ourselves. We believe that the place for this to begin is not in the intensive care unit. Together, we can explore the various paths to life's ending. Together, we can make those difficult conversations easier. Together, we can make sure that our own wishes and those of our loved ones are expressed and respected. If you're ready to join, we ask you navigate the journey. Today, we are visiting with a very, very special person, and that is Cassandra DeCramer, who is on a journey on a path that most of us have no idea about. Cassandra is living with MS. She's a talented artist with hundreds of pieces of art, which we'll get to see some of today. And welcome to Cassandra. Welcome, welcome, welcome. We are so glad you're here. Thank you very much. Yeah, so tell us about Cassandra. You lived all over the world, you've done all kind of wonderful things, and now here you are with us. So, let's begin at the top. Well, I feel like I've been very, very fortunate to have just a fabulous life. I started pretty early inspecting everything that kind of moved, and that means bugs and all those call and preachy characters. And I learned the more you respect them, they respect you too. In fact, even now, I would say that even as I speak and talk, there are many, many things all around you every day, if you just look, it's just magic. And that is priceless. It is priceless. Now, I read that you said that your family told you there was no money and art, which we agree, and you were studying to be a doctor? Oh, yes, I really always would find things that would kind of help people. And so I was curious about things to do everything with, especially kinds of spices and foods have different properties, and what you do in your life, even optimism weighs on your character and your appreciation of life. So I always have just drawn from the age of four. I asked my mother to draw a donkey because we were reading the Bible, and Jesus was on a donkey, and she said, you know what you want it to look like, so you draw it. So I started at the age of four drawing and never looked back. And this is what kept me going, and I got scholarships to different colleges and wound up with a master's degree from L.A., and so I never stopped. So instead of being a doctor, you became an artist? Right, but I also couldn't do chemistry and calculus in college, so that deterred my doctoring. Well, that's okay. So you were drawing bugs and all kinds of creatures while you're in school? Oh, yes, and in the fifth grade, I decided that I knew I wanted to be an artist. So I declared that that didn't have to go to school or normal things, because I already knew what I wanted to do. And so for the rest of the year, I just drew people in class and kind of came in jeans, which were all that popular then, and kind of spent a leisurely fifth grade. The only thing was that I found that he had me for the year that I would again have to do the fifth grade. So tell me, now, when you finally made the decision to be an artist, to really be an artist, tell us about that. I don't think there was ever a chance that I decided I wasn't going to be an artist, even as being a doctor. So now tell us about your travels and how art worked, or your travels and art worked together. Not sure they all worked together, but certainly were fun. And I haven't gone that many places. I certainly, certainly, certainly would love to see the whole wide world, and somewhat television, Netflix, et cetera. You can see parts of the world and you say, oh, I wish they could just deliver that food they're eating. When I'm speaking of food, you could recreate it a cookbook? Yes, my first little cookbook was on mussels. Mussels? No, you don't need it right now. Well, it would be nice to have. A cookbook about mussels. Mussels are found on Woodby Island. Woodby Island, yes. It's off the coast of Seattle, between Vancouver Island and the other little islands. And first starting the Pencote Mussels, I had been to Turkey and had eaten mussels and found they were very delicious, so I called them and he said, yeah, you can work for me. So I was the first woman on mussel rafts. On mussel rafts? Yes. To go actually to sea to get mussels? We planted them. We put them in bags small and then they grew. Then we pulled them up and took them apart. So you take the babies and you take them to sea and you plant them and let them grow. Mostly, as a woman, we were from different areas and we would take them apart on the raft, the required size. Oh, so you have to let them grow to a certain size? Yeah, and then they would pull them up and we would take them apart. I didn't ever put them down in, but that's okay. So then you learn to cook them or do you cook mussels? Oh, you can do anything with them. You can do them raw, too. You can do almost anything with them. I love to put them on the road like they do in Turkey, which is kind of a little bit of a barbecue broth on top. Put them in the oven like that or something, but many, many different ways. Of course mussels soup and mussels with topino and mussels with all the other wonderful seafood. So now you were talking about Turkey. When were you in Turkey? In 1977. My friend and I were always going to go to Paris and we talked about that for a number of years and then we said either we're going to Paris or we're going to stop talking about it. So we went to Paris. We first went to Amsterdam and met many Turkish people there. Then we went to Paris and France and all the countries took the Orient Express to Turkey. I think it was only $90. And so we spent the rest of our vacation in Turkey. So tell me about the Orient Express because that's something right out of the famous train. That's all it was. It was the famous train with the bunks for sleeping and a fast from, I don't know if it goes further up to Amsterdam or not, but we caught it in Paris and went all through Europe and Amsterdam. So in Turkey they had the mussels, you said, and coffee and what else? Oh yeah, all their different foods, yeah. And it was very beautiful and Turkey has problems now, but it used to be just a very, very friendly, wonderful place, just fabulous. Because of respect for life there and butterflies would land on people and the cats were always present. Cats? Lots of cats. And there was a funny little thing with the dogs that we found familiar and all of it was just wonderful. We left so hard sometimes we felt we broke our lungs. It was really a fabulous place. Well, let's get back to here and now. So tell us about MS. What is MS, first of all? But most of us that have no idea what MS is. Well, that's like if you had a cord going to a light and the cord were clear up until the light. That's about what it is. Because the nerves were clear up until the feet and moving the feet. I don't know how the brain talks to something there. The nerves do not. And it's because I think it's like the cord has been exposed just in an extension cord. If it's been stripped it won't work thoroughly. Oh, so that's, is it hereditary? How do you get MS? Where does it come from? I don't know, but my mother did have it, but they didn't know the name for it. They didn't call it that when she had it. And I didn't know that it was, that I was going to experience it later. But I experienced it really late and not until 1902. I mean 2002. 2002. And so what are the symptoms? How do we know what MS is? How did you know? I started falling. And then I started walking strangely. I couldn't seem to run very well anymore. And I loved to run. I ran and ran and ran when I was young. So just by walking and it's decreased somewhat. So sometimes it takes me a long time to get a very short distance. And it's very dangerous crossing streets. Because not only am I slow walking, but the street and how the pavement is. The pavement's not very good. And even the sidewalks. That makes it very difficult. And heavy doors in buildings are impossible. But you seem to get around. Okay, now it hasn't effect your art, has it? No, I can still sit and draw. Yeah. Well, we need to take a break. But when we come back, we are going to look at some of your early work. Okay? Okay. Great. Thank you. Aloha. This is your host Beatrice Contelmo. Come and join us every Friday at four o'clock on Perspectives of Global Justice. Hey, has your signal just been taken over or am I supposed to be here? This is Andrew, the security guy, your co-host on Hibachi Talk. Please join us every Friday on Think Tech Away. You want to talk about some socially sensitive issues relevant to women? Listen to these guys. Well, I think it's important in Judaism that we don't take the Bible literally. We take it seriously. Okay. I agree. And really the key to understanding Christianity is compassion. If you're compassionate towards other people, you are living a Christian life. And that relates also to dealing with women and men and women issues as well. Are women and men equal? They're equal. Who's better? Who's better? Tune in. Hi, we're back. And we are with our dear friend Cassandra DeCramer. And Cassandra is a talented artist. She's got hundreds of pieces of work. And we're going to take a look at some of her art. And if you'll just show it to us while we talk. And now you're living with MS and I understand that you have been the victim of a scam like so many seniors. And so that has, that they prey on all of us. I had the same scam. So how do you feel vulnerable? What does it make you feel like when people take advantage of seniors and disabled people? What does that feel like? Yeah, it is very difficult because I think that on the little money I made, I could take care of things. The things was that I kind of felt like I needed a car because walking across the streets is so difficult most of the time. So I thought if I could drive I could go to many more places and get things done because other transportation, sometimes I need a handyman to get where I'm going from the bus. It's really difficult. And besides it's so dangerous. So I wanted to have a car. And that ended up if I seen all the money I'd say which is no means an enormous amount. But I lost it. But it just interfered with me drawing or painting because my somehow to me as I feel like I'm very, very, very rich but I've never had any money. And now I'm in debt. Can't pay my rent. Well, that's not good. That people take advantage of these scam artists take advantage of seniors and disabled people. And I guess everybody though, that people trust and then that's betrayed. Well, people are in need of money and there's not too much opportunity to make it. You can volunteer in many, many places but get paid when you're older. It's just practically impossible. So now you are doing art classes. I'm going to start doing art classes at the Waikiki Community Center. And I would like to have the people do collages of the photos of their loved ones. And we can have a lot of fun doing that. So that'll be on a Tuesday starting I think May 16. Good. So we'll come see you. I know this is out of, we're not supposed to do this online, but we need people to support you. We really want people to support you after being scammed. That just sends goose bumps all over me. So we want people to support you and love you like we do. And so again, and you're going to do other art exhibits where you said you were doing some others. Well, I've had classes at Whole O'Malahia for many years as well as Foster and Lyon, but we're going to have an exhibit next month of Botanicals in the Big Gallery at Whole O'Malahia. So we'll see some more work of our beautiful artists. Good. And it's a free? Free. And where is that? That's a state park in Coney O'y. They call it the state park. And then you have another one at the Po Gallery later in the summer. And then we're back to where you are at the Waikiki Community Center. So we want people to come visit with you and come meet you just like, and come to love what we do and all of your great work. So tell us now, one last thing before we close, just what is your collage that you're talking about? What is a collage? A collage is where you use scraps of paper rather than paint. And the beauty of that is you can take a photograph, blow it up, and then kind of cut little shapes like the trees or the whatever it is in nature or in people and kind of make a wonderful, wonderful, it's more than art and it's satisfying because you cut out these pieces of paper and it's just a real different approach. So do you have magazines and things or do they bring the pictures? They can start collecting all pieces of scraps of paper, which they probably already do somehow. Even envelopes, inside envelopes and things are a wonderful source of textures. And sometimes even an idea is just cutting out the shapes into different textures of paper. But certainly the loved ones, you'll just be amazed at the amount of drawing you can do with the amount of pasting up. And if we can use a computer, somehow to blow up some of the photos and then just paste on top of the photos, it's not really a lot of fun and pretty soon you'll be doing your whole family. So now since we're talking about the end of life, is that a healing process? I mean working. To do the collage and the healing? I don't know about healing, but it certainly occupies you, especially if you're cutting out all little pieces of paper, it takes time. So I've done lots of big collages and they were like therapy. I can really just concentrate on that and do other things, like even listen to music or just be happy cutting out the paper. Well, I want to thank you for being here with us. But now, as our audience knows, we were supporting legislation, medical aid and dying. And in today's paper, in the advertiser, there is a great editorial and it's titled, Cowards Killed Medical Aid in Dying. And the lady is from Teresa Schock. She's from Maui. And she talks about the issue that she had with her sister and how it is that these people that killed this bill have no idea about the suffering that people go through and how they allow the churches and the Christians to interfere with the issues at hand. And so it's a great article and I can't stress enough about this whole thing of people interfering with someone else's options and choices, because that's what our program is all about, the options and the choices at the end of life and that they should be your choice and not the church, not someone else, but the patient's choice. And so I am so honored, thrilled to see a person that had the courage that this lady did to be so open and honest about what she and her sister are going through. So I thank you again. Thank you for being with us. Thank you and we'll see you next week. Aloha.