Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Reading

This is the first Christmas I can remember without any gift-wrapped books under the tree with little stickers on them proclaiming they were for me. Instead, I got a couple of gift cards I can use to buy books at the local B&N.

There’s a reason for that. I don’t read the way I used to and the people most likely to buy me books are aware that my reading habits have changed. I used to read nothing but history and biography. I loved books about Elizabethan England, the reign of Henry Tudor, the settlement of pre-colonial America, Teddy or Franklin Roosevelt, and old ships or famous mariners.

With that range of interests it was always pretty easy to find me a book or two or three.

I don’t read history any more. Or biographies. So buying me a book is a bit more difficult.

When I first stopped reading history, I turned my attention to memoirs. I read Pete Hamill’s A Drinker’s Life; and Tweak, written by Nic Sheff, a methamphetamine addict.

I devoured books by Augusten Burroughs and David Sedaris and James Frey even though I was savvy enough not to believe Frey’s words because I’ve been where he claimed to be and I knew where he was talking about just ain’t the way he described it.

I read Smashed by Koren Zailckas and the beautifully-titled Another Bullshit Night in Suck City by Nick Flynn.

These are tales written by the discarded, the addicted, the harmed, and those much less than perfect. Obviously, they each achieved some measure of stability, at least enough to put pen to paper. So each story is a success story in some way.

Each of these stories, and the others I’ve been reading, starts in pain and ends in hope. Each is the story of a mountain climbed or some difficult path walked to a better place. And that’s wonderful.

Lately, though, I’ve been reading Charles Bukowski’s books: Ham on Rye, and Women, and Hollywood, and Pulp, and others. Bukowski, for those who don’t know his work, is the writer whose story was told, at least in part, in the movie Barfly.

His books are different. They’re not about climbing some spiritual mountain or walking some difficult path to overcome an addiction or a dreadful childhood or bipolar illness or whatever. There’s no real salvation in Bukowski’s books. Instead, they tell how he embraced his need and his pain and his rage and somehow managed to co-exist with them and even to profit from the experience.

So why am I reading this stuff?

Thank God my experience has taught me the truth about myself. I know that if I tried to co-exist with my own long-acknowledged alcoholism the way Bukowski did, I’d be lost with the first drink. I’ve accepted that truth and don’t fight it any longer.

I envy Bukowski though, though he died a few years back, at the age of 74. I don’t envy his ability to drink and write and manage to eke out an existence but his ability to embrace his demons without flinching and turn that embrace into something positive.

Because not all demons can be overcome. Not all mountains can be climbed and not all difficult paths lead to happiness. In fact, many difficult paths lead only to more difficulties.

I’ve faced a truth other than the truth that I can’t drink in safety. I’ve faced the truth that I’m dying. What I want to do is embrace this damned cancer the way Bukowski embraced his drunkenness and then turn it into something positive.

At least that’s what I’m trying to do.

Monday, December 22, 2008

Loneliness

I just read an article in the on-line version of the Chicago Tribune about a man in Berlin who was so lonely he jumped into a polar bear’s cage for company.

No lie. He jumped into the moat just inside the cage because he felt lonely. That’s what he said.
The zoo-keepers lured the bear away with a leg of beef so the lonely guy remained lonely but he wasn't eaten.

I’ve been there. Not Berlin and not in polar bear’s cage, but lonely. And it’s terrible. It’s terrible at any time of year but it’s particularly terrible at this time of the year.

Once, about thirty years ago, I was forced by drink and other circumstances to spend a few months as a guest of the Salvation Army in Tampa. It wasn’t as bad as you might think. I had to pray for my supper, but that was okay. A few cots away from mine there was a huge man who roared in his sleep with enough force to make the walls tremble, but that was okay because I wasn’t sleeping in my car. I had to smoke roll-my-own cigarettes and couldn’t drink but at least I was safe.

What was terrible was the loneliness.

And it was Christmas.

I’d been the editor of a weekly paper in a small town near Tampa, so I knew people professionally. I’d been married, twice, in fact, and I had two small children and parents and two brothers so it wasn’t as if I was from another planet. I even had a few friends, friends I hadn’t driven away with my drinking.

But I was alone. I understood why. I understood it was my own fault. But it was truly painful. And it seemed to me that everywhere I looked I saw a couple holding hands or a family laughing or two friends in earnest conversation. Oh, yeah. That and the Christmas trees.

On Christmas Eve, the Salvation Army folks gave each resident an orange, a few pieces of chocolate, and a couple of cookies. I got mine and then I sat on my bed, thinking.

A few minutes later, one of the Sally workers called my name. That’s what those who live on the streets call the Salvation Army. Sally. Anyway, one of the Sally people called my name and told me I had a phone call. I was so excited I half ran to the phone, leaving my Christmas orange and candies and cooked on my bed.

The phone call was unimportant. I don’t even remember who it was. What I remember was that when I got back to my bed, my Christmas goodies were gone. I don’t think badly of the guy who took them; hell, it was instinct pure and simple. Given the chance, I would have done the same. But, damn, it hurt.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt that lonely again, ever. In its way it was a lot worse than the cancer is now.

So I can understand why the guy in Berlin hopped the wall to get in the cage with the polar bear. He probably wanted to be eaten.

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Losing Ground

Lynne and I were going to drive up to Clearwater next week to spend Christmas with my mother. I had to phone my mom a few hours ago and tell her we wouldn’t be there. I can’t make the trip.

It’s not that I need to be hospitalized or anything near that. It is simply that the thirty months of on-again, off-again chemo I’ve had since my diagnosis have worn me out. I wake, go to my fellowship meeting, run an errand or maybe two, and come home to fall in bed. I work a bit in the afternoon and that’s it.

I take drugs to battle fatigue. It seems to me they don’t help.

So I was concerned about a five-hour drive and more concerned about getting sick while I was with my mother and not getting enough rest in a house filled with relatives and noise.

My mom understood. "It’s more important that you take care of yourself," she said. "We all know you want to be here."

I could tell she was sadder than she let on. I’m her favorite. I know that. And we have fun when we’re together. And when I’m with her, she’s not alone, at least for a few days.

It’s times like these when I think of the cancer as a live, virulent, hungry thing that wants only my destruction. It’s taking longer than anybody thought. But it’s times like these when I fear it’s really getting the upper hand.

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Goodness

I’ve been alone for most of the day today. Lynne, my wife, took a commuter train down to Miami this afternoon to visit a friend of hers. This friend – Jimmy Miller – was disabled in a terrible accident almost twenty years ago. He’s been in the hospital ever since, unable to use his arms or legs. When he speaks, it’s almost impossible to understand him. Lynne has known him, been a friend of his, and visited him as regularly as she can for all of those years.

I couldn’t do that. I'd rather stay home alone.

I don’t like hospitals. I don’t like being in the hospital because I’m always afraid that once I’m inside I’ll never get out. I know that’s silly but it’s not really out of the question these days.

I also don’t like visiting friends or relatives in the hospital. I never know what to say. I certainly have no idea how to begin a conversation with Jimmy. So Lynne goes alone. And since I can’t drive her it takes a real effort on her part. She has to catch the train and ride for about 90 minutes then transfer to a local for a couple of miles and then walk two blocks to where she can sit by Jimmy’s bed for an hour or two talking.

Jimmy likes sports, particularly basketball, but I don’t think Lynne and he talk much about the NBA. He loves music. He has a CD player in his room and it’s always on, just loud enough for him to hear. Lynne loves music. So they spend some time talking about music. Sinatra, Ella, maybe Tony Bennett. And they talk about their shared faith, a belief that all will be well even as Jimmy rests in his bed unable to move. The same faith that convinces Lynne that visiting her friend is the right thing for her to do not because she expects anything in return but because it’s, well, what God wants her to do.

Lynne and I have different beliefs. We’ve found a way to coexist in peace. I try to act with charity because I think that’s the most important of the graces. Lynne doesn’t try anything. She just does it. She’s innocent and loving and good in ways I can’t comprehend. Don’t get me wrong, she can be hard to handle sometimes, as can I, but she’s as good a person as ever lived. And for almost two decades, she's made be better than would have been alone.

I thought I should say that.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

God

Some of the people in the sober fellowship I’m in have a habit of saying things I don’t understand. Usually these are things they assume they know about God.

Of course, belief in God is not a requirement of this fellowship. Belief in a higher power is. Often, over time, what begins as faith in a higher power morphs into belief in God with an upper-case G. At that point, men and women who once questioned God’s existence start to talk as if they share God’s private moments.

"God won’t give you more than you can handle," is one of the things they say, often.

What the hell does that mean, anyway?

Does it mean this higher power won’t bring down on me anything bad enough to cause me to pick up a drink? Does it mean this God of theirs won’t afflict me with a problem so severe that suicide becomes attractive?

I wonder how anybody can say that.

The way I see it, the only people who use this line are people who’ve never been given more than they could handle. The ones who were given too much of a load are either drunk or dead, I guess. Or maybe mad. Not angry. Mad. And often, they didn't do anything to deserve it.

The survivors are the ones who have a reason to be upbeat. Not the ones who suffered. And those who are upbeat usually didn't do anything outstanding to deserve their good fortune.

Woody Allen once said that anybody who doesn’t consider suicide from time to time just ain’t paying attention. I’m not saying I’m thinking of suicide. I’m not. But I’m thinking I can sure understand how suicide might look attractive.

I had chemo today and I’m not feeling great but, as I said, I’m nowhere near suicide. I also had an appointment with my shrink. He’s a good doctor. If anything, he’s too good, that’s why he always runs late.

Anyway, in the waiting room I saw a young woman sitting in a wheelchair. Young enough to have been in Iraq or Afghanistan where ever-changing front lines put women in deadly combat. This young woman didn’t appear to be physically wounded. But she was wounded. She was closed in on herself. She had her hands over her eyes. She rocked. Though I didn’t hear it, I bet she moaned.

Later, I heard my doctor and his nurse talking. I didn’t plan to or want to overhear and they never broke any rules because they never said anybody’s name. But I heard the words.

Severe depression. PTSD. Post traumatic stress disorder. Suicide attempt.

Anybody who doesn’t consider suicide from time to time just ain’t paying attention.

God won’t give you any more than you can handle.

Indeed. Somebody forgot to tell her.

Monday, December 8, 2008

Television

I spend a great deal of time in bed these days. I used to spend much of my time in bed reading. I read history and memoirs and a little bit of fiction. Though I’ve never wanted to live in New York City, I’ve always enjoyed reading The New Yorker magazine, The New York Review of Books, and the editorial section of The New York Times. In a normal week, before I got sick, I’d read two books, perhaps three.

That’s changed now. I just can’t read as much as I have for most of my life. I’m too tired. I hold a book on my belly as I always did, I start to read, and I nod off. I hold a magazine or newspaper section, read a couple of paragraphs and wake, later, with the magazine or paper over my face.

I miss the reading.

As a consequence, I find I’m spending much of my time watching television. In fact, the television in my room is almost always on. I’m either watching some movie or show I’ve already seen or studiously not watching some movie or show I’ve already seen. Either way, the television takes up a lot of space in my life. Most nights, Lynne comes in my room and switches the set off after my pills have started working and I’m asleep.

When I was a boy, my parents, who were far from wealthy, always had money to buy me one book a month at Marshall Field’s Department Store in the Chicago Loop. We take the elevated downtown, look for bargains in the basement, eat a fried hot dog for lunch and, always, stop in the book department on the fourth floor. That’s where my mother, a teacher and ultimately a school librarian, handed me a book about the history of the old west and teased me with the idea that someday I might be a writer.

Books were respected in our house. They were kept in bookcases that lined one wall in the living room and the bottom half of a wall that that ran along a hall almost the entire length of a three-bedroom apartment. To crack a book’s spine or dog-ear a page was a criminal offense.

Television wasn’t respected. I had to sneak to a neighbor’s house to see Howdy Doody and Buffalo Bob and Clarabell and Princess Summerfall Winterspring on screen about the size of postcard. On weekends, we’d often go to my grandfather’s house to visit old Mike Molloy and my uncle Kevin and there we’d see wrestling and Ed Sullivan and the Jackie Gleason and Art Carney and Fulton Sheen and my mom and dad would watch as raptly as anybody else in the room. When we got home, though, the television went back to being the "idiot box."

Now, my mother lives alone. My dad is dead. My brothers and I can visit only so often. The television in her house is her constant companion, turned loud enough for her to avoid having to read lips. She watches Judge Judy and Flip this House and reruns of Jerry Seinfeld’s comedy show.

Don’t get me wrong. Books are still important to my mother and to me. But it’s different. Television is no longer the idiot box in either my mother’s house or in mine. The television provides an easy way to disconnect, to free the mind. And sometimes – in my case or my mother’s – that freedom from thought is as refreshing as a good read.

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Critique

I spent last Sunday with the critique group I belong to. At our meetings, we each read – if we’re ready – a chapter or sample of our current project. After we read, the other writers critique. Gently. We have a tendency to say things like, "Have you considered…" or "Maybe you could think about…" Even the most negative of comments are prefaced by a compliment of some sort.

We never get nasty.

With this group, that’s easy to do. There’s always something good to say about everything that’s read. That’s not always the case. In the past, I’ve been in groups where the writing was bad and personalities clashed. It could be brutal.

Once, I submitted a couple of sample chapters of a novel to an editor at a major publishing house. I’d been advised to mail the chapters off and given the editor’s name by an agent at a writing workshop I attended. With that support, I expected a positive response, or at least a friendly one.

Instead, the editor told me my ear for dialogue was abysmal and that he could hardly finish reading the first page of the manuscript. It’s taken me a long time to get over those comments, even though I’ve published about ten books since that editor passed his judgments.

I enjoy the critique group I’m in now, though I can’t always make the meetings or stay very long when I do. These men and women have often given me what I needed in terms of encouragement when the going got tough. Now they let me know how much they care just be being there for me.

And, of course, there’s Sylvia’s Irish soda bread. She gave me three more loaves, already sliced, still warm from the oven. I’ve started buying exotic preserves to go with her home-baked bread. Peach and blackberry and pure apple. It’s wonderful.

It’s funny how little it can take to make me happy these days. Or how little it can take to make me miserable.

The critique group and my friends and Sylvia’s soda bread remind me of what’s important.

Monday, December 1, 2008

Notre Dame

Notre Dame’s football season ended Saturday night. It ended badly. A season that started brimming with high expectations turned into a bummer. The last game was brutal The University of Southern California (USC) embarrassed the guys from South Bend. It was so painful I turned the game off at half time.

This year, the Irish lost games they should have won, giving up healthy leads to less-talented teams. The fans – including me – expected a nine-win season or maybe eight wins and a trip to a major bowl game. Instead, the Fighting Irish ended the regular season at 6 – 6, hoping for an invitation to a third-tier bowl.

My mom, an ND fan for almost ninety years, called on the phone after the Irish lost to USC. "They were terrible," she said. "The coach should be fired."

My mom isn’t the only fan who feels that way. The sharks are already circling Coach Charlie Weis who was, after all, hired away from the pros at $2-million a year to return Notre Dame to football greatness. No wonder coaching Notre Dame is famously known as the second hardest job in the country. Barack Obama just won the hardest.

Last year at this time, at the end of what was the worst season in the history of ND football, I started counting days, waiting for this year’s team to take the field. I figured – pessimist that I am – that 2008 was likely to be my last chance to watch a team I’ve been following for almost 60 years.

Now it’s over, or almost over. There will be a bowl game and I’ll watch it and root. Then, I’ll start counting days, waiting for October of next year, waiting for a new season. And when the Irish take the field I’ll be sitting next to my teddy bear, the one dressed in a Notre Dame uniform, cheering the team again.

I wish the Irish had done better, but waiting for next year – waiting for the Irish to excel and for the Cubs to finally win the world series – may well be the impetus I need to keep on living for another 12 months.

Here’s hoping.

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Thanksgiving

Lynne and I watched The Fantasticks the other night. The movie starred Joel Grey and a cast of unknowns. She didn’t care for it. I did.

About 40 years ago, when I applied for entrance to Goodman School of Drama in Chicago, I had to perform a soliloquy and sing a song, solo. For the soliloquy I chose the St. Crispen’s Day Speech from Henry V. As tough as I think I am, I still choke up every time I read or hear that speech. We few, we happy few, we band of brothers….

I sang two songs. Not because I’m a good singer or because I enjoy singing. I sang two songs because I’m a terrible singer and I hate singing. I figured singing two songs terribly might gain me some points for courage. I guess they did, because I was admitted to Goodman.

The songs I chose for my audition were On the Good Ship Lollipop, made famous by Shirley Temple; and Try to Remember¸ from The Fantasticks. I chose the first because it didn’t require much in the way of vocal range. I chose the second because it was so mushy and popular (this was, after all, 1967) that it could hardly be sung to ill effect.

I also loved the song. I still do.

I’m thankful I’ve been given the opportunity to remember, to reflect, as I have since my illness was diagnosed. That’s what I’m truly thankful for on this Thanksgiving. The time I’ve been given.

I know I have a list of blessings too long to count, but this opportunity to look back, to remember, is an immense gift in that it enables me to make some sense of a life that was, in truth, not very well lived. I’m thankful for that.

I complain. I piss and moan, as my father would have said. And some days it’s justified. But the value of each day I have – to reflect, to feel joy or sadness or pissy or whatever – just can’t be overstated.

Of course, I’m thankful for Lynne’s love. For my mother’s love. For the presence in my life of my brothers and my two sons and their wives and my truly beautiful grandchildren. I'm grateful for friends who care, and there are more than I deserve. And I'm grateful and all my other blessings.

But this time I've been given is the real blessing. Because the time is what affords me the opportunity to remember, to express my love as best I can, to give thanks, to take what steps I can to leave something of value behind.

So I’m grateful.

Monday, November 24, 2008

Tired

I’m tired today. Not because I did anything worth speaking of. Not because of a lack sleep or lack of rest. I’m tired because of cancer.

I’d like to be positive today. To be cheerful and upbeat. I know it must be trying for Lynne and for everybody who comes in contact with me to deal with a crank. A grouch. A tired, old man.
But that’s the way I feel. Cranky. Grouchy. Tired.

I have been able to write for a couple of hours so that’s not bad. But it hurts to walk from my room to the kitchen. I don’t have enough energy to bathe. It is difficult to sit upright. I’ve spent most of the day in bed and once again my bed is calling me, seducing me to lie down and rest.

I don’t want to spend all my time in bed. It’s no way to live. I take meds to give me energy and they don’t. I wonder, what would I do, what could I do if I were truly poor and had to do physical work of some sort to care for my wife and me?

Oh, well. At least that’s a blessing. It just doesn’t seem like much right now because I’m so damned tired.

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Mom

I can’t always remember what I’ve written. I know that forgetfulness comes with age, that it’s just natural part of life. It also has something to do with the medicines I take.

Anyway, I don’t know if I’ve already written here that I talk to my mom on the phone every day at 6 p.m. If you already know that, you’ll just have to excuse me.

My mom is a pistol. Though she’s 93, she drives herself to mass each morning, then goes to the grocery store or runs other errands. When she comes home, she works on and usually finishes the New York Times crossword puzzle. In the afternoon she gardens, washes clothes, cooks and does other chores.

A few weeks ago, she, this 93-year-old woman dug a small post hole, mixed a bag of concrete, and reset a tipped-over clothesline post in her back yard. "Mom! Why didn’t you hire someone?" I asked.

"Ah, hell. It was a small enough job," she answered. "Why should I waste the money."

Yeah, she’s a pistol.

I love talking with her, though it’s a chore. She’s almost as deaf as the clothesline post she put up in her yard. I spend half my time with her hollering, repeating the same things like a parrot until she understands.

I do the "Times" crossword puzzle every day, just as she does. Then, when we’re stumped, we compare notes on the phone. The puzzles are all edited by Will Shortz, a celebrity who’s on public radio every Sunday morning. One day last week Shortz asked puzzle solvers to identify the man who said, "Everything in life is luck"?

The answer was "Donald Trump."

"What’s the answer to that question about luck?" my mother wanted to know.

"Donald Trump," I said. I had cheated and found the answer on line.

"Donald Duck?" my mother hollered. "What do you mean?"

"Trump, mom. Donald Trump!"

"What the hell does Donald Duck have to do with it! That’s the silliest damn thing I ever heard." My mother didn’t always curse like that. It’s a part of her getting older, just like my forgetfulness is part of my aging.

Finally, I got her to understand it was Trump not Duck who made the crack about luck.
"I swear," my mom said. "No wonder Will Shortz has to wear a disguise in public. I’d like to punch him in the nose."

No wonder I look forward to talking to my mother every day. No wonder that’s the one appointment I have every day I never seem to forget.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Cool

The weather is cool now. The temperature this morning when I woke was 51 degrees, but with the wind out of the northeast at about 5 mph, it felt cooler.

When I went outside to pick up the local paper and the New York Times, I wore only a pair of slacks and a tee-shirt. By the time I’d walked the thirty or so feet to where the newspapers lay, I was chilled, shivering a bit. This doesn’t happen very often here in South Florida. It’s a wonderful change for those of us who live in heat so many months of the year.

When I talked to my mother on the telephone last night, she said she was getting ready for the cold weather. She made it sound as if a blizzard was headed her way and that she had to get the livestock into the barn before the cattle froze solid where they stood. What she meant, I knew, was that she had to put on a pair of the thick, woolen socks my old man used to wear when his feet were cold and throw an extra blanket on her bed.

Anyway, I told my mom I thought the change in weather was great. "Humph," she said. "I had enough of this in Chicago." I remembered, then, waking in the morning to find the milk left by our back door frozen so the cream – solid – pushed up and out of the bottle like magic, holding on its apex the cardboard bottle cap. I remembered walking to school through heaps of city-gray snow, shivering as an icicle built over my upper lip. I remembered hopping out of bed very early one morning to sit on a towel atop the steam-heat radiator under my bedroom window, watching the snow fall, wondering if I could figure out a way to avoid walking to school.

I knew what my mother meant, then. "But it is nice for a change, because we know it won’t last."
"I guess so," my mother said. But I knew she didn’t mean it.

She isn’t having it so easy these days. Her husband dead now for more than a decade. Her brothers both dead and her cousins as well. The retired teacher across the street, good for a laugh and companionship at dinner, died two years ago. And that’s not all.

My older brother sick, in a wheelchair. Me – her favorite, of course – is sick with terminal cancer and my younger brother ailing as well. She’s worried about us and about the few investments she has, the ones that pay for her food. She worries about her own health, too, after all, she was born more than 90 years ago.

I can see why she wants it warm. But still, for me at least, it’s a welcome change.

Monday, November 17, 2008

The Kids

People who know me well, and there are several, know my story and know why I was not involved in my two sons’ lives as they were growing up.

I wanted to be, I truly did. But I simply wasn’t able to do or be what I could and should have been. It is the greatest regret of my life.

The boys – Dylan and Eamon – are men now, both married, and each with one child. My elder son, Dylan, and Mickie, his wife, have a beautiful daughter, Chloe. Eamon and his wife, Jennifer, have a marvelous little boy, Aidyn.

Over the last several months, my sons and their wives have sent me two hundred pictures, maybe more as attachments to e-mails. There are pictures of birthday parties, of visits to the zoo in Denver, of Aidyn wearing a leather jacket and of Chloe wearing a Barack Obama sweatshirt at an election rally. How great is that!

There are pictures of Aidyn and Chloe together and pictures of the kids with my sons. There are pictures that make me laugh aloud and some that make me want to weep for joy and for sadness at missed opportunities.

God, I feel so fortunate to have these boys and their wives and children in my life right now, no matter how peripherally, no matter how impermanent the contact is.

I print the pictures out, pictures of the two kids, my two grandchildren, and Lynne buys frames and I hang them, as many as I can, on a wall where I see them as I work. Chloe and Aidyn. A dozen pictures so far, and more to come, I’m sure.

I used to think the grandparents I knew were saps. No kid, I knew, could be as beautiful, as smart, as perfectly charming, as the grandchildren these idiots talked about. Now I know I was right. Oh, their grandchildren were okay, I’ll give them that. They were cute, maybe. And perhaps they weren’t quite as slow as they appeared in the pictures these proud grandparents showed me. Maybe someday they’d look more presentable.

But if you want to see a truly beautiful child, or a baby as smart as a little engineer, drop in my room and look at the wall over my desk. Those kids, that Chloe and that Aidyn, they’re really something to see. Trust me. They’re worth looking at.

Looking at their pictures, I sometimes forget what's going on, that tomorrow I have to get chemo, or that I may never see them or get to hug them. I forget cancer and think only good things, for a while. And that's wonderful.

Friday, November 14, 2008

Good Day

It’s amazing. Some days are bad. Very bad. And then, just when I start to think all my days are going to be bad, I have a day that’s so good it can hardly be believed.

Today is a day like that. Good, I mean. Wednesday, two days ago, was one of the bad ones.

On Wednesday, I had chemo. I was only able to walk about 50 yards along the sidewalk leading from the hospital’s front door to the parking lot before I had to sit down and rest. I was nauseous on the drive home, so much so that I pulled off the road to puke. I spent the rest of the day in bed except for a few minutes I devoted to working on that day’s entry for this blog.

Yesterday was so-so. But that’s okay because it turned out to be just a transition.

Today’s been great. I woke up feeling good. No nausea. I had some energy. The drive to the VA hospital was pleasant: traffic was light, it was cool, the sun was just coming up. The crossword puzzle I brought with me was not quite impenetrable and I was called on time for my appointment.

Linda Vesley, my therapist, was, as always, wonderful and understanding. I enjoy the time I spend with her. She helps, she's funny and smart, and great company. The stuff we talked about was sobering, but the session was pleasant.

The drive home was good. The Symphony Orchestra of Ireland was on the radio playing Mozart. I didn’t have to vomit.

Now I'm up from my nap. I’m going to write a bit and I expect the writing to go well. I’ll read and enjoy what I read. There won’t be any bills in the mail or, if there are, I won’t open them. I expect to eat something unhealthy but enjoyable and then waste my time watching a movie. Lynne and I will not argue about money or anything else.

I’m not going to complain, today, or try not to, because this is one of those rare days when I feel happy to be alive.

Many people who know me well believe I’m a curmudgeon, a grouch, a cynic.

And I am, kind of. Or maybe the problem is that days like this don't come along all that often when cancer's in the picture.

Anyway, I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

The Bear

The chemotherapy waiting room was crowded this morning, the most crowded I’ve ever seen it. Every chair was occupied, there were three men in wheelchairs, and three more leaning against a wall in the hallway until a volunteer hauled chairs from some other room.

Later, one of the nurses explained that the lab held up some blood work which meant the pharmacy couldn’t mix the chemicals on time and then some new patients showed up. The bottom line was that the whole system was screwed up.

I bring a crossword puzzle with me every time I come to the hospital, one of the old Sunday puzzles I have in a collection put out by the New York Times. I’m usually able to keep myself occupied long enough to get through the visit without getting bored. Today was different. The puzzle was just too hard. I had to quit.

So I was sitting there looking around when I noticed a guy sitting across from me. For a moment, I couldn’t figure why he caught my attention and then I realized that he looked just like my old man, dead now for more than a decade. Really. This man looked enough like my father to be his twin, enough like my dad to give me a momentary chill.

My dad was quite a guy. I think, sometimes, of how he’d have managed cancer. He’d have faced it the same way he faced everything, with his fists cocked, ready to punch back, but enjoying the fight. We called him "The Bear" not because of his looks but, rather, because of his willingness to scrap.

That’s the way he was.

I’m adopted, so I’m not physically like my dad. He was a longshoreman, much like the working stiffs in "On the Waterfront." He had arms as big as some men’s legs and hard as tree trunks. I’m tall and skinny and a writer.

He was tough enough to start with nothing, retire at 55, travel the world with my mother, raise three sons – a doctor, a lawyer and me – and overcome two heart attacks with enough steam left over to die doing yard work.

I think he was cynical as I am. He expected trouble in his life and was rarely disappointed. But his cynicism gave him a sense of humor that can only be described as a little dark. Like mine.

Not long before my dad’s death, he and my mother were watching television when a report was aired about Pope John Paul II, who himself wasn’t in real good shape.

"It’s easy to tell he’s not married," my dad – a lifelong and reverent Catholic said.

"How that?" my mom asked.

"If he was married, his wife wouldn’t let him out of the house looking like that."

Now, that’s funny.

He also told us all to make sure we didn’t do anything extraordinary to keep him alive when he was at the end of his life. We agreed. Then he said, "But make damn sure you don’t let me go even one minute earlier than I’m supposed to go."

I remembered those two things he said while I was waiting for my chemo. I smiled. And I also gained some strength. Like my old man, I’m ready to go, but I don’t want to be early for the departure.

Monday, November 10, 2008

Dinner at 8

Lynne and I rent movies from an outfit called Netflix. It’s great. I order the movies – in DVD format – online. They’re delivered within a couple of days. We watch, then ship them back in prepaid envelopes. There’s no hassle at all.

The movie selection Netflix offers is fantastic. Last night, for instance, we watched "Dinner at 8," the comedy that hit movie screens in 1933, smack-dab in the middle of the depression. The cast included Marie Dressler, John and Lionel Barrymore, and Jean Harlow.

Much of the acting is dated. There are a lot of contrived poses, larger than life gestures, and exaggerated facial expressions. Still and all, it’s a wonderful movie.

The story centers around a couple’s plans to host a fancy dinner party for a visiting British Lord and Lady. Invited guests include an aging actress (Dressler), an alcoholic actor (John Barrymore), and Harlow as wanna-be socialite from the wrong side of the tracks. Nothing goes right, of course, hence the laughs. Dressler is outrageous.

What really makes the movie great, though, is its topicality. The rich have fallen on hard times, work is hard to get, the market is in the tank and it’s impossible to borrow. At the same time, the rich, the well-off, continue living as if there’s no such thing as a charge for services rendered.

In the film, Oliver Jordan (Lionel Barrymore) is the head of a bankrupt shipping company. Despite a heart condition and the threatened takeover of his company by a louse played by Wallace Beery, Oliver is able to don a tux and to entertain his guests at a party he can’t afford. His daughter, oblivious to dad’s needs, worries only about breaking up with her boyfriend so she can carry on with the alcoholic actor. His wife has all her focus on the guest list and the aspic centerpiece.

Sound familiar? It should. All the characters in Reagan's selfish America – made even more toxic by the worst president in the country’s history – were represented in this movie filmed 75 years ago, at the time of the nation’s last economic nightmare.

The movie had a happy ending – except for everybody but the actor who killed himself. Even his wasn’t too bad, since he had time after he turned on the gas to pose himself under a spotlight. Oliver didn’t die of a heart attack. The company was saved. Beery was thwarted. The wayward daughter went back to her boyfriend. All was well.

Of course, that’s a movie. Here’s hoping things work out as well in the real world.

In any event, watching Marie Dressler play Carlotta Vance took me out of myself, and that was welcome. At the movie’s end, Harlow’s character, an empty-headed beauty, tells Vance she’s reading a book that predicts that machines will soon replace working men and women. After a classic double take at the news that the blonde can read a book, Dressler looks her up and down and tells her that she’s sure that Harlow had no reason to fear being replaced by a machine. It’s worth watching the movie just for this one scene.

Friday, November 7, 2008

Mark

I had breakfast with one of my favorite people yesterday morning. Mark and I have been friends for three decades. It’s a comfortable friendship. We meet every few weeks to catch up on the news, talk about our families, about politics and movies and books, and share our ideas. We enjoy the time we spend in each other’s company.

Like all friendships, ours has been transformed over the years, shaped and reshaped by our changing circumstances. At first, he was my boss, but even then we recognized shared ideas and ideals and that made us close. He’s been a mentor and a cheerleader. He was best man when Lynne and I got married. He stayed my friend even when I disappointed him. He has protected and aided me in a hundred different ways since I’ve been diagnosed.

During these years, we’ve shared the joy we find in writing. Mark is a successful businessman. He’s made a more-than-comfortable living as a business writer and a ton of money creating direct marketing copy. But he’s happiest, I know, when he writes his poetry and short fiction.
And he’s good. He’s one of the best writers I’ve ever read. Some of his lines are good enough to make my breath hurt. And I let him know that as often as I can. But I also tell him (and so does Lynne, who has edited much of his work) when he’s off target.

And he lets me know what he thinks of my work – good and bad. And in that, he has made me a better writer than I ever thought I could be. In fact, Mark edited the early chapters of my book about the Sea Venture, chopping out what I later knew was a major flaw.

It was Mark, too, who first encouraged me to write a memoir. He told me it was a worthy project and I believed him. So I wrote my story and he read it and said it’s not bad.

And now he’s encouraged me to write a novel.

I’ve had one inside me for a while and now seems to be as good a time as ever to put it on paper. I can write without worrying about hurting anybody’s feelings and without worrying about selling the book because, hey, I’ll be gone, right? There’s no real risk of failure.

That’s freeing.

Anyway, when we walked to our cars after breakfast yesterday, I gave him the first chapter to read. Then I started to drive away while he sat in his car for a moment. I didn’t know it, but he was looking at the first page of the manuscript. He drives faster than I do, so he was able to catch up with me about a block away, his lights flashing and horn blaring.

"I read the first paragraph," he hollered when he pulled up next to me and rolled his window down. "I read the first paragraph and it’s outrageous!"

I smiled. He doesn’t throw praise around just to hear his own voice.

"Keep it up!" he said.

So now I have a new project, just when I needed one. Who wouldn’t want Mark for a friend? I hope he knows how much his friendship means to me.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Obama

Yesterday was quite a day.

I had chemo in the morning and felt sick all day, as usual. But that was okay.

I forced myself to stay up as late as I could watching the election results. As states were declared, some for Obama, some for McCain, I thought back. I remembered how, when I was a boy in Chicago, the only Afro-American I ever saw in my neighborhood was a woman – I never knew her name – who did chores for the families on our street. She baby sat for my brothers and me once, that’s all I recall.

When we moved to Clearwater in 1958, the beach was segregated, as were the schools. Blacks would often step off the sidewalk and stand in the street as whites walked by. My only contact with a black man was when I worked in a restaurant, first as a dishwasher, later as a line server. My boss was a 20-year-old with moves as graceful as a dancer. I drove him home after work one day. He refused to sit in the front seat with me, saying he’d better sit in the back. Not for his sake, but for mine. "It’s too dangerous in my neighborhood if people think we’re friends," he said.

During my one year of public school, I saw no people of color other than a janitor. When I went to Catholic high school in Tampa, I was surrounded by young men whose families fled Cuba during the revolution. They were all wealthy, so they had little to do with me. There were no blacks at all.

In the service, things were different and by the time I went to college things had changed, a bit, at least in Chicago. I was a politically active hippy. I found time to Still, help register African-American voters on Chicago’s South Side and marched with Jesse Jackson when he was an unknown. I remember the smell of tear gas and remember reading about the riots in Selma and Montgomery. I never thought I’d see the day when a black man would be elected president of the United States.

So that's why yesterday was quite a day.

As a consequence, I can understand Michelle Obama’s words when she said she was proud of the United States for the first time in her life. She could have said it better, but, hey, I can understand. I’ve never been more proud to be an American than I am today.

And, man, am I glad the cancer let me live long enough to hear Obama’s speech.

Monday, November 3, 2008

The Vote

I’ve just passed a milestone in my experience facing terminal cancer, one of the three goals I gave myself when I was first diagnosed.

I think I’ve mentioned that I want to live long enough to see the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame win another national championship and to watch the hapless Cubbies play in a World Series.

While the football season isn’t over, the Irish have already lost three games. That means they’re out of the hunt.

The Cubs were eliminated from the playoffs in the first round. So, as I have my entire life as a Cub fan, I just have to wait ‘til next year.

My other goal was to vote in one more presidential election before I shuffle off to someplace where attack ads are not allowed. (They won’t be in heaven, I figure, and as far as hell is concerned, even Beelzebub must be tired of them by now.) Anyway, I mailed in my absentee ballot a couple of days ago. So I’ve accomplished that one.

I promised myself I’d stay away from politics in this blog. Not because it isn’t important but because I have a tendency to rant. That comes, I know, from being the son and grandson of Irish political junkies, union guys and organizers who found their survival linked to politics and politicians. My Grandfather, Mike, and my dad, Patrick, both saw "No Irish Need Apply" signs and both, with the help of political muscle, fought to work and ultimately became homeowners able to send their kids to college. No surprise, then, that when I was a kid, we breathed politics. We didn’t have a television then, so I didn’t know who Howdy Doodie was but I knew about FDR and Ike and Keefauver and Mayor Daley and about Eamon DeValera and Michael Collins and the hard men of Ireland, too.

So, poliltics were important in my house and are still. But I’m not going to say who got my vote.

Suffice it to say I figure this is the most important election of my lifetime. It’s also the first time I’ve really been excited about casting a vote since 1968 when Bobby Kennedy was killed and I marched aginst the Vietnam War on the streets of Chicago. That should give you a hint.

I’m going in for chemo again tomorrow. I know I’ll be ready to puke by the time I leave the hospital. I’ll also be tired. But I’m going to sleep all day and mainline compazine if I have to so I can stay awake and watch the election returns tomorrow night. My 93-year-old mother – who curses like drunken mariner when she talks about the current political scene – says she’ll stay up all night if she has to, praying the right man wins. If she can do it, so can I.

That’s how important this is, I believe. And I’m thankful I had the chance to cast one more vote. And if things go the way I hope, I'll hang on for Inauguration Day.

Friday, October 31, 2008

Jim

I was feeling grouchy when I woke this morning. I didn’t sleep well and I’m still having some chemotherapy-related problems. I lay in bed looking at the alarm clock wondering why I should bother to get out of bed.

What the hell, I thought. It’s just going to be more of the same. Get up, get tired, go to bed, get up again, write for a while, then get tired again. What’s the point?

Sometimes that’s the way I feel. I have to force myself to write. When I write, nothing seems to work out. The thought of eating is enough to make me gag. I’m impatient with my wife, who doesn’t deserve it. If I had a dog, I’d kick him. Or, with my luck, he’d bite me.

That’s the way it goes.

But I forced myself to get up and dressed. I had to. I had an appointment with my therapist at the VA, a block of time when I could go tell her – her name is Linda – how miserable I was, not so she could cure me but simply because I need someone to hear me moan and groan.

Before I headed for the hospital, I stopped by the fellowship meeting I go to each morning. The meeting hadn’t started, so I grabbed a cup of coffee and said hello to a couple of acquaintances. I lied when somebody I don’t really like about asked me how I was feeling. "Wonderful," I said. "Everything is just hunky-dory." I didn’t care if he heard what I muttered about him under my breath.

After I walked out, I sat in my car for a moment drinking my coffee. As I was sitting there, a white car I recognized pulled into the space next to me. It was a friend who just came down here from New York to spend a couple of weeks in his vacation home.

I was glad to see him. About six months ago, he was hospitalized with kidney failure. I’d been in touch, so I knew he’d recovered, but this was the first time he’d been in town since then.

Jim, that’s his name, is about as different from me as it’s possible to be. He’s big and I’m not. He’s serious and I’m not. He’s a conservative Republican and I’m a liberal Democrat. He was an army ranger in Vietnam while I was demonstrating against the war on the streets of Chicago. He was a command-level police officer in New York City while I was…well, you get the idea.

You’d think we wouldn’t get along, wouldn’t you? But we do. He and I have only known each other about three years, but when he’s here I see him almost every day and when he’s up north, we stay in e-mail contact. We’re comfortable in each other’s company.

There is, though, another area of disagreement. He’s a hard-core Roman Catholic and I’m a used-to-be Catholic. He goes to mass a couple of times a week. I drop into the Episcopal Church a couple of times a year.

Jim really believes in the power of prayer. I pray, but it’s more like an insurance policy for me. I’d hate to die and find out I was wrong.

Jim told me a long time ago that he would pray for me every day. When I heard he was sick, I started praying for him every evening. My prayer probably isn’t as formal as his, but I don’t think that much matters. I believe God doesn’t worry too much about formalities and if He did he’d probably be too busy to help Jim or me.

Anyway, when Jim saw me this morning he laughed. "I see we’re both still on this side of the grass," he said. "it looks like the prayers are working."

I guess that’s right. And that makes me happy. As soon as I saw him, I was able to smile. The day was suddenly made better.

Friendship is like that, isn’t it?

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Shopping

I haven’t been feeling great for the last week or so. I’m not in anything like terrible shape, I’m not in pain, but I’m still nauseous and so tired I spend almost all day in bed. My wife is taking good care of me. She lets me rest as much as I need and she lets me know she loves me. That’s what I need right now.

It’s nice, sometimes, to have somebody wait on me. For some reason a tuna sandwich always tastes better when someone serves it to me, on a plate, with a pickle slice or two, and tomato soup is great when I don’t have to open the can myself.

My wife is not real handy in the kitchen but she has been known to make me sandwich or a hot dog and she can mix a mean glass of iced coffee and that’s really okay. My mother taught me to take care of myself, so I know how to bake a strawberry pie and Yorkshire Pudding, iron a shirt and hem a pair of slacks all with the same masculine hands. I think my mom figured my personality would keep me from getting married so I’d better learn how to fend for myself.

Anyway, I believe I’m pretty easy to care for. I don’t like to be fussed over. When I’m in pain or sick I find comfort in being left alone. I think I got that from my distant ancestors who handled illnesses and hurt by crawling into some cave in Donegal, hiding under a pile of skins and trying to tough it out.

Of course, when I’m hiding in my cave I don’t get to do some of the things I’m still able to do. I can’t, for example, go to the grocery store. And that means I don’t feel very useful.

I enjoy the grocery store. I go to the big Publix not far our home early in the morning almost every day. I walk the nearly empty aisles and I almost always find something I’ve never seen before. A lot of interesting things are sold in grocery stores now, things that weren’t sold in the store my I went to on the south side of Chicago with my mom when I was a kid. This morning, in the aisle where the dog beds are sold right next to the butane candle lighters, I discovered a kind of air freshener I’ve never seen before. I won’t go into details, but I stood there and read the instructions for about ten minutes. I enjoyed that.

I also enjoyed saying hello to the men and women I see every morning stocking shelves and working behind cash registers or just walking around looking for something I guess they never find. There’s one guy, James, from Jamaica, who’s about my age and he smiles as soon as he sees me and then we compare our aches. And I buy treats for myself.

And every day, at some point, Lynne thanks me for going shopping. That’s good because it makes me feel as if I’ve accomplished something. So this morning I left the cave and, just like the hunter-gatherer I am, I went to Publix and brought home the cottage cheese and frozen pizza.

Monday, October 27, 2008

Everyone dies

I’ve complained before about some of the senseless things well-meaning people say when they’re trying to make me feel better or ineptly expressing their concern.

The other day, for example, a woman friend said she thought chemotherapy would be a wonderful way to lose a couple of dress sizes. I was barely able to fight the sudden urge I had to teach her about the joys of chemotherapy by puking on her shoes. How about that?

Then there are the off-beats who swear that a diet of nothing but raw vegetables or boiled yak or palmetto fronds will cure incurable cancer and who become offended when I refuse to run out to buy vegetables, kill a yak, or climb a palmetto.

And, of course, there are all those who prescribe faith or good thoughts as cure-alls as if those of us who have cancer don’t have faith, enough faith, the right kind of faith, or are just too cranky to live. A lot of good, God-fearing people die of this disease every day.

And that brings me to the dolt who heard me talking to a friend this morning – another friend who’s fighting cancer – and interjected himself into our conversation.

"Well, everyone dies," he said after listening for a few minutes.

Wow.

Look, I know from my own experience how difficult it is talk to someone who’s got a terminal disease. I’ve done it with friends and, I’m sure, I’ve said some goofy things myself. But, really. If "everyone dies" is the best you can do, please keep your mouth shut.

I often wonder how these individuals who make such senseless comments will do if they find out they’ve got terminal cancer or they need a heart or kidney transplant they can’t get. I wonder how they’ll feel if the doctor looks at them, grins, and says, "Well, everyone dies."

Here’s what I know. If you have a broken heart, I can quickly tell you to move on, that it happens to everybody, to be grateful for what you have, and so on. When I have a hangnail, the only thing I can think about is the pain I’m in.

I guess everybody’s that way, to some degree. I guess that’s how it’s possible to say something as true and as ignorant as, "Well, everyone dies."

Friday, October 24, 2008

Mixed Feelings

I went for chemo yesterday and was told they couldn’t pump any more poison into my system for a week or so. My white blood cell count was so low, the nurse said, that if I had the treatment I’d almost certainly get some sort of infection.

That happened to me last year. It started after a chemotherapy treatment when I went through a couple of terrible days. I thought it was just a rough patch, so I tried to ride it out. My wife kept saying I should go the hospital, but I refused until it couldn’t be put off any longer.

I passed out in the elevator on the way from our apartment down to the parking lot, came to, then passed out again as Lynne was driving me to the VA hospital.

I hate it when she says something I disagree with and then is proved right.

Anyway, by the time I was at the ER, my blood pressure was 80 over 40. I’m not a doctor, but on House or Gray’s Anatomy when a patient’s blood pressure is that low they start warming up the machine to jolt his heart back into working condition.

The doctors didn’t have to jolt me back to life, but I did spend about a week in a segregated room, flat on my back, too weak to sit up.

I was scared.

I’m always scared when I’m admitted to the VA hospital. Don’t misunderstand, it’s a great hospital with wonderful doctors and nurses and orderlies and maintenance workers. The food is good and so are the televisions. But there’s part of me that can’t seem to let go of the idea that one day I’m going to walk into that very hospital and not walk out.

I’d rather not know where I’m going to die.

So, I have mixed feelings right now. I'm glad I'm not suffering from the nausea and the other stuff you'd rather not hear about and I'm grateful they caught my low white cell count so I don't have to worry about being hospitalized for now. But I don't like the idea of giving this thing that's eating me alive from the inside out any kind of rest to get bigger or stronger.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Life Story

I’ve been working on a memoir for about two years writing in roughly two-hour chunks as often as I’ve felt up to it. I wrote it through, then rewrote and rewrote again. Now the writing is pretty much done. My wife edited it and now a friend of mine, himself a fine writer, is helping me polish.

I don’t know if it will sell or if anybody outside my immediate circle will ever read it. I hope so. I think any writer who is content writing into a black hole is probably not much of a writer.

I often tell a story about a famous writer at a cocktail party. I’m not sure who it was, though I usually say it was Faulkner. Anyway, this famous writer was at a cocktail party when a woman approached. "I should write my life story," she said. Every writer has heard that line. "I should write my life story, it’s really interesting."

"Madam," the famous author said, "most people think their life stories would make a good book. In truth, most life stories don’t even make interesting sentences."

I agree with that idea, so I was hesitant to write my own story. It does seem a bit presumptuous, doesn’t it? But a couple of people who work in publishing suggested I give it a whirl, so I decided I would. I’m calling my memoir Low Bottom Alky. That’s a term for alcoholics who end up on the streets, losing just about everything. The book is really the story of my drinking career and what has happened since I got sober. The first part of the book is a lot longer than the second.

I sent the book to my editor-friend yesterday. All except the last chapter. That’s the chapter that tells of this current bout with cancer and how I’ve dealt with the disease. I’ve written that chapter but I’m just not ready to let it go.

You see, I’m really not sure how to end the story. Oh, I’m pretty confident that I won’t start drinking again. That just doesn’t seem to be much of an option. But beyond that, I’ve no idea what will happen.

I’ve written more than a dozen biographies for young adult readers. I never wanted to write about someone still living. I’ve always been afraid that as soon as I wrote the life story of some famous, living person they’d do something terrible that made the book worthless.

Years ago, I met Marjory Stoneman Douglas, the famous environmentalist. She was 99 years old at the time and she impressed me so much I determined to write her life story. I didn’t want to start, though, until she died. I don’t know for sure what mischief I thought a centenarian could get into, but I didn’t want to take the chance. And, darn, she just kept living and living and living. She didn’t die until she was 107. As soon as I saw her obituary, I started writing.

The end of her book was, I thought, particularly moving. I hope the end of my memoir is as well. I just don’t know when and how it will come, do I? I may live for another two years. I may not make it until the new president gives his State of the Union Address.

Hey, there could be a miracle, right? I don’t think that's going to happen, but it is possible.

Wouldn’t that be something to write about?

Monday, October 20, 2008

I'm Sick

I don’t feel well.

The new chemo is rougher on me than I thought it would be. At least for today it is. I won’t go into details, but trust me, it’s not good.

I’ve been spoiled so far. For most of the time since I was diagnosed, there hasn’t been a great deal of pain. There really hasn’t been much discomfort, except for that associated with the chemotherapy. For weeks, even months at a time, I’ve been able to convince myself that I’m not really sick. I feel too good to be sick. I don’t really look sick.

Today, I know I’m sick. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not in agony. I’m not even in a great deal of pain. It’s just enough to let me know who’s boss, at least for today.

I try not to complain because I know what it’s like to be around a complainer.

I have this good friend, Jimmy Black. Jimmy was married to a complainer. One time she had a cold and every ten minutes or so, she would complain. About her nose. Her throat. About her cold, over and over. Jimmy was reading a book, trying to concentrate. After about an hour of her complaints, he lost his temper.

"Denise," he said. That was her name. "Denise, trust me. I know you have a cold. Trust me. If I have dementia and I forget everything including my own name there’s one thing I won’t forget. I won’t forget you have a cold."

That’s the way I am around a complainer. So I try not to complain. But guess what? I don’t feel well.

I'm sure it’ll pass, but today I right now I’m sick.

It striked me that what I really don't like about feeling this way is that it makes me wonder how I'll bear up later, you know, when the fun really starts.

Friday, October 17, 2008

Good Eats

I know there are a lot of cancer patients, most I guess, who pay a great deal of attention to their diets as part of their treatment.

I’m not one of them.

I figure I’m going to lose weight in any case, right? So that’s certainly not an issue. I already take medicine for high cholesterol, blood pressure and baby aspirin as a blood-thinner, so I don’t have to worry too much about those issue. Chemo continues to make me nauseous so I have to force myself to eat most times. So when I do eat, why shouldn't I eat stuff that’s appealing. To me. Not to my wife.

My oncologist and the nurses who treat me have never, as far as I remember, given me any orders or suggestions to moderate my diet. A lot of the pamphlets and magazines in the waiting room are filled with sample diets featuring things like raw vegetables and cereals I’ve never heard of. My General Practitioner used to make suggestions, now she just asks how my appetite is and when I tell her I often eat two chili dogs for dinner she shakes her head and goes "tsk-tsk."

My wife keeps talking about eating blueberries. Or maybe cranberries. I’m not sure. Along with cancer, I’ve developed an amazing power lose my hearing at will.

I had chemo yesterday. I was nauseous before I walked from the hospital a quarter of a block to my car. On the way home, I stopped at the grocery store. I bought two pounds of baby back ribs and two bottles of bar-b-q sauce. When I got home, I put the ribs and one bottle of sauce in a crock pot and turned on the heat. Then I took some anti-nausea medicine. I had a polish sausage and cheese with onion sandwich. Lots of mustard. Then I went to sleep.

I woke late but managed to work for a couple of hours, then ate dinner. When I carried my plate of ribs past Lynne, she shook her head and made the same "tsk-tsk" sound my general practitioner makes when I talk about food.

The ribs were great. Greasy, but great. They almost overloaded my plate. And I ate ‘em all. My wife is trying to diet so she ate a Weight Watchers meal, then had some boiled squash (no butter).

Before going to sleep I had a slice of devil’s food cake with marshmallow icing and a scoop of chocolate ice cream. Then I took my pills and pretty much passed out.

When I woke this morning, I was sick to my stomach. I threw up once before I left the house for a fellowship meeting and an appointment with a psychologist. We didn’t talk about food.

And guess what? I would have been nauseous and thrown up this morning even if I’d eaten nuts and berries last night. I just wouldn’t have enjoyed my meal at all. I wouldn’t have been able to dig into my bar-b-q ribs and cake and ice cream.

My wife swears she enjoyed her diet dinner and squash without butter. For some reason, I don’t buy it. I think that’s strategy she using to try to make me change – with the best intentions in the world, of course. What I know for sure is that loved meal.

Listen, I know my high-fat-anti-good-stuff-diet isn’t going to make my cancer go away. But it also isn’t going to make it any worse. It does keep my weight up enough so that a strong wind won’t carry me away. I haven’t yet had to buy any skinnier clothes. But what it does, and what it will continue to do as long as I’m able and have anything to say about it, is provide me with pleasure.

Tonight I’ll have either chili and eggs with melted cheese or two cheeseburgers. Oh, yeah, and more cake

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Enough

I got the call at about 8:30 Wednesday night. As soon as I heard Jacky’s voice, I knew.
"Kevin died this afternoon," she said. "Thank God it’s over."

I heard her catch her breath.

"At least he’s out of pain," Jacky said. Then we spoke for a few moments about what a great guy Kevin was and about how I wished there was something, anything, I might do. Of course, there wasn’t. Jacky cried and I tried not to cry and failed and then we hung up.

You remember Kevin? He’s my friend, the one who came down from Georgia last month so we could go to a Chicago Cubs/Florida Marlins game together. He’s the guy who learned just a few months ago that he had incurable pancreatic cancer.

When my father died about ten years ago, I barely wept. He was ninety and had already had bypass surgery. His death was no surprise. It made me sad, of course. It should have. But my dad’s death made sense, it was part of the natural flow, as proper as a tide or a sunset.

Not Kevin, though. He was too young by far. He left not just his wife but three little boys, the youngest of whom is only three years old, so young he’ll never remember this wonderful man who was his father.

And that’s why I cried when I heard the words. "Kevin died this afternoon." That and because of the truth that he may have been the best friend I’ll ever have and I miss him already, can’t believe I’ll never see him or hear him again, never laugh with him again.

Believe me, I grieve for Jacky and the three boys. I also grieve for me. And, dammit, I feel like it’s not fair and I want to tell God to lighten up. No more pain for a while, hunh?

How terrible is it when a wife finds herself saying, "Thank God" when her husband dies. To find relief – if any can be found – in the truth that "at least he’s out of pain."

Enough, God. Enough, already. Cut us some slack. Kevin’s family. And my friend Brian, the one I wrote about Monday. And Brian’s daughter. My friend Greg who just learned he has cancer. And me, too. And my wife.

Enough for a while.

Monday, October 13, 2008

Giving Up

I’ve known Brian for about a dozen years. We get along because we share a world view that’s either cynical or realistic, depending on your perspective. We laugh at the same things, usually human foibles. The people we know rarely disappoint us by acting rationally.

When I want to let Brian know how much I like him, I tell him he’s the kind of guy I would have gone drinking with back in the day when I used to drink. He says the same thing about me.

In our circle, the compliments don’t get much better or more genuine than that.

Brian discovered he had lung cancer about the same time I did. He had surgery and I remember being jealous because I figured he was so much better off than I was.

How’s that for an outlook? Being envious because a friend gets a big chunk of his lung excised?

Well, I’m not envious anymore.

Brian is not doing very well. He had the surgery but he never really recovered. He was forced to quit work. He lost weight and found it difficult to get around. Of course, drawing each breath was a struggle.

Now he’s on chemo and he’s miserable. He came into a meeting I was at the other day and only stayed about five minutes. I caught him in the parking lot.

"I’m ready to give up," he said. "It’s just not worth it." He was sitting behind the wheel of his car, his head bent, breathing as if he’d just run a mile.

"Oh, Christ," I said. I couldn’t think of anything else. What else could I say? Hang in there? Don’t give up? Life is worth living? None of those statements seemed appropriate.

A little later, when I was home, sitting on the side of my bed, my wife asked me how I was feeling. I tried to answer her and I couldn’t. I wanted to, but I just didn’t know what to say.

"I wish you could talk more about what you’re feeling," she said.

I wish I could, too. And I do try. I tell her I’m sad. I tell her I’m angry and frightened. But those words don’t really convey what I feel. I guess I’m lucky – she and I are both lucky – because if I was really able to tell her what I feel we both might start crying and raging and shaking and maybe never stop.

So I say I’m okay and I say whatever I’m feeling will pass soon enough, but, dammit, there are moments when I’m not at all okay and when the feelings don’t quickly pass.

I’m not okay when I see a friend like Brian because I realize that someday soon I’ll be just like him. Or worse. Maybe, just maybe, I’m closer than I imagine to the point where I say I can’t take it anymore. Maybe I’ll be ready to give up.

There are simply no words I can say or write to adequately describe how that makes me feel. And if I could express those feelings, I wouldn’t because, in truth, you don't need or really want to hear or read those words.

But I’ll be okay. It’ll pass. It always does.

Friday, October 10, 2008

The Blob

I had the first chemo session of my new course of treatment yesterday. I’ll get chemo once a week for three weeks, then take a one-week break, then repeat the cycle, probably for about six months.

It had been several months since my last session. I’d forgotten what it was like to sit in the oncology waiting room early in the morning, one of a dozen or so patients, all of us trying to make believe our lives are somehow normal.

I’ve been on what’s known as a "drug holiday." That sounds like it’s the kind of vacation I might take to buy marijuana, but it’s nowhere near that much fun. It’s a break I was given so my body could recover a bit from the side effects that go along with injecting toxic stuff into my bloodstream.

So there I was, waiting to start my treatment and nodding hello to the other men and women in the room. It’s pretty easy to figure out pretty much where any patient stands in terms of treatment.

The first-timers, especially, are obvious. They’re usually not alone. Most times some family member or loved one sits alongside, not quite managing to look brave. The new patient usually looks stunned, as if he’d opened a newspaper to find his own obituary. There’s a lot of eye movement, looking for an exit, a place to run and not finding a way out.

Most of the patients, by the way, are men. Not many women show up for cancer treatments. I think that’s because until very recently women were not as prevalent in the service so most of the women veterans just aren’t old enough, yet, to have come down with cancer. There are plenty of young women in the hospital. I see them being wheeled down the halls or limping along on crutches or in the mental health clinic looking as if they’re trying to get free of some fear or demon that chased them home from the desert.

It’s also easy to identify the patients who, like me, are in the middle of treatment. Most of us look resigned. We know what’s going on and don’t like it a whole lot but, what the hell, there’s no choice. We know there's not really any hope but we can still fake it. Like me, the others try to present a cheery face. We know enough to bring something to read or a crossword puzzle and maybe a cup of coffee to make the wait more bearable.

There’s a lot of waiting. Blood has to be drawn and taken down to the lab. Tests have to be run. The doctor has to give the okay for the actual chemotherapy and then the pharmacy has to see to it that the chemicals are mixed properly. I guess they can’t pre-mix this stuff. Given enough time it would probably eat its way out of the plastic IV bags it’s kept in. Like the Blob in the horror movie.

Then there are the patients who are near the end of their treatment. Not because they’re getting better but because the road they’re on is coming to a halt. Sure, there may be something waiting on the other side, but this side is about all played out. No matter what your faith or belief the knowledge that you’re near the end can weigh you down.

I didn’t enjoy my time in the clinic yesterday. It was brief. I’m getting what’s known as a "push" – a relatively quick dose of what looks like about six ounces of some clear liquid. As always, the nurses and the volunteers who work in the clinic were wonderful. They know every patient by name and they smile and deliver a steady dose of kindness and real love even as they have to be careful not to care too much.

So, I got my infusion. I left. When I left, I made sure I didn’t look in the waiting room again. It felt good to leave the hurt an the anxiety and the feigned cheerfulness behind.

Now, I’m nauseous. I had the hiccups for about an hour earlier. I've puked a couple of times. But overall I feel pretty good.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Bread

I go to the grocery store every morning. I could, I guess, go once a week or maybe twice like most people do but I like stopping in after I attend the morning fellowship meeting I usually go to. Anyway, it seems as if we’re always in need of something: milk and diet soda and coffee-cream are almost always on the list along with the diet food my wife eats with amazing consistency.

When I was a boy, growing up on Chicago’s south side, my mother often sent me to a bakery for a loaf of fresh bread. I’d run the two blocks from the apartment building my parents owned to 79th Street and turn west to run along the street in front of Our Lady of Peace Church and then cross Jeffrey Boulevard to the bakery.

There was a newsstand on that corner, 79th and Jeffrey, where a short, dark, old man sold the Tribune and, I guess, magazines and cigarettes. In those days, if you were in a car and wanted the newspaper, all you had to do was stop, roll your window down, and honk. Joe, I think that was his name, would fold a paper in half (unless it was Sunday, when the paper was too thick) and run to the car to deliver it, all for a nickel.

I don’t recall the name of the bakery, though I do know it was run by an elderly couple. It seems like all neighborhood stores then were operated by gray-haired husbands and wives who, for some reason, hardly ever spoke to each other. The bakery couple was no exception. They didn’t speak to each other, but they knew every customer by name, even the customer’s children, like me.

It’s funny, I don’t remember the name of the bakery, but I do remember the husband who worked behind the counter seemed always to have flour on his hands. "How can we help you?" he’d ask. I’d tell him I wanted a loaf of white, thin sliced, or of pumpernickel, thin sliced, and he’d slap his hands together and laugh as if I’d just told him the best joke he’d ever heard. "You got it," he’d say. "You got it." And then he’d put a loaf of bread in automatic slicer that fascinated and frightened me.

He knew, somehow, that I loved to eat the end slices from the loaf of still-warm bread as I walked home. He never handed them to me, though. He’d take them, a slice from each end, and wrap them together in paper and hand them to me without a word. Maybe he did that for all the boys who ran errands for their mothers. Girls, too, I guess, though almost every family in our neighborhood had at least one boy big enough to send to the bakery.

The grocery store I go to these days is big and modern. It sells lottery tickets, outdoor furniture, cosmetics, greeting cards, Miami Dolphin tee-shirts, appliances, and other inedibles as well as food and drink. I’m there so often that the women and men who work the front registers know me on sight and always ask how I’m doing. The manager calls me by name.

That’s nice. But what’s really nice is the huge bakery in the back of the store. I stop there almost every day for a loaf of thin-sliced pumpernickel or something called White Mountain Bread. There’s a baker behind the counter, a middle-aged woman named Judy, who always says hello. She knows I like bread thin sliced and knows I like bread warm. She can’t always give me warm bread. I understand that. But when there’s fresh break cooling on racks in the back of the huge bakery she grabs one for me and puts it in a slicer that looks and sounds exactly like the one from Chicago almost sixty years ago.

I asked, once, for the end slices from a loaf of pumpernickel she was slicing and she handed them to me with a smile. I like that. Now she always gives me the end slices of any warm loaf she slices for me.

Isn't that something?

Monday, October 6, 2008

As Good as it Gets

I just got off the phone after talking with my mother. She’s 93 and lives alone in Clearwater, on the other coast of Florida. I call her every day because we love each other and I don’t want, ever, to have to think I missed an opportunity to speak with her.

I told her the news. I had to shout a bit because she’s very hard of hearing, but, after a couple of tries, she understood. My visit with the oncologist this morning went about as well as could be expected. The main tumor, the big one in my right lung, has grown, but only slightly. I go back on chemotherapy in a few days, for a short course with chemical recipe that, I was told, isn’t particularly virulent.

My mom was pleased by the news. So was my wife when I called her from the hospital. My friends will be relieved, I know, when they hear I’m not out of the fight.

It takes me about twenty minutes to get from my house to the VA hospital, driving north on Interstate 95, one of the busiest highways in the country. It’s rare to drive on I-95, no matter the time of day, and not get stuck in some sort of traffic jam.

Today was no exception.

I’m not a very patient driver. I’ve been known to grumble when I’m behind the wheel. Once or twice, I’ve indicated my displeasure with a hand gesture that, I think, is understood in almost any culture.

So, there I was this morning, on my way to have a conversation with a doctor about some vile thing that’s eating me alive from the inside and I was getting angry because… I wasn’t going fast enough!

How crazy is that? How off-the-map senseless is it to be in a hurry to get to a cancer ward? I had to laugh.

So I slowed down and I made it in plenty of time to have blood sucked from my veins and then to hear the news.

On the way home, I didn’t get angry. Instead, I thought of my wife and my mother and of all the people who will be pleased by the news that though the cancer has grown, I am still in the fight. There are a lot of people like that in my life and that’s a blessing. It really is.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not going to suddenly turn into some saint on the superhighway. I’m not that kind of guy. What I’ll try to do, though, is remember how blessed I am to be able to hear relief in my wife’s voice, and to have the opportunity to call my mother another twenty times or maybe a hundred and twenty times or more than that. I’m blessed to have friends who care – there are a lot of people who don’t. I’m blessed to be able to get stuck in a traffic jam and blessed to be able write these words.

Friday, October 3, 2008

Fear

I went to the VA hospital again today. Nothing serious, I just had to talk to my therapist, Linda Vesley. She and I like each other. We’re friends and I’m glad she’s in my life right now. But that’s a different story.

Today was a routine visit. She always asks how I’m feeling and how I’m getting along with my wife and about work and so on. She’s not a shrink so her insights, while useful, aren’t so much about what makes me tick as what will enable me to keep ticking.

Linda didn’t feel well today. I knew that as soon as I saw her. She was nauseous and achy. In fact, we cut my visit short.

That’s okay because I often don’t know what to say. I’m not real happy but I’m also not real sad. Lynne and I are getting along and – with the help of a new drug – I’m able to write a bit. My main problem is that the Cubs are already down two games to the Dodgers in a five-game series.

Imagine that.

Wait ‘til next year, Cubs fans!

Oh, yes. I did tell her I’m feeling a bit nervous about learning the results of may last CAT scan. I’ll go to the hospital early Monday morning to see my oncologist and get the news. I’ve been having a little pain, so I’m convinced I’m not going to like what I hear. It’s been about nine months, now, since my last chemotherapy, so I figure I’m due for some bad news.

I’m not often nervous when I’m waiting for test results. Once, after blood work and a colonoscopy, I could have sworn I heard the doctor say "liver cancer." I was about half dopey from drugs, though, so I let his comment pass. Later, after the drugs wore off, the only thing I could remember about the test were those two words.

Liver.

Cancer.

Unfortunately, It was Friday evening and the doctor’s office was already closed. I was scared. I was even more scared after I started doing research on my computer and read all about liver cancer.

When the doctor showed up at his office on Monday morning, I was sitting on the ground by the front door, waiting. When I told him why I was there he looked shocked. "No," he said. "No. I told you the scan was clear and the blood work indicated no signs of liver cancer."

I get my test results in writing now.

Anyway, I’m a bit nervous about this last cat scan. I’ll concentrate on the Cubs playoff games Saturday and Sunday, if they make it that far. I’ll watch Notre Dame play Stanford on Saturday. I’ll go shopping and maybe cook a small roast on Sunday. Lynne and I will go for a drive and maybe I’ll go to church with her on Sunday. She likes when I do that, though I think God doesn’t pay much attention to me since I’m not a regular.

Then I’ll get the results Monday morning. I hope Linda, my therapist, feels better by then. Just in case, you know. Just in case I need her.

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Go Cubs Go

The last time the Chicago Cubs played in a world series was in 1945, the year I was born. In that series, the Cubs lost to the Detroit Tigers. Now, they have a chance to appear again.

I’ve been a Cubs fan since 1968 when my first wife, Patti, and I moved to Chicago so I could attend drama school at the Art Institute. In those days, we lived in an apartment close enough to Wrigley Field that we could hear the cheers or groans from the ballpark. In 1969, I went to every home game as the Cubs led the national league until the last month of the season when they went on an epic slide.

I always said I wouldn’t die until two things happened. The first was that Notre Dame had to once again win the national championship. The second was that the Cubs had to take home the World Series title.

Notre Dame is doing pretty well so far this season. They’ve won three games and lost one. They’re fun to watch and to root for, but they have little chance of winning the championship.

The Cubs had one of their best years ever this year. In Wrigley Field they were almost unbeatable. Tonight they play the Dodgers and they’re expected to win. In fact, for the first time in a long time, many people think they have a real chance of winning the whole shooting match.

Wouldn’t that be something.

On balance, though, I guess the cancer can’t kill me this year – at least it can’t kill me if I’m going to see Fighting Irish as champs.

Meanwhile, I’m going to watch the ball game tonight. I know it’ll bring back some of the best memories I have. Memories of sitting along the third base line, eating peanuts and hot dogs and cheering and groaning along with thousands of other fans.

I’m surprised how often I find myself feeling and thinking like I’m still that twenty-something guy sitting in the stands with a whole world of possibilities in my hands. I’m surprised when I look in the mirror and see myself so old.

I do have a lot of great memories though. Memories of climbing Mount Fujiyama and of anchoring my sailboat off a tiny island in the Florida Keys and watching in wonder as a million tiny shrimp turned the waters around me neon green with phosphorescence. I’ve loved and been loved. I’ve held a son and grandson. I’ve traveled most of the world on business or as a serviceman or tourist. I’ve had wonderful times and even sad times I wouldn’t want to forget.

These memories make the growing older easier because without one, I couldn’t have the others.

Monday, September 29, 2008

Soda Bread

I’ve been part of a writers’ critique group for a dozen years or more. There are half-dozen of us, give or take one or two, depending on our schedules. We meet once a month, always at someone’s home, and read and critique some of our recent work.

Sometimes it’s not a lot of fun to be part of a group like this. Egos can clash. Feelings can be hurt. If, as sometimes happens, you’re forced to sit and listen to really terrible writing at every meeting, violence may ensue.

I’m lucky. The group I’m in is comprised of writers who’ve already published or who deserve publication. We’re good for each other.

I haven’t been able to attend every meeting over the last year or so. Sometimes chemo has gotten in the way and sometimes I just haven’t been up to it. But these friends have steadily let me know of their love, with phone calls and e-mails.

I went to a critique group meeting yesterday. There were only a few of us there: Sylvia and Linda and Donna and Peter and me. I was asked to read first. So I did. A couple of sections of the memoir I’m working on. And then we talked. Sylvia told me how much she’d learned about me by reading this blog and by hearing parts of my story. Donna and Linda and Peter agreed. They told me they were happy I was finally opening myself up a bit.

I know I’ve spent most of my life not disclosing anything real about myself. Some of that is cultural. Irish men aren’t known for sober displays of emotionalism. It’s easier to hide behind a façade of toughness or to tell a joke or sing a song or just act as if it – whatever it is – doesn’t really matter.

Some of it is because there’s some stuff that’s always been too painful or embarrasing.

But I realized as we talked yesterday that I was glad I’d found a way to open up. This is new for me, but it’s okay. It’s not so bad having people know how I feel, that I’m afraid or sad or happy or whatever. As important as these people – Sylvia and Peter and Donna and Linda – have been to me they’re more important now.

We snack at these meetings. Yesterday, there was cheese and fruit and crackers. Since it was Linda’s birthday, there was a cake. And before I left, Sylvia gave me three small loaves of Irish soda bread.

I’d never eaten soda bread until I met Sylvia, who’s from Ireland. My mother didn’t bake much. Only an infrequent pie or one of her noteworthy cakes that always seemed to be listing slightly to port or starboard after they were iced. She didn’t bake bread because that wasn’t something one did with one’s rare leisure time. When she was a girl, baking bread was a time-consuming and necessary chore. Buying bread already sliced from a bakery was, for her, the beginning of women’s liberation.

Anyway, I’m not used to soda bread, but I love it. Served with what the Irish call a thick "lashing" of butter it’s good enough to make me close my eyes. I had some this morning for breakfast. And as I ate it, I thought of the group and of how lucky I am to have these friends and of how it’s really okay with me that they know more about me than they used to.

Friday, September 26, 2008

Dying Ain't Fun

I just finished reading Art Buchwald’s book, "Too Soon to Say Goodbye," written, much of it, while he was in a hospice in Washington.

Buchwald was lucky. In early 2006 he went in the hospice expecting to die from kidney failure. By his own admission, he figured he had about three weeks to live. Instead, his kidneys somehow got better. In June of that year he left the hospice for his summer home on Martha’s Vineyard. He lived, finally, until January 17, 2007.

Buchwald was comfortable with the idea of his death. He had the opportunity to undergo kidney dialysis and, instead, decided to die with dignity. As it worked out, he lived longer than anybody expected and had a great time in the hospice. He was visited by family and friends and by politicians and newsmen and people he’d never met. He ate what he wanted to eat. He was awarded the French equivalent of the Legion of Honor for his writing. He was spoiled.

"I never realized dying could be so much fun," he wrote.

You know, Buchwald was right, but only part right.

Of course, being sick isn’t a lot of fun. And not everybody has the chance to make going gentle into that good night a protracted visit with loved ones. Pain is pain, no matter what your outlook.

But still….

What made Buchwald’s end so much fun was his decision that, no matter how much time he had left, he was going to focus all his energies on living his life to the fullest. I know that reads as cloyingly maudlin as a bad greeting card but I can’t think of a better way to write it.

It isn’t always easy to do that, to focus on today rather than tomorrow or the month after this one or on the coffin that waits. But it’s the only way to make today worth living, isn’t it? It’s the only way – to steal again from Dylan Thomas – to "rage, rage against the dying of the light."

In a way, when I allow that to happen, when I allow myself that focus, it does work to make today sweeter than any day in the past. It infuses the day with excitement, with light. In those moments, Buchwald is right. Dying is fun.

I saw my VA therapist today, a smart, gentle woman named Linda Vesley. "Do you think about death every day?" she wondered.

I told her I did, not because I wanted to but because it’s always lurking right below the surface, waiting. All it takes is someone asking how I am or the mention of cancer on the news or any other reminder that I have this disease and there I go again, thinking about death.

When that happens, and it happens frequently, it takes at least a few minutes to get my focus back. And when that happens, Buchwald is wrong. Dying ain’t fun at all.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Birthday Party

Early yesterday, I had to go to the VA for a cat scan. I was afraid, this time. I’m usually not but the last one I had showed my main tumor had grown a bit. This time, I fear, the news will be worse and then it’ll be time for chemo again. That's if I’m lucky.

Before the scan, I had to drink some barium. The last time I had one I drank banana-flavored barium. It didn’t taste too bad. This time, just to be different, I tried vanilla flavored. It wasn’t as good. Usually, the barium doesn’t bother me but yesterday, for some reason, it made me nauseous. Maybe because I was afraid.

After I came home, my wife – Lynne – and I celebrated her birthday. She loves presents as much as a little girl. When she opens a gift, her whole face lights up. Sometimes she giggles.
Buying her a present is always fun, always a pleasure, because I know how happy she’ll be, no matter what the gift.

Yesterday, she got clothes, a couple of necklaces, and a jazz CD from her sister, Jennifer, who lives in Richmond. I gave her a purse and a hat and dress she’d picked out. Her father gave her a check. She used a little of that money to buy herself a pair of shoes. I don’t think a man would be very happy if he got a pair of shoes as a gift. I guess that’s because to most men buying shoes is like buying tires for a car. More necessary than pleasurable. Lynne, however, loves shoes the way I love sailing.

I gave her three cards: two funny ones including a card with a picture of a monkey inside. For some reason, she loves monkey-pictures as much as shoes. The third card was mushy. It talked about love and how happy she’s made me and then said something about how I hoped we’d have a hundred more birthdays together.

When she read that card, she cried, just a little, but enough to let me know she cared.

After my nap, we went out for a late lunch in honor of the day. We didn’t go to a fancy place, just a seafood restaurant we both enjoy.

I couldn’t help myself. I kept looking at Lynne all during the meal. Every time I looked, she was smiling, her eyes were bright and she was beautiful. Happiness is like that. It’s attractive.
We ate fresh fish and then Lynne ordered chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce, a special birthday treat. Again, she was happy.

During the meal, while we ate and she got chocolate sauce on her chin, we didn’t talk about the cancer, or the cat scan, or the fact that I was still nauseous from the barium. We didn’t talk about the truth that – despite what the mushy card said – we weren’t going to have a whole lot of birthdays together.

I’m glad we didn’t talk about that stuff. It was nice to be free of the cancer for a bit, to take a break, to have lunch with my wife and see her smile.

Monday, September 22, 2008

Heaven or Hell

When I was a child going to Catholic grade school in Chicago, I knew with certainty that I’d be headed for what we called "the bad place" as soon as I died. My sins were legion and unspeakable.

Now, I’m not so sure.

First, I’m not sure there’s a heaven that’s anything like the one I learned about from the nuns at Our Lady of Peace School. There’s not a place where I’d be given a seat on some cloud and a little harp and told to enjoy myself for eternity. Obviously enough, if there's no heaven with little harps then there's no hell with pitchforks.

That’s a relief.

The Catholic Church taught that as soon as I died I would go through "particular judgment." As a sinner, I stood no chance. My body would be buried and my soul sent on to hell. Later, at the end time, my body would rise to be reunited with my soul for the "last judgment."

My fevered little mind developed the terrible belief that on judgment day I’d hop out of my grave and join a huge crowd gathered in a place akin to the world’s largest drive-in movie, only without cars. There, all the people who ever lived would be gathered, souls reunited with bodies, watching films. Each film would show all the good and bad ever done by one individual.

I hated the idea of my mother and father and friends knowing about all my sins. About all the nickels I filched from my mother’s purse. About my lies. What I really did when I was supposed to be taking a shower.

I’m glad I don’t believe that any more. That belief has been replaced by uncertainty. I just don’t know, any more than anybody else, what ultimately awaits.

I like to think, though, that no matter what heaven and hell are like, I’ve paid for my sins already. I’ve been a pretty decent guy for the last dozen years or so and I was never, not even at my worst, bad enough to be forced to spend eternity in hell.

I think maybe God really is a "higher power," some sort of beneficent, loving, tolerant force that put everything in motion and that when I die I’ll simply return to become part of that power.

That sounds good.

I have an old, tiny photograph taken when I was about four years old. In the photo, my father and I are walking down a beach, away the photographer, undoubtedly my mother. My dad and i are holding hands. I remember the bathing suit he used to wear. It was beige, decorated with green palm trees and orange flamingos. I remember the way he’d hold my hand, gentle in his big workingman’s hand. And I remember how safe and serene I felt in those moments.

I think that’s where I’ll be after I die. Not on that beach but in that feeling.

I hope so.

I heard somebody I met in the sober fellowship I'm in say that when he died he hoped he "would go to that big meeting in the sky."

Not me. I'll pass on that. I’d rather go to that big package store in the sky.

If not that, walking on the beach with my old man will suffice.

Friday, September 19, 2008

The View

My wife and I are fortunate. We live in an apartment overlooking the Lake Worth Lagoon, in Florida. The lagoon is part of the Intracoastal Waterway on Florida’s east coast. When we look out the sliding-glass door that serves as the eastern wall of our living room, we can see the lagoon and beyond that the barrier island just south of Palm Beach. By straining just a bit we can see, beyond that narrow island, the vast sweep of the Atlantic Ocean.

People travel hundreds, often thousands of miles and spend a lot of money to see the view we can see every day of the year. The few visitors we have always, or almost always, stop to look out the window, remark about the beautiful view.

I’m spoiled.

I’m so accustomed to the view that days or weeks go by without my looking out the window. I walk across the living room with my eyes open but unseeing. In the three years we’ve had this apartment I’ve only sat on the balcony outside that sliding glass door, looking to the east, a half-dozen times, no more than that.

That’s a shame.

Before I got sick, I used to be too busy. For months and months I was too busy to look out the window. I sat at a computer day after day writing an average of 2,000 words each day. A million words every 18 months, give or take 100,000 words or so.

Now I can barely stand to work more than a couple of hours at a time. I’m just too tired. And still I have to remind myself to look out the window.

This morning, when I took the time to look I saw an osprey soaring right at the level of our sixth-floor apartment.

I’m going to look more often. I promised myself. Why not? I can’t work so I may as well enjoy myself.