Mom and Me

My mother is in rehab now. She had surgery about a week ago and is already up, walking (with help), and dealing with her granddaughter’s death about as well as can be expected.

I call her on the phone a couple of times a day. I wish I could get up there, but I’m too sick from the chemo. Yesterday, when I called and asked for mom, a nurse told me she was in the beauty parlor. For reasons that have nothing at all to do with beauty, that was the best news I’d had in while.

# # #

Not surprisingly, I’ve been getting some psychiatric and psychological help for about a year now. It was recommended by one of my chemotherapy nurses after I spent a long chemo session talking about my feelings.

The psychiatrist, whom I really like and admire, doesn’t have me stretch out on a couch or anything like that. We talk for a bit and he makes comments, but he’s really more involved in prescribing drugs than in anything like psychotherapy, and that’s okay with me.

I was in therapy once, for one session. The doctor made a big deal out of telling me I could tell him anything at all and it wouldn’t bother him, and that sounded good to me. So I told him something. I don’t remember what it was (this was about 40 years ago) but it must have been pretty bad because when I looked at the shrink his face was twisted with disgust.

So much for that.

This may come as a surprise to most who know me, but I’m not crazy, or not really crazy. I don’t want to take my own life or harm anybody else, I don’t hear voices, and I have no ideas at all that I am Napoleon or Captain Hook or Al Capone.

I guess that means I don’t really need to see a shrink. What I do need is help dealing with the things are happening in my life, to me and – even more – to people I love. I am sad and sometimes scared. I’m angry. I can’t sleep without aid. I have no energy to speak of. My memory is full of troublesome holes. But I’m not crazy.

That’s where Linda comes in. I call her my therapist though the VA gives her some other title.
She and I have a good relationship. I see her at least twice a month and I am able to tell her the truth without worrying about her judgments. We like each other. She’s helped me accept the truth and know that my feelings are to be expected and are justified.

I saw her last week and when I told her about my mother’s hospitalization and my niece’s suicide she didn’t hide her reaction or retain her professional detachment. She blurted a short sentence that you might expect to hear from a carpenter after he hammers his thumb.

I started to weep, something I’ve been doing a lot of in the last few days. She simply let me cry. And that was okay. I told her what I was feeling and she nodded and she said, "Of course you’re sad and frightened and angry. You should be."

She also told me I needed to focus more on myself. I know the truth of that. I have to take care of myself.

I’m not trying to sound like a candidate for sainthood. But she’s right. I haven’t been thinking about myself…at least not as much as I usually do. "Be nice to yourself," Linda said.

To be honest, right now there aren’t many ways I can be nice to myself. I’ve no appetite to speak of. I don't drink anymore. I can’t go sailing or walking. My libido has left town.

But I can read.

So I went online and ordered two of Garrison Keillor’s books – the only ones I didn’t already have in the stack by my bed.

The books arrived yesterday and I’ve already devoured one. It was wonderful to spend time in Lake Woebegon instead of in my own head.

Anniversary

I was honored at one of my fellowship meetings on the last Saturday of last month. At least that’s the way I look at it.

You see, last month marked my 14th year without any beer or booze or even wine. That may not sound like much to you, but trust me, it is.

Fourteen years.

And I made this last year in the face of some true trials and tribulations. My own illness. Lynne’s problems. Fear. Loneliness, at times. Pain and exhaustion.

Once, just once in this period, I thought seriously about getting drunk. I can’t tell you what brought it on because it would hurt someone I don’t want to hurt. Trust me, though, I was in a place, going through serious troubles that filled me with pain and terror and anger. I was driving my car when this happened. I didn’t think about taking a drink. I’m not that kind of drinker. My thoughts were a bit more serious.

"Screw this sobriety. Let’s go get a quart of vodka and get all f##@*d up!"

That’s what I thought.

Instead, I pulled my car off a highway and onto the road’s shoulder. I closed my eyes and managed to say a prayer to a higher power I’m not sure about and who – if he’s around – has pissed me off. I do that, sometimes. And I guess he (or she) wanted to give me a break. The desire left. Quick.

That may sound like nothing to you.

It ain’t. It’s a big deal. For me, anyway, it’s a real big deal.

It would have been wonderful if I could have sat in the celebratory fellowship gathering a few days ago and thought about making 14 more years. That would have been great. After all, I’ve enjoyed looking forward in my life, thinking about things I might accomplish, trips I might take, new things I could learn. But I can’t do that any longer.

Hell, I don’t know for sure how long I’ll be around. I’m not a pessimist, but trust me. I don’t think very often about what I’ll be doing five years from now or ten years from now or fifteen. But I do make plans for the more immediate future.

I think of writing I’d like to do. I think of taking a trip to St. Augustine with Lynne. The last time we were there was like a honeymoon. I plan to see my mother and brothers some time soon. I hope I get to see a granddaughter I’ve never seen. And so on.

At the fellowship meeting where I was congratulated on my fourteen years of sobriety, I was given a brass medallion and asked to say a few words to the others in the room. In the past, I haven’t made a big deal out of my anniversary. This time, though, I felt like I should.

I hugged my friend who handed me the card. I thanked everybody in the room. And then I thought for a moment. I wondered what I might say. Then I put into words my biggest hope for the future.

"I sure as hell hope I stand here a year from now and celebrate my fifteenth anniversary without booze."

That’s what I said and for now that’s the most important future desire I can have.

God

I go to a sobriety fellowship meeting almost every morning. I’ve been sober for a long time so I don’t really have to go. I go because it’s habit and I enjoy myself, mostly.

At each meeting, there are prayers.

The Serenity Prayer at the beginning. The Lord’s Prayer at the end. In between, lots of stuff about God’s will and counting on God for help.

It is supposed to be okay if you don’t join the prayers or talk about God because the fellowship doesn’t demand religious belief. If you don’t join in, though, you better be prepared for some people to look at you as if you are committing some kind of terrible sin.

I don’t join in and hold hands during the Lord’s Prayer any more. I haven’t for a couple of years. It’s not because I don’t believe or don’t want to be social. It’s because my immune system has been weakened by chemo and I’m afraid of holding hands with some alky I’ve never seen before.

I do believe enough to pray, my own way.

Listen. I like to think I’m an intelligent fellow. I’ve been told I have a high IQ. I was invited to join MENSA a few decades ago. Unfortunately, at the time I was in this place where they kept me behind a whole bunch of locked doors so I couldn’t really get to a meeting. Still, I’ve always considered myself bright.

Right now, though, there are times when my mind seems incredibly slow and my thinking incredibly shallow. I can blame that slowness and lack of depth on the handful of drugs I take every day and on the chemo.

There’s one good thing about this slower mind of mine. I can read the chapter of a book, enjoy it, then go to sleep. When I wake, I can pick up the book, look at the chapter I just read and remember none of it. So I can read it again. And enjoy it again.

I can save tons of money simply reading the same book over and over again.

Anyway, I have come up with a belief in a Higher Power. I have to say, however, that my Higher Power belief is a bit different from other beliefs I hear spoken about in fellowship meetings. My mental shallowness probably has a lot to do with this.

I was raised Catholic. My dad went to mass and communion almost every day of his life. We went as a family each Sunday and Feast Day. I was an altar boy and believed enough to consider becoming a priest for a while. I stopped thinking about a life of chastity when I was in the seventh grade. I saw a girl with remarkable breasts in the school library. About eight years later, the same girl – Patti – and I would marry.

Anyway, I practiced Catholicism until I graduated from high school and enlisted in the Air Force. Then, I simply stopped. I went to one mass in Japan, with girl I liked. Dropped in on a Buddhist Temple or two for the same reason. I visited a Baptist service in Texas and didn’t like it; went to a couple of mostly-black churches during my hippie years. I don’t remember thinking much about God in all those years or all the years I drank.

Now I do.

First, I need to be honest about my belief. The God I believe in doesn’t really have a name. If you want to call God something, "God" is about as good as it gets. But I don’t think you need to refer go God as "God" to get attention. "Help" or "Hey You" are probably acceptable.

The first times I prayed as an adult were in the earliest days of my sobriety. My sponsor – a kind of guide in the fellowship – told me he thought it might be a good idea if I asked a higher power for help. He told me how he did it. He was sober 30-something years at that point, so I paid attention.

I lived alone, but I was afraid someone would see me pray, so I prayed in the shower. "God," I said, "I don’t know if I believe in you. I don’t know that you’ll help me if you’re listening. But Jimmy told me I should pray. So I’m praying. Help."

That’s what I said. And something happened. I didn’t drink. I stayed sober.

When I think of God, I remember those simple prayers. I imagine God as an old guy (sorry, I can’t imagine an old woman God). The guy I think of resembles Monty Hall, long-time host of "Let’s Make a Deal." And his deal is simple. If I do one simple thing he asks me to do, I win everything. If I don’t, a lose everything.

And the thing I’m supposed to do is lead a life of service to other people. It doesn’t have to be "uniformed" service like that performed by the religious crew in "Guys and Dolls" or big-deal service like that done by Francis of Assisi. It can be smaller than the stuff done by television evangelists. It can be so small only I know about it and maybe the person or institution I'm serving.

It works. Sure, sometimes I’m not of service – I do something to hurt someone or maybe cheat someone – but not often. And when I do, I try to fix it.

Usually, I do what Monty Hall wants me to do. I make a deal. I offer service. And in return, he, God, makes my life okay (most of the time) and, as a consequence, I don’t really fear death. Not at all.

It just makes sense to me. I don’t know what’s going to happen to me after I die. Maybe nothing. Or maybe – and this is what I think – I’ll return to be part of the undefinable power that created everything damn near an infinity ago. I’m okay with that.

I’m also guided by the great, deep, philosophical argument presented by Blaise Pascal. It’s bit fancier than my Monty Hall approach, but not really much.

You see, Pascal said, if God really does not exist, it makes no difference at all what you believe. If you bet there’s no God, and you win, you win nothing. If you bet there is a God, and you lose, you lose nothing.

If, however, there is a God and you bet he exists, and he does exist, you win eternal happiness.
Of course, if you bet there is no God, and he does exist, you lose, you lose everything.

Therefore, the safest, most meaningful, most profitable bet is to put all your money in Monty Hall’s hand and bet in the existence of a higher power.

That’s what I do.

Oh, yes, there were a lot of people praying that I’d get good news from my cat scan a few days ago.

I didn’t get "miraculous" news, but I got pretty good news. The main tumor has grown, but just slightly. It could have been much worse. I thought it would be. I’m starting a new kind of chemo.

I guess the prayers didn’t do any harm.

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.

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.

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.

Go Irish!

I’ve been a Notre Dame football fan as long as I can remember.

I came by it honestly. My maternal grandmother, Delia Malloy from Mayo, was such a fan that when she was, herself, dying of cancer in 1943 she had my dad carry her from her bedroom into the living room where she could rest on the sofa and hear #1 Notre Dame play #2 Michigan in a game that determined the national champ. Notre Dame won, the story goes, she cheered weakly, and then died.

I like that story. I have a picture of my two brothers and me on my living room wall. We’re each wearing a Notre Dame letter sweater. Kevin is six, I’m four and my brother Pat is two. It’s the only picture I have of myself in which I think I look handsome.

When I was diagnosed with terminal cancer, I promised myself I wouldn’t die until I saw the Fighting Irish win another national championship.

I don’t know if I can make that promise stick but I sure hope I can.

Last year the Irish had their worst season ever. They won only three games. They lost to Navy for the first time in 43 years. My emotions were mixed. I was sad for the team and the school but I was kind of happy because I figured I had at least one more football season to go.

The Notre Dame Irish took to the field for the first time this year two days ago. They were playing San Diego State, a team they should have beaten without too much trouble. Things did not go so well during the first three quarters. The San Diego State Aztecs pushed the Irish around and looked like they were on the way to a big upset.

My wife went to church during the game and came home early in the fourth quarter.
She asked me how the game was going. She knows about my promise to myself not to die before ND wins it all.

I answered without thinking just as Notre Dame gave up the ball after a third-down run that didn’t pan out. "For this I stayed alive?" I said. "They look like bums."

My wife was shocked. Of course I was joking. Kind of.

In any case, the Irish came alive in the last quarter, scoring two touchdowns and winning the game by eight points. Then I felt pretty good. I felt good because, all joking aside, I do want to live long enough to see Notre Dame win big.

I guess I should be unnerved by every ND win. But I’m not. In fact, I feel pretty secure. That’s because I’ve also promised myself that I’m going to stay alive until the Chicago Cubs win the World Series. The last time that happened was 1908. So the odds of them both winning all the marbles any time soon seem pretty slim indeed.

I thank God I’m able to enjoy small things like football and jokes about the cancer. If I couldn’t laugh, who knows what I’d do?

When I was at the VA hospital the other day I walked past a young vet who almost certainly just returned from Iraq or Afghanistan. He was in a wheelchair being pushed down the hall by a nurse. He looked like he should have been a freshman at Notre Dame or at San Diego State or someplace. Instead, he was sitting in the chair, unable to hold his head up, leaning precariously to one side. Both legs of his sweatpants were folded around the stumps of his limbs.

After I watched the ND game, I remembered him. In an instant, I realized how unimportant Notre Dame football is and the Cubs, too. Immediately I remembered that even a guy with terminal cancer could have it worse. And though I may be wrong, I thought the young man in the wheel chair would be willing to change places with me in a heartbeat if he could just walk into a room, sit down and watch a football game.

When not knowing is best

I went to the VA early today. It wasn’t for anything serious, just to pick up some medicine I take to help fight fatigue.

The hospital is about fifteen miles from here. It’s a state-of-the-art hospital, as far as I’m concerned. I’ve been an inpatient there four times in the last two years and I’ve been treated much better there than I’ve been treated in a lot of other places I’ve been in my life. The people who work there are great, and I mean the doctors and nurses and aides and everybody else. Even the guy who walks around with a tiny little broom and dustpan picking up pieces of paper and dust bunnies smiles when he says hello.

Everything looks new. Well, at least they have had all the machines they’ve needed, so far, to give me tests and take pictures and stick me and prod me and everything else they do in hospitals.

I have to say, though, I’m a pretty good patient. I don’t like pain, so I’ve been known to whimper and even groan when circumstances require it. But I don’t complain about the food even when its broth and Jell-O and I don’t demand a lot of service from nurses because I don’t like too many people bothering me under any circumstances.

I also don’t ask a lot of questions. I know I’m supposed to. I know I should get second opinions and all that and I’ve even done some of that in the past. But right now I just don’t want to be reminded of what’s going on inside my body. I don’t want to hear about it and don’t want to talk about it. I had colon cancer about eight years ago and had surgery and chemo and that worked out okay. But during that period, I talked about my bowels and bowel movements in public for the first time ever. I even said the words "bowel movement" to a woman. Now, I have a pretty rough vocabulary. You can’t live the way I have and not gain a certain fondness for some terms. But no man should be forced to say the words "bowel movement" to a woman under any circumstances, with or without cancer.

With this new cancer I don’t have to talk about my bowels but I do have to talk about other things I’d rather keep to myself. You’ll have to guess what those things are.

Sometimes people, strangers or passing acquaintances, ask me what kind of cancer I have and I tell them lung cancer. That’s as far as I’ll go. But they want to know more. Is it squamus or adenocarcinoma? Is it small-cell or non-small-cell? What stage? How many tumors? Where? What drugs am I taking? I don’t answer. I don’t respond because what they really want to know, especially strangers, is when I’m going to die. They’re like people who slow down to gawk at auto accidents not because they’re interested but because they’re hoping to see something ghastly. Or at least something they can talk about later. Or something that will make them feel better.

I don’t want to know enough to give them that kind of information about myself. I don’t want them looking at me like a smashed up Honda or Chevy. Hell, I don’t want anybody to know that much about me, not even myself.

I truly don’t want to know when I’m going to die. Fortunately, the real world isn’t like the movies. At least my real world. In the movies, some doctor is always able to say, almost to the minute, how long the patient is going to live. My doctor has never told me my prognosis except in the most general terms, in terms of averages. I know enough to know that when he starts talking in specifics – weeks or days – I’m not going to have too long to worry about it. That works for me.

That works for me because I never need to be reminded that I’m sick and I know that if I know just when I’ll die I’ll have more knowledge than I really want.

The Language of Cancer

I recently spent an evening with one of my best friends, a great guy who’s near the end of a battle with pancreatic cancer. We’ve known each other for almost a decade, grown close enough to say we love each other without any of the throat clearing or lack of eye contact that so often accompanies those words when said by two men. I consider him – his name is Kevin – one of the best men I’ve ever known. It was special to us both that he was able to come down to South Florida from Georgia so we could hang out together.

It was a great evening. We went to a baseball game between the Florida Marlins (his team) and the Chicago Cubs (mine) and though the Cubbies lost, we had a wonderful time. We watched the game, of course, and we ate hot dogs neither of us could really handle and we laughed a bit the way old friends should, at each other and things we shared. We talked, the two of us, how this disease has touched our wives and his young children and how we both wish things were different but just have to accept the truth. Of course, we got a little maudlin but that’s our right, I think. We also said "dammit" a lot and I think that’s our right, too.

Near the end of the evening we talked about the special language we share, along with other men and women who are facing terminal cancer. How when we say "goodbye" it sounds so final even when it isn’t because it has such a good chance of being just that, of being final.

Dammit.

How when we talk about being tired we’re talking about a tiredness that transcends any tiredness we’d ever experienced before this illness. And how silly it sounds when some well-meaning friend or family member responds by talking about how tired they are because they didn’t sleep well the night before.

We talked about how we know the names of drugs we shouldn’t know the names of and of medical procedures and different cancer stages that we wished we didn’t have to know.

We talked, too, about the fear we know, a fear it seems we can’t share with loved ones just because it would be too cruel to share it with them.

And we talked about how insulting it is to me and to Kevin or to anybody else with cancer when someone, anyone, tells us to keep a good attitude as if we or little babies with leukemia or Ted Kennedy or anybody else with terminal cancer got it because our attitudes were bad.

Dammit. Of course a good attitude is healthier than a bad one. But don’t use that fact to beat me up or make me feel guilty if I feel down or depressed or just like saying "screw it." It’ll pass.

Saying goodbye to Kevin after that evening was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I fear I’ll never see him again. And then who will I talk with?

About two-and-a-half years ago, I was told I have inoperable, stage-three lung cancer. At the time I was advised that patients like me usually last about two years, so I’ve already outlived my prognosis. During this time, I’ve tried not to focus all my attention on the disease that’s going to end my life. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not by nature a very upbeat kind of guy. But I refuse to live what’s left of my life in my grave.

Like other people, I wondered, often, what I would do if I got a death sentence? Now, I’m learning. And make no mistake, that’s what this is. The doctors can keep me alive for awhile and except for the tiredness and the nausea from chomotherapy my life isn’t bad, yet. But, hey, it’s coming to an end. And it’s ending no matter how much I rely on the good-old American belief that all problems can be solved with a can-do attitude and a cheery outlook and a touch of Yankee know how. If that was all it took to survive cancer, chemotherapy centers and radiation centers and cancer wards could be used to house the homeless. No, this is a reality I can’t be outrun. Short of an honest to God miracle, terminal cancer is final. But I refuse to think about that. I refuse because I believe the way I die is more important than my death. Believe me, I’m frightened sometimes, and angry, and worried about what will happen to my wife, or all the other things you might imagine, but I’m not going to give up. I’m not going to let the cancer beat me until I can just fight no more. If I feel strong enough or healthy enough to, heaven help me, make love with my wife or maybe go sailing one last time or lose myself in Pavarotti’s "Nessun Dorma" a few more times or get to watch another season of Notre Dame football, I want to be able to enjoy it.

I’m really not brave. Sometimes I wake in the middle of the night, in the dark, and I can’t breathe from the sudden fear. I’m afraid that when I’m dying I’ll turn into a weeping mass of pleading humanity. I’ve been promised that I’ll get pain-killers and that’ll be kind of nice, I think. I like the idea of taking morphine without having to worry about becoming addicted…hell, that’ll be off the table, won’t it?

It helps that I know just how blessed I am. I'm a sober alcoholic, sober for a little more than 13 years. I was what's known as a low-bottom alky: one of those guys you see lurking under bridges or in alleys, the kind of guy who cleaned the gin-mill toilet for a couple of beers and who followed his thirst to places I never thought I'd end up. Now I'm sober and though I'm deadly sick I'm able to treasure every day.

I wish I could live longer. But I can't. And then I remember what I thought when my oncologist looked over the top of his glasses and told me I had terminal cancer. I remember thinking, Man, I’ve had a hell of a ride. A lot of pain, but it was worth it.