A story about December 19, 2004

I got a phone call a year ago today from my brother, S., which he has said since he doesn't remember. He called from my parents house and said "I've got some bad news." I had just talked to my mom that morning, about another brother being sick, so I thought I knew what it was. I said, "Yeah, I know, I talked to mom this morning." He replied, "Oh, no, some other bad news." I knew instantly what he was talking about.

My dad had been diagnosed with lung cancer eleven days prior. Bad cancer: staged at least at "IIIb", and according to the pulmonologist, very likely a stage "IV". Even now, talking about the details is difficult. Last night, I laid in bed with my wife until 1am, talking about him, looking up at the ceiling, crying, remembering. I chose to talk about the happy things, the funny memories. The details of the cancer and the death: some are still too raw.

I got to spend several weeks with him in the weeks just prior to his death: J and I went up for Thanksgiving, and it was clear that I should stick around. While numerous medical appointments stand out in my mind, the better memories are sitting in his office, talking, reminiscing, getting information, talking about what he wanted to happen when he died.

A bittersweet, but funny exclamation happened one day, in the midst of a conversation about distribution of ashes. I asked him if he wanted his ashes to be spread anywhere, and after something thinking and some discussion, we came up with two places he wanted: Monterey Bay, where he spent much of his adolescence, and Galway Bay, where he spent much of his imagination as an adult. In response to one or another of these questions about ashes, and who he wanted to be sure was invited to his wake, he exclaimed, "HEY! You're planning MY GODDAMN DEATH, aren't you!?!" We laughed, since, horrifically, that's exactly what we were doing.

Laughing was so important, so therapeutic, especially in those last weeks. We did a lot of it: sitting around in the family room in the house I grew up in along with my siblings, we'd start making a joke out of something or other relating to death, and dying. My dad loved, loved to laugh. My entire immediate family loves, loves to laugh. We still do it, about my dad, when the grief gets to be too much, or even when it doesn't. I was sitting around in that same room, playing poker with three of my brothers, a few months later. My father's ashes were sitting on the table we were using, and S., the same brother mentioned above, said, "Goddammit, c'mon, dad! Bet or call!"

I honestly don't know if all this laughter is to forestall the misery, the grief, of losing a father (a husband, a brother, a best friend) too early, too young. Or some other kind of coping mechanism. Or because he loved to laugh, and we all learned a lot of our laughing skills from him. I hope that a lot of it is the last.