Strange Places Strange Faces

I learned a lot tonight. Many of you know our cousin, David, has been battling cancer since March. His brave fought ended early this morning -- sending a mournful, but collective sigh of relief through his family and friends. The last couple weeks were particularly difficult and his widow, my cousin Lee, said -- in fact -- that she wouldn't wish his final hours upon "his worst enemies." She has been tremendously stoic throughout this battle. And, David, as I have sometimes mentioned, went down to the wire cracking as many jokes as possible and making light of his terminal diagnosis. Lately, he once said, "Oh, yeah, I've got lots of that," when someone was telling him to take his time doing something. He never had a quixotic thought during this time. He managed to keep all of us at ease while he wilted away before our eyes. He showed amazing grace at a time when others would fold up the tent and leave it lying there, feeling sorry for themselves.

You guys, he is my Dad's age. He has three children and three granchildren. He only saw two of his kids get married. The third, a daughter, is only in her early twenties. This is the "big heavy". My father is not an emotional man, but he was wound so tight today you could see it in every move he made. This is an event that just was not supposed to happen. Not now. Not ever. My Uncle, the retired cardiologist, calls cancer "bad luck".

So, now we wish we had more time with my cousin. We wish we said different things. We wish we had acted different ways. We wish he could have witnessed more events, taken part in more family traditions, enjoyed more of the life he had already ingested. But, sadly, that's not how things operate here. That's one of the reasons a tear should always be followed by a chuckle.

Laughter should make us cry and crying should make us laugh. The two should be inextricably linked.

So, here are a couple things that happened tonight that made me draw this simple conclusion. First, we were talking about the granchildren (one is 8 or so and the others are 11 (twins)). Someone asked me about the first grandparent I lost. I said that I like to have a happy ending for each of my stories. My Nana died 10 days before my 13th birthday. It was unexpected and awful for me. I was away at summer camp and rushed home to grieve with my family. After her funeral, I flew back to New York. Here's the story I told numerous times tonight. After this death and the hurt it left on my heart, I made that return flight back only to be greeted by this counselor who said we had to go to this hospital. "We have to pick up (Adam) who broke his arm. Come with me." We got to the hospital and found ourselves staring at a maze of different colored stripes on the floor -- each leading to a different area.

"Nigel, you're going to have to help me here," the counselor said.

"Why's that?" I replied.

"I'm color-blind."

True story. I remember it to this day. And, believe it or not, it provided a chuckle for my cousin, the widow Smith, on what is probably going to be the saddest day of her life.

The second story is a little more telling and a lot less showing. As I was leaving, one of those granchildren didn't want me to go. She was happy tonight -- after a lot of tears, I'm sure -- because I was paying attention to her and another cousin from the other side of the family. I didn't really have anything to say to her, and it's not my place, but I did want to be close to her so that an "adult" was around in case she wanted to talk, etc. Bottom line: Kids need the closeness and kindness of adults in these situations. We should sit and quietly listen. We should be calm. They need us as much as we need them.

And, what we really have to remember -- especially when dealing with children -- is that a tear should be followed by a chuckle.

Posted by Ike on Friday, July 07, 2006 at 11:05 PM | Permalink