Category: Death

New Year, New Home

2023 will be one of significant change for me (I hope).

Change in how I spend the bulk of my working day. How I earn a living. Where I earn that living. With whom I share my time. Yet as we turn the page into the new year my thoughts are with my parents, who will make just one significant change (I hope).

They are leaving their 4-bedroom home with its huge patio and multi-terraced garden in favor of a 2-bedroom apartment in a senior independent-living complex. I’ve been staying with my parents while waiting for my post-divorce life to begin, and though I was initially opposed to their move – they love their house, and my father is an enthusiastic gardener – I’ve come to see the wisdom of the move. They just don’t have the stamina they once did. My father is 87, my mother 82, and keeping up with the house and garden takes more energy than they want to give them. The reason for the move makes eminent sense. And I get it.

So they are not leaving their house kicking and screaming.

And yet it’s still not without stress.

Odds are that this new apartment will be the last place they live together. If – really, when – their health fails, it’s unlikely it will afflict them at the same time and in the same way, so even if they are in the same facility they may not be in the exact same place. And while we don’t talk about it, I think it’s clearly on their minds. How could it not be?

Mortality is the tie that binds us all. We all come face-to-face with it eventually, with varying degrees of grace. And this move for my parents is the most tangible evidence to date that they are approaching that point of their lives when their deaths are real possibilities. Not likely, but definitely possible, and more possible than it’s been before.

My father faced prostate cancer a few years ago and kidney cancer last year. He had moments of fear during each scare, but the information he got from his doctors in both cases was encouraging, and there were other options for treatment if the procedures didn’t succeed. We are eternally grateful that they did succeed. He was also in a small-plane crash in Tanzania 28 years ago, but that happened so fast he didn’t have time to reflect on his risk.

My mother has age-related macular degeneration, high blood pressure, and diabetes. Those illnesses erode her quality of life and hint of struggles to come, but none of them are currently life-threatening.

But moving into a smaller apartment with no yard to maintain is a tangible admission from them both that the scope of their remaining time is narrowing. My friend Jim’s parents lived in a retirement community that talked about the go-go years (where people were able to do anything they wanted), the slow-go years (where they could still do some of the things they wanted to do), and the no-go years (where they were limited to things in their residence). My parents are still enjoying their go-go years, but the end of that freedom is in sight, and the implications for what’s ahead are sobering to them.

And they are feeling it.

They’ll still make the move, but settling into a new community will include living with a new awareness, that, after a lifetime of moving about in the world, they might finally be in the last home they will see.

Loss and My Friend John

I saw my good friend John yesterday.

John is a man who delights in his family. He revels in their company. His wife and daughter are always – and I do mean always – in the forefront of his mind. He feels very close to his sister, and he relished his relationships with his parents until they recently passed away.

Every weekend, every vacation, every spare moment he has available he wants to spend in the company of his family. He chooses them first. Every single time. And his devotion isn’t forced. It comes from a heart filled with love and gratitude for having people to care about.

John has hobbies – he enjoys sports, both playing and watching – but even those interests he shares as much as possible with his loved ones. I can think of no one who gets more fulfillment, more satisfaction from spending time with his family. His unadulterated joy in their presence just radiates from him in big, happy waves.

Which is why the death of his son earlier this year is simply the cruelest thing I’ve ever seen.

John’s son was 19, in his freshman year of college, and he was killed by a quick and sadly painful illness.

His death is devastating to everyone who knew him. But depriving his father of his presence, the father who pulled limitless joy from his son, feels so despicably merciless and mean. And John is shattered. His infectious energy is now subdued. He looks so very sad.

I have hope for John though.

Perhaps it is merely wishful thinking, but I can’t think so. Relegating my good friend to this level of suffering indefinitely is inconceivable for me. How could anyone withstand it? I don’t know how I could cope if one of my daughters died now, and I don’t know how John has been able to function at all these past few months. I fervently wish I could heal him somehow, make him whole again, but he will never be whole again while he walks this earth, and I can’t offer anything that will help him through this trial.

Still, John has two advantages that not everyone in his situation can claim.

First, as he has given his complete devotion to his family, they have returned it to him in full. His wife and his daughter and his sister and the rest of his family loves John like he loves them. The enormous hole left when his son died won’t ever be filled, but the relationships he shares with his other loved ones will continue to grow and deepen as the days and weeks and months and years pass by. They won’t erase his loss, but their love will fill him nonetheless.

Second, he is a faithful man. He believes – strongly – that God exists, that He is benevolent, and that He cares for his flock. I don’t claim to understand faith (I don’t have that tool in my toolbox) but I can see that John, despite his overwhelming grief, believes that the death of his son serves a purpose, inscrutable as it may be. John has found occasional peace and some solace in his prayers and meditations, and as skeptical as I usually am about spiritual things, I believe him in this: his son may be physically absent from his life, but John experiences him in any number of ways that prove to me that his son is very much present. I am far beyond my depth in all things spiritual, but given my own admittedly limited experiences I believe that there are dimensions we don’t understand that nevertheless touch us. And again, maybe I’m naive or simply willing something to be that isn’t, but that’s not how this feels to me.

I grieve with my friend John, even as I can’t fathom the depths of his loss. I also acclaim his humanity, his faith, his stalwartness to move forward in the face of such complete devastation. And I pray – in my own way – that he finds comfort and meaning and relief in his family, including his late son, so he can heal from this wrecking blow. And that no other parent ever has to face something so calamitous.

Death, cont.

If Greg Russell wasn’t the happiest man on earth, he was in the top two.

He died last night.

The news devastated our neighborhood. We all appreciated Greg’s smiling face on his daily walks with his wife Anne. Greg adored Anne. It was evident whenever you saw them together. Anne teaches piano, and one or the other of our girls (and usually both) were part of her studio for 14 years. They spent time with her every week, and we all love her for her sweetness and joy. We can imagine her grief.

We saw Greg a few times each year, reliably at the December and June recitals, and then occasionally as his walks with Anne around the neighborhood intersected with our lives. But you only needed to meet him once to know him. His face was open, a smile ever present, and his whole being exuded welcome. He was curious, and he had many interests, but his primary interest was whoever he was speaking with.

I will miss him, probably more than I realize. People like Greg are rare. They may not be recognized for great accomplishment, but they are the people who do the precious weaving of outwardly-focused busy people living in separate houses into a community of neighbors. Our neighborhood needs a new weaver.  I hope there is someone to step into that role.

I want to be more like Greg. I am happy (generally). But I am not welcoming (generally). I spend so much time between my own ears that I often ignore others. Not out of spite or boredom but out of obliviousness. So that dye is cast – I am what I am, and what I am is not what Greg was.

At times like this I wonder about my legacy.

When the life of a man I both liked and admired is over and I reflect on his impact, I suppose it’s natural to wonder how I compare. I suspect the famous quote about legacy – that no one remembers what you said or what you did, but they do remember how you made them feel – doesn’t work to my advantage. I am a man of the mind not of the heart (generally) so I’m afraid that I don’t touch people in the same way Greg Russell did.

Then again not many do. I can make peace with that.

As long as I have enough time.

Death, cont.

I lost my second friend from college freshman year last weekend.

Joe slipped on ice outside his home in Minnesota and cracked his head a couple months ago. He lingered, but succumbed on Sunday. He was 57.

Deaths bring remembrance. Reflection. Regret. That’s the order I felt them anyway, and it’s the wrong order.

Regret. I hadn’t spoken with Joe since we buried Tim seven years ago after a heart attack killed him while he sat in front of his computer at home. We were making plans to return to our college reunion in June. Instead we’ll be reuniting in Joe’s hometown to bury him. Why didn’t we see each other in the interim? We were close friends during a formative time in our lives, and that bond was strong and eternal, but the usual excuses apply: getting together wasn’t convenient, it was too expensive in time and money, and we had other priorities. And, I suppose, we thought we’d have plenty of time at future reunions. I regret those decisions now.

Reflection. If Joe – and Tim before him – can die suddenly, then I can too. Have I done everything I want? Heavens, no. Do the people I care about know how I feel? I hope so. Am I ready to meet my maker? Do my wife and daughters know what my wishes are? Do they know what to do in my permanent absence? Hell, no. I’m not ready in the least. And neither were Tim and Joe.

Remembrance. This is Joe’s time. I think we all want to be remembered. Joe never married, never had children. What is his legacy?

Joe might very well be the most loyal man this world has ever seen. And he cared about those people who were otherwise overlooked. He lived every minute of 57 years acutely aware of the people who didn’t speak up in class, who sat on the sidelines, who felt left out of central activities. Perhaps because he felt like one of them. He wasn’t handsome or smooth, funny or brilliant. He was, I suppose, an average Joe in things that mattered in youth, which largely involves attracting attention to oneself. No, the size and intensity of his heart made him singular: he cared – deeply – about people, especially the overlooked and underappreciated. Without regard to history, lineage, means, looks. He accepted everyone. Even those who did something cruel (but he let them know how he felt about their cruelty). It was no surprise that he ended up working with convicts. Who in our society is written off more?

I trusted Joe as much as I’ve trusted anyone. When I attempted suicide my sophomore year, it was in front of Joe. He was with me in my despair. He just knew when people were hurting, and he was always there. And I miss that. Knowing that Joe was in the world felt reassuring; he has been someone I could count on since we met as freshmen, no matter how much time elapsed between visits or e-mails or Facebook posts.

My day-to-day life will seem no different with Joe gone, but I’ll know he’s not there. I just hope he left enough kindness and love to help this world he’s left behind.

Joe McCoy