I hope to have the courage to finish this post.
I have wanted to write about this for a week now but each time I attempted to begin, I became overwhelmed with emotion and the idea of bringing all the sadness to the surface once again was not something I was strong enough for.
Today will be the day …. the day I choose to write about a great man that I was lucky enough to call uncle.
My uncle, Frank, was diagnosed with liver cancer early this past June. With what seemed to be an ordinary emergency room trip for painful stomach bloating turned out to be the start of the most difficult struggle in his life; one in which he would ultimately lose.
Bad turned to worse quickly. He was diagnosed with terminal cancer and it was a matter of time. To avoid the idea of living life by the clock, he proceeded with chemotherapy taking one day at a time. Some days were relatively good (because all it is is just that, “relative”) and most days were very very terrible ones. Odds were against him right from the get-go, but I can honestly state with great admiration that my uncle was hopeful … hopeful and determined to beat this. And it was this spirit that I believe helped him to stay with us, albeit difficult, for four months.
I can say in hindsight, I feel very guilty as I was one of the many that encouraged him to continue treatment eventhough doctors advised against it. You see, I too was hopeful and maybe to some “delusional” that somehow he could miraculously crush the odds and conquer the disease; or “buy” more time at the very least. Had I known that his last four months would be spent bed ridden, continuosly poked, prodded and drained only to lose his battle in the end, I would have simply encouraged him to stop treatment and enjoy what time he had; eating what he wanted, drinking how much he wanted, smoking at whatever time he wanted … simply doing WHATEVER it is that he desired. The problem is that in life we just don’t know the road that lies ahead. Every now and then we are privy to hearing peoples’ miraculous stories of beating odds, testing new and alternative treatments and going into remission … we hung on to the hope that just maybe he too could be one of these unbelievably rare stories. Sadly, it wasn’t.
My uncle left us the evening of Tuesday October 21, 2008 at Princess Margaret Hospital here in Toronto.
It wasn’t peaceful or so it seemed. His potassium levels that day were skyrocket high and at one point in the evening he found himself suddenly fighting for breath. They tried to resuscitate him but his heart just couldn’t handle the disease any longer. That night at 10:30pm I got the call and at that moment a part of my heart chipped away. My brother came to pick me up and we immediately rushed to his bed side to say our final goodbyes and to be some sort of strength for my aunt and cousins. I quickly found out that there are no words that you can possibly ever say to anyone in that moment that they lose their husband and father that will make any sense, or make them feel better or buy time … at that point, you can only be present and offer a shoulder for them to lean on and cry.
I was not prepared for what I saw and felt that cold October night. His room looked like a tornado had hit, you both saw and sensed the struggle that went on there. The staff did everything possible to keep him alive. Things were pushed and thrown out of the way, wrappers for syringes, tubes and paddles were left wherever they landed. The room was dark and quiet with only a bright light shinning on his face. Hands by his side, mouth open and eyes half shut; he lay there .. with no semblance of how he once looked. Empty …only a shell with his wife and sons by his bed trying to deal with the loss of the one thing that was most important to them.
I immediately wanted to vomit. My anxiety was at an all time high. I felt my heart race, flushed with heat and about to black out, I walked out of the room. There I paced the halls trying to stop my tears and resume my heart beat to normal. In that moment, everything stopped and every sound became silent as if I was a ghost watching life from a different place. I looked back in the room … I saw him, I saw them hunched over him crying … I looked out into the hall way and saw the nurses at the station talk amongst themselves like it was just an ordinary day. I saw beds being undone and prepared for the next death-in-waiting. The nurse methodically grabbed the crisp white sheets from the metal shelf and continued to make a bed while in my head I knew that this was probably the hundredth time she’d done it that month …. she had it down to a science. They walked around the halls with their expressionless faces and soft voices delivering news as if they were going around to deliver the paper. Gurgling sounds and coughing sounds and last breaths rung through my ears as I passed each room only to land back at his door where I broke down reading a note my cousins had wrote for the nurses thanking them for their generosity and kindness in his last days. Here I lost it. Here I questionned why life has to be as such.
My uncle was a man that loved life. He had a laugh that was rooted right from the depths of his belly and echoed across the galaxy. He was a joker … always with a smile painted on his face. He loved computers and electronics and all the gadgets known to man. He was an entertainer and a great musician. He always welcomed strangers to his home bar while enjoying cognac and a cigar. He was a ladies man, but more so than that, he was one big teddy bear that you always wanted around. He was a devoted husband, a loving father and one great uncle that I will forever miss.
He was taken from us at the young age of 53. He will never see his sons marry, he will never enjoy the pleasures of being a grand parent or enjoy retirement vacations with his wife. He will never be at our Thanksgiving table or at our Christmas table or Easter table for that matter. I will never again hear him call me anit (we had a backward language going on) and I will never again receive a birthday card with that stupid looking ziggy figure he used to draw to look like a postage stamp.
I miss him so much. I miss his voice and his laugh. I miss his smile and his hug.
Uncle knarf, may your soul be resting in peace. I know that you are with God in a place where you are free without pain and happy. I know you are watching over us. Please give them strength in this time of loss. They, we, all of us, miss you dearly. We love you.
Soar high dear uncle…soar high.
) And so on the first day of the New Year, I filled its pages with promises, commitments, projects and the whole gamut of things one pens. To be quite honest, somewhere inside of me, I got excited. Excited that I was going to make a serious attempt at turning this ship around.
