This is a collection of stories written by family about our father during and after his battle with lung cancer. We are grateful to them for sharing their stories with us and helping others to remember and honor our father.
I have a friend who is magic. Actually, he's more than a friend, since he's married to my cousin. So we share that awkward space reserved for in-laws. That means you're not exactly stuck with each other, like relatives are. However, you do have to put up with each other when the relatives get together.
Which means we've been putting up with each other a long time now, going on 30 years. I don't know how Carl feels, but from my side, it's been a pleasure.
At first, however, I harbored some doubts. After all, Carl was 17 years older than my cousin. I think we were all a bit shocked when he showed up on the family doorstep.
Where'd she find this geezer anyway? And was he leading her down the garden path?
Also, he'd been married; he had a daughter who was nearly grown, for god's sake. Then there was his mother, a tough, chain-smoking blonde with a foo-foo dog. Rumor was she'd been through eight husbands and was on the lookout for No. 9.
What kind of wagon was my sweet, young, country-girl cousin hitching up to her star, anyhow?
Then Carl turned on the magic.
First, he smiled. You'd have to see it to appreciate it, but Carl has a smile that truly lights up a room. It's a smile that uses his whole face, that falls somewhere between rakish and sheepish, a subtle mix of foxy charm and humility. It's a disarming smile.
Second, he talked. I mean, he worked the room like a pro that first time. He knew he had some selling to do, so he took the initiative and, using that smile and a very smooth gift of gab, soon had the clan eating out of his hand. By the end of the evening, the guys were slapping him on the back and the women thought he looked like Alan Ladd.
Hey, maybe this guy was all right, after all.
That was a long time ago. In the years since, Carl has turned out to be far more than all right. Like I said, the man is magic. Or, as my uncle, his father-in-law, says, with some emphasis: "Carl is a very capable person."
What Carl really does is make things out of nothing. Like Rumpelstiltskin, he can turn straw into gold. In Carl's case, the straw is raw lumber, the gold is just about anything that can be created out of wood.
He's a carpenter par excellence. But it goes beyond that. He's got what in our neck of the woods is called mechanical aptitude. That is, he knows how things work; he knows how to make things that work.
Now, this is the kind of guy I used to envy. In my day in the Lower Valley, the guys who got the girls were either good at sports or they had mechanical aptitude. Some were double-threats -- they were good at both.
The fact that I was first-chair trumpet in the high school band and wrote for the Grizzly Gazette carried no weight whatsoever. Zip.
What mattered was the cut of your ducktail, the number of stripes on your letterman's sweater sleeve, the rake in your blanked-off, '51 Ford coupe with the dual Mello-tone exhaust pipes.
Summer nights, my "square" buddies and I would sit sipping cokes in our parents' cars at the Starlite Drive-In while the Joe Cools of the school rumbled by in their personally customized rods, their greasy princeton haircuts glistening in the low glow of the snack bar.
Nestled close at their side would be some sweet flower with cute, pouting lips, the kind of girl, the kind of lips we could only dream about. That's because we didn't have the power. We didn't have mechanical aptitude.
Unlike Carl, who has it in spades, who uses tools as if they were magic wands, who resurrects long-dead engines, who reaches out with his "very capable" hands and makes buildings and houses and decks and all manner of structures appear out of thin air.
Carl would have been Joe Cool. At 67, he's still Joe Cool, which, of course, is why he got the girl, my cousin.
Now, I watch, not with envy, but with admiration as Carl, bad sick with the Big C, refuses to let the magic die. It is a recent summer day. The chemo has cost Carl his hair, and he is weak. But he insists on supervising as the youngest of his three sons and a friend build a porch onto the neighbor's house.
He has taught all his children well. But not well enough, it seems. Not today.
"Damn kids!" he mutters. "Gotta show 'em everything."
Carl moves on shaky legs to the porch, grasps the handle of the circular saw and tries to make the heavy tool follow the pencil mark he has made on the wood. The blade does what it's told, then balks.
Carl pushes, but can't make it go. He isn't strong enough. He tries again, then again. He stops, stares down at the saw.
We watch, silently rooting him on: C'mon, Carl, you can do it!
He looks up, a little embarrassed, a little sheepish. Then he braces himself, squeezes the trigger, and forces the whining blade through the stubborn spot.
He rubs knowing fingers across the fresh-cut wood. He flashes the old smile, which says it all:
Perfect!
The light in the room was dim because there was a single antique chandelier hanging from the ceiling. The dark chandelier contained five small, candle shaped light bulbs that had cast an eerie gloom upon the room. The room was completely silent and there was a sense of heaviness in the air. It was so oppressive it was almost suffocating.
And on the bed he had lay, silent. The bed sat in the middle of the room and seemed enormous around his small body. He was painfully thin, weak, and pale. His hands and feet were trembling uncontrollably, but he didn’t notice anymore.
His daughter sat near him on the bed but she could not say anything for a moment. She finally took his hand and began, “How are you dad? Do you need a blanket? Would you like some water?” He didn’t respond immediately and her mind was racing, trying to grasp on something concrete, something that made sense. Her thoughts focused for a moment and she tried to think of ways she could help him.
He finally sighed and said very slowly “No. I’m ok...I don’t need anything.” She looked at him again and words began to fall from her mouth uncontrollably. She started talking incessantly about the day. “The guys did a wonderful job outside today. They worked so hard on the yard. It looks beautiful. You would be so impressed!” He looked at her with pain and said, “I understand...I understand you are having a hard time with this and I know you cannot comprehend it.” She stopped for a moment and almost began to cry but was able to hold back. She said nothing because she was fighting desperately to keep the tears back. He continued with glistening tears in his eyes “I was strong”. She could not hear him because he spoke so quietly and she asked “What?” With more effort he stammered “I was strong.”
With that she could not control the tears that were damming behind the lids of her eyes and she began to tremble. “Yes dad, y...you were strong. You are strong. You did a good job.” She sat in amazement at her father’s incredible insight. For the past few weeks it was difficult to have him answer simple yes or no questions because the cancer had swept most of his cognition away. Yet, there he sat before her looking at her pain full on! This shocking revelation was swept up in the current of the many ideas flowing through her mind.
After a few minutes he fell back to sleep. She looked at him again. He couldn’t breath well anymore and she sat, listening to the inconsistent rhythm of his breathing. She began to wonder how much longer it would be. Ten minutes? A day? Ten days? She knew only too well there was no way of knowing and she sighed. She knew he would sleep for some time now and so left his room.
She meandered to the kitchen in a dazed state and decided to try a glass of wine out one of “fine” boxes of wine that sat on the counter.
She heard some ruckus outside and noticed her brothers were on the deck, laughing uncontrollably about something. She poured her glass of wine and sat down on the couch in the living room. There was no one in the house and she was content in being alone. She looked out the window and saw the cows grazing in the pasture not far from the house. It was fall and the brown and yellow leaves were scattered randomly about the grass. It was so calm and cold outside. She noticed the sun for the first time and realized how late in the day it was. The sun was descending and the sky was on fire with the most incredible colors she’d ever seen in the valley. There were baby blues mixing with soft pinks, and brilliant yellows blending with hazy reds.
She sighed at the incredible spectacle and looked at her glass of wine. It was red...the color of blood...the same color as the sky...and the color of her rage. All at once she realized she couldn’t fight the wave of emotions she’d been pushing down all day and had the overwhelming desire to scream as loud as she could. Or to wail and howl like a crazed animal...or simply go mad with the fury that had risen inside her. Nothing made sense anymore! And she felt so empty. Tears came to her eyes again as she thought of the injustice of the situation. How could the last few months have been real? And to see a life, a life she so loved, ending as it was in so much pain and suffering, seemed impossible. Yet every day she was reminded of that reality.
She stopped her maddening thoughts from consuming her and looked at the sunset again. She thought of how ridiculous she would appear if she started screaming like a mad woman. The idea made her giggle while she snuggled into the goose down blanket on the couch. Instead of screaming she laughed tiredly at herself and drank her wine while watching the stunning sunset.
My day started with tears. As usual, I got up before the maddening crowd, drank coffee, read enough of the paper to get good and infuriated, then checked my email before making lunches and waking kids. Today’s lot included an update about my wife’s Uncle Carl, who is dying of cancer. The news was bad, as terminal situations go, his wife Gayle was preparing us all for the end.
I’m choking up even as I write this.
They both are, quite simply, marvelous people who have taught us a great deal about being in a family, and raising one. Last December we went out to Eastern Washington to their place on the farm and spent a couple of days with them, and with the whole clan that lives there. We had, as always, a great time. Gayle was decorating the heck for the holidays, friends were coming and going to set up her several trees, worth of ornaments, unpacking was still going on from their recent move. Carl was hosting us all, whipping up a little something for the kids, making sure our coffee cups were filled, tossing out smart as comments as appropriate and offering to watch over our dog while we went on an outing to see Gayle’s sister’s new puppies.
Which explains why we now have two dogs. Two-week old Labrador puppies are hard to argue with.
They have been part of our holiday gestalt for a long time. Since that first Thanksgiving when their eldest son sat next to me at my new in-laws, a sixteen year old wise man, and gave me the wink that he “knew”. There was the year that I was literally insanely pregnant, it could be done. That family life could work. There was the year they came to our house and I fixed pork chops, and Carl (chef extraordinaire) raved about my cooking. He is a true gentleman.
Heck, their sons helped us move into our house. Carl came out and supervised them, making sure his teenage boys did what they were supposed to and earned the modest amount we paid them.
We never felt like there was any problem with our being lesbians. We were just folks, like them, trying to raise our kids. Carl treated me like a lady, which is a stretch, and my wife like on of the boys, which isn’t. Even in her teens he was an influence, taking her on a motorcycle ride for the first time.
Boy did he start something!
It was just last May when out of the blue he had a seizure and they discovered the brain tumors. And then the lung cancer. And then the rest. He didn’t feel sick. He didn’t believe it could be true. How could someone who felt so good have only six months to live?
They decided to fight it, and had to come to Portland for treatment. Which gave us at least a little opportunity to repay the ample kindness they’ve shown us. We have an apartment in our basement that we’ve rented for six years to make ends meet. In April our renter bought a house and moved out and we decided to keep it for ourselves. It was meant to be. In May, we were able to offer Gayle and Carl the use of it during his treatment. It was really only a couple of weeks in all, but hard ones for them. Carl became sick with the radiation and never really bounced back form it. I left them alone, trying not to hover or interfere, worried that I wasn’t doing enough, that I could do something more to help. It was only when they were getting ready to go home that Carl brought up his seclusion. He was feeling better that day, and a little chatty, and while the kids were rolling on the floor with some balls and talking to Gayle he turned to me. He said he was sorry he hadn’t visited us more while they were staying, but that the radiation affected his moods, and he didn’t know if he could hold it together in front of the kids, that he might say something. And he didn’t want to do that. He had tears in his eyes, the cancer taking away all the emotional filters we use to keep us going, to keep our vulnerability at bay. At his most vulnerable he was thinking of others.
Cancer is such a thief. Stealing Carl away he’s done enjoying life, done spending time with his now grown boys, done teaching me about dignity and integrity in teh face of an insurmountable foe, done teaching our son about what it is to be a man, a father. There are many more tears to come.