Renee Rocks

My, my. Sitting in my living room on the Saturday after this Thanksgiving, this post that I wrote two years ago popped up in my blog memories. 1,863 …

The Last Thanksgiving ? (Not)

My, my. Sitting in my living room on the Saturday after this Thanksgiving, this post that I wrote two years ago popped up in my blog memories.

My granddaughter just turned three. She has a baby brother who is six months old. My older grandsons are now eleven and fifteen. No one in my family has died since I wrote this blog. But this year marks the ninth anniversary of Michael’s death. That is impossible for me to believe and yet, that’s reality. I am quite obviously, still here at age 74. I’m glad that I write, that my memory still works well and that I still reflect on the ways of all things. Here’s that post from two years ago…

This year, I have a brand-new granddaughter as the holiday season begins.

My grandsons are 8 and 12 years old. Since the birth of the eldest one, my brother, my mother, my husband and my older sister have died. Of my family of origin, only my younger sister and I are still alive.

I’ve had three dogs die in the past 12 years, not to mention a number of friends who checked out way too early, in my opinion. I’ve lived longer than my dad and my husband, both gone at age 67. My brother was my age when he died. I think more about the uncertainty of the future than I once did. I try to be aware of my moments and to take advantage of the opportunities to share experiences with my family and friends. I wonder if I’ll live long enough for my new little girl to have real memories of me after I’m gone. What if this is my last Thanksgiving?

Thanksgiving was traditionally the favorite holiday in my family of origin. All about the great food and good company, absent the pressure of gift-giving or rituals outside our own, everyone was primed to simply enjoy ourselves. When we were kids, my parents always hosted the gathering. My uncle and his family who lived in Chicago, always shared that day, along with my grandparents. These gatherings were boisterous. We had freewheeling conversations which covered a lot of ground, from the personal to the political. We always sang, preferably songs that allowed everyone to belt out their parts in harmonies. After beginning our relationship, Michael and I attempted to alternate between our two families for Thanksgiving but we only made it to one stiff dinner with his parents before we abandoned that plan. My family didn’t celebrate Christmas so we saw his parents in December instead. The fact is, my crowd, despite being far from perfect, was certainly a lot more fun than his. My quiet guy routinely remarked over the years, that no matter how many people died, the decibel level at my family’s Thanksgiving was always the same. I think that was a fair assessment. The more introverted additions to our family were best-served by taking small mental health breaks from the intense intimacy of the rest of us.

I remember the one year my brother got into a significant and painful confrontation about his past with my parents, who promptly cancelled our upcoming Thanksgiving dinner. I was furious, as was my sister. That year I hosted the holiday, inviting her and a group of random friends to my house, foreshadowing for the almost thirty five years that we became the permanent hosts of the holiday, I suppose. We hosted the first family event at our home when I was thirty, just a few months after our daughter was born. I had a miserable virus, but I desperately wanted to signal my readiness to be more than a guest at that point. I’d stepped into my new role as a mom and wanted to establish our own traditions in our little family, embracing my origins, but also advancing our differences from the prior “kid” role. The following year, we went back up to Chicago, this time to my brother’s home. But his marriage was soon to come apart and from then on, our house was the destination. Within five years of our daughter’s birth, my parents had moved to our town. Going forward, our holidays were a mixture of family and friends.

Despite the peculiar and untrue traditional perceptions about the meaning of Thanksgiving, a whitewashed version of relationships between Native Americans and white settlers, the classic principles about taking a break from daily life to ponder gratitude and the positive parts of our existence were always important to Michael and me. We considered ourselves lucky to have a home, healthy kids, and a long-lasting powerful love affair. Sharing that emotional bounty with people, along with some seriously delicious food was a really satisfying experience.

Over the thirty-five years that we hosted this event, we had a core group of family in attendance. Sometimes more far-flung relatives joined us along with a revolving crew of their significant others. Neighbors and their families, co-workers with their spouses and kids, gathered around the tables with our kids’ college friends and roommates. People with no relatives nearby, found an extra chair squeezed in between others. Best buddies from school life, back in town to visit their families, often showed up to snag dessert. We still sang, often accompanied by guitars that someone had picked up along their way.

I can’t remember what the first Thanksgiving without my dad was like in 1989. That was an incredible year, Michael being elected to the city council in spring, both my parents diagnosed with cancer in early summer, Michael with back surgery in August followed by dad’s death in September. I know it happened. More memorable was Thanksgiving, 2010, two months after my first grandson was born. New life. At that time, I thought of nothing but what I believed would a rich future with our growing family, rolling out years into the decades beyond.

In April of 2012, Michael was diagnosed with the rare and deadly Merkel cell cancer. We were shocked and terrified. After an extensive head and neck surgery in May, coupled with 30 radiation treatments, he recovered from his treatment and was given a protocol of being examined every three months. He had one full body scan in November. The results were negative and that year, we were deeply grateful at our traditional Thanksgiving dinner. Our local team of doctors, along with the specialist we’d consulted were pleased with his progress. Merkel cell usually reappeared in the same area as the original lesion which for Michael, was on his face. His skin remained clear. In June, 2013, at a consultation with his doctors, we requested another scan. Subsequent scans were not included for his Merkel cell cancer stage which seemed crazy to us, given its lethal reputation. After much wrangling, the doctors ordered a scan for November, a year after his first and only one. The return date was November 8th with a doctor’s consult scheduled for November 12th. I wasn’t home for the scan. My family and that of our close friends, had arranged for a weekend getaway, with me and the wife in that family, surprised by a spa adventure. The husband in that crew had been through a bone marrow transplant following his diagnosis with a lethal form of leukemia. Everyone encouraged us to enjoy a brief restorative experience after the brutal stress we’d endured. I was uncomfortable with leaving. I called Michael to see if he’d gotten any results but there was nothing but a phone call moving his November 12th appointment to the 11th. I was home for that one in which we received the devastating news that his scan showed widespread cancerous lesions on over a dozen bones. We were transferred from the care of his head and neck surgeon to oncology. His prognosis was 2-3 months survival absent chemotherapy with perhaps one year possible if he survived the powerful treatment cocktail he would have to endure. Our daughter was expecting a second child in January. We weren’t certain if Michael would be alive to meet that baby.

By the end of that week, Michael had retired from his teaching position with our family going with him to empty his school classroom. The next question was whether or not to have our usual Thanksgiving gathering. Certainly there would be nothing usual about it. We were certain this would be the last Thanksgiving we’d share as our whole family. The concept of Michael’s future absence was a heavy emotional load. In the end, we decided that the opportunity for everyone to join us and to say a potential farewell was the right thing to do. We had a big crowd. I remember sleepwalking through the food preparation, being astonished at how normal and delicious everything tasted. We cried in the street with our neighbor family immersed in similar grief and anxiety. While we cried we experienced simultaneous wonder at how normal everything seemed. The last Thanksgiving. At least that’s what we thought.

Fortunately for us all, 2013 wasn’t our last family Thanksgiving. Michael survived for three more years, three more wonderful November celebrations. After his remarkable five year run he died in May, 2017. Those years changed the way I look at time. Although I always knew that living in the moment is the only way to go, with each passing year, I’ve grown more aware of how how quickly life passes. At almost 72, I’m still supposed to have more life ahead of me. But who knows? Maybe I do or maybe I don’t. I no longer host Thanksgiving dinner. I passed that torch to my daughter and son-in-law in 2017. Still, I prepare my dishes to bring with me and look forward to the familial time, despite missing Michael.

When it’s all said and done, I hope that if indeed, I don’t make it to the next one, that I’ll have used my time wisely. When I had my kids, every year on their birthdays until they were eighteen, I wrote each of them a letter, detailing the big and small events of their lives. At eighteen they both got their stacks of memories. I’ve done 12 for my oldest grandson and will present the 8th to my youngest one in January. I’ve already started the first one for my granddaughter. If I’m not here in the flesh I guess that whatever I write, for however long, will have to do.

The lemon tart, my most favorite dessert, which up until recently, I hadn’t tasted for many years. This is its story. I realize that associating …

The Taste of Memory

I realize that associating taste with memory might seem odd. But the truth is, the longer I live, the more complex the interactions between my five senses and the other parts of my brain appear to be. And I’m not alone, as many others also have interesting neurological connections between their sensory experiences. The term synesthesia, for example, is considered a real condition in which there is a transference between the senses. A person who listens to music sees colors. Another might taste words. Sometimes a number may always be perceived as a specific color. The examples of synesthesia are endless and are one of life’s fascinating mysteries.

But I digress. I can explain how I arrived at this particular experience of tasting my memories, which was an unexpected bonus when dining at my favorite local restaurant.

A couple of weeks ago, the above notice appeared in both my local newspaper and on my social media. Although I fully understand the impermanence of businesses, after seeing so many disappear during my lifetime, I found this one to be truly upsetting. I really have no idea how many times I’ve dined at this place throughout the years. The restaurant was family-operated. The patriarch, Ray, Sr., was a prominent landowner in town, whose Italian grandparents inspired him to begin his first food venture, a small tavern in this university community. That ultimately became a highly successful restaurant, known for its thin crust pizza and delicious Italian beef sandwiches. One of his sons managed that business. Unfortunately that son had serious personal issues which ultimately led to the closure of the tavern-style restaurant after a long successful run. The other, more high-end restaurant was run by his other son, a chef who trained at a school in Italy, and who often came out of his kitchen to chat with his customers about what they thought of his menu offerings. That is the one that will be closing soon.

For over three decades, I was the chief assessment official for commercial property in my city, determining the value upon which the often unpopular property tax was based. This role laid the foundation for a somewhat adversarial relationship between me and Ray, the restaurant founder, a dynamic, blunt man who complained a lot about his property taxes. But while we haggled and disagreed, we also developed a pleasant personal relationship, during which he told me lots of family stories, including the one about his grandmother teaching him how to make the pizza dough which was still used in the pies at both his local restaurants.

Starting in the late ‘70’s, my husband Michael and I became patrons of both restaurants. The tavern-like one was more affordable for us, which we often frequented on Friday nights, splitting salads and a pizza after work. By the time we were into the ‘80’s, we were customers at the more expensive one for special occasions like birthdays and anniversaries. In the ‘90’s, we’d had our kids. During those years, Michael was a city alderman with a public presence in our community. When we were our and about in the community, including when dining at restaurants, he was frequently recognized and engaged in conversations about issues before the city council. That’s how we initially met Ray, Jr. Ray’s wife Ginger was the genius pastry chef who created that fabulous lemon tart I loved so dearly.

Later on, our youngest child played baseball on a team with Ray Jr.’s kid, eventually strengthening our connection with is family. In addition to eating at their restaurant, Ray and Ginger provided the food for the end-of-the-year parties for the team. What a great bonus for everyone involved with that group.

Over time, whenever there was a family gathering with relatives visiting from afar, our one fancy night out together was at Ray’s restaurant. But more often, I’d have lunch there with my office mates. After my dad died in 1989, my mom, sister and I celebrated birthdays there. When my daughter began practicing law, lucky enough to be in her hometown, she often joined us for these lunches. One time, the four of us were sharing a birthday meal, when to my dismay, I discovered that the lemon tarts weren’t available that day. When Ginger found out I was in the restaurant and disappointed, she went into the kitchen, whipped up four tarts and presented them to me in a take-home box. That was one of the most thoughtful favors I was ever lucky enough to receive.

Time seems to fly away. The kids were suddenly adults, off doing their own lives. My daughter married and had first one kid and then another. My son completed a PhD and post-docs which took him abroad for long periods of time. My mother died in 2015. Michael began a five year tangle with a lethal cancer in 2012. On May 1st that year, we had what we thought was our last anniversary dinner at Ray’s. A somber affair at that time, we went on to get several more of those anniversary dinners before he died in May, 2017. Ginger, the pastry wizard, died the following February. That was the end of the lemon tarts.

Then in the fall of 2021, while we all navigated the pandemic, my son brought home the lovely woman he’d met while working abroad. About seven months later, they were married in our parlor, my daughter their officiant, with family, a few friends and many Zoom attendees, given the health constraints of those times. Afterward the ceremony, we took our group to a private room at Ray’s for another special time in the long line of celebratory family dinners at our favorite restaurant.

In recent years, I’ve still frequented Ray’s, mostly for dinner with my daughter and/or sister, and an occasional one with Joanne. These evenings usually occur before a concert or other event at our local arts facility which is located only a block away.

While there I often engage in conversation with the wait staff in this intimate setting. During the past few months, I found out that one waiter, Jim, is also the current pastry chef. Employed in the kitchen for almost thirty years, he’s done almost everything from food prep to serving. But he spoke fondly about working with Ginger who taught him everything about desserts. These talks naturally elicited my stories about the lemon tarts. About two months ago, Jim told me that if I gave him two days’ notice, he’d whip one up for me. I thought that was such a kind offer which I tucked into the back of my mind. A good thing to know for the future. But when I read the announcement about the upcoming closing, I thought, “time to make some farewell reservations, and maybe, just maybe, make that lemon tart request.

When I walked into the restaurant in the early evening of November 15th, my eyes immediately sought the wall-mounted chalkboard where the evening’s specials were always posted. There below the salads and entrees were the words “lemon tart.” I can’t describe how I felt in that moment. A few brief encounters with Jim were enough to motivate him to pull out Ginger’s wonderful recipe, just for me. So, so special. When the host seated me, I told him who I was; he was actually the person who’d taken my request over the phone. My sister arrived and we ordered our dinner, splitting two of our favorite dishes, one of which was a special that night, the traditional Italian beef, and the other, the famous thin crust pizza. I also had the salad-to-die-for, the arugula and goat cheese, which my daughter says she hopes to snag the recipe for, when we go back for our final dinner. But the lemon tart…

Meanwhile, it seemed as if every person seated near us that evening was either a friend or acquaintance. I told all of them the lemon tart story and encouraged everyone to order one. When dessert time came, Jim emerged from the kitchen and came to our table. He told me he was nervous because he hadn’t made the tart in such a long time, and that he felt Ginger looking over his shoulder all through the preparation that afternoon. And he promised, that if it wasn’t as good as I remembered, he’d do it again if I came back. We held each other’s hands for a few seconds before he had to dash back into the kitchen. What a magical moment.

Everyone around us was indeed, ordering lemon tarts. The man at the table next to me got his before I got mine. I told him that the chef was worried about how good the tarts would taste and asked if he had any complaints. He said, “only one – I wish it was bigger.” Then the waiter brought our tarts to my sister and me. I took my first bite and immediately had to pause. I took the photo at the top of this tale, a rare moment for me as I am not generally a foodie interested in displaying meals of any sort. But this one was different and memorable. As I said earlier, from that first bite to the last, my mind was flooded with images and moments from all the times I’d tasted this dessert before. What stunning memories, from raucous laughter, to frustrated tears, to sexy foot games under the tablecloth, intimacy to annoyance, friendship to caregiving, sentimentality to distance, all right on the tip of my tongue and in brilliant visualizations. Simultaneously as real as can be and also, utterly ghostly. An unforgettable experience. I’ve tried to think of an image that would help describe it. I came up with this photo of the blanket/tapestry given to Michael and me by my niece at Thanksgiving, 2013, scant weeks after we received the news that his brief cancer remission was over, his prognosis grim. Our life together, all in one place. That’s what my brain tasted through the tartness of lemon. All of it. Pure and simple magic.

Today is Albert’s birthday. I’ve always remembered it since I learned what day it was, way back in 1969. Like many numbers, birthdays seem to get stuck in my memory. Many of them make no sense to me, as the people whose special days I remember are often those I haven’t seen since I was a child in elementary school. My memory remains a mysterious creature. Anyway…I actually haven’t laid eyes on Albert since 1974. I came dangerously close to seeing him in 1975 when I was on a trip in California, visiting my friend Fern. Seeing her was wonderful, but the subtext of this vacation was me deciding if Michael was really the right person for me to be with for the rest of my life. Al was my first big love, after some innocent high school crushes. Our three year on and off love story was twisty, painful, ecstatic, tempestuous and often brutal. Being with him almost broke me. I know that I was often exhausted, insecure and filled with self-loathing during that time. For years I thought if I could wait out his immaturity and reluctance to be in a committed relationship at too early an age, we’d wind up together. Letting go of that fantasy was a difficult process for me which eventually got easier when I made my cosmic friendship connection with Michael in 1971. After eight months of that soothing, burgeoning bond, I finally broke away from Al as I ultimately transitioned with Michael from best friends into life partners. But that wasn’t easy for me.

I have always made intense connections with people. Keeping them is a theme in my life. I am loyal while at the same time, quite cautious about who I’ll trust. For the most part, if I’ve felt emotionally betrayed, I’ll walk away and never look back. But walking away from my first true love was a big ask for me. I’d always felt like love wasn’t the problem between Al and me. We weren’t able to get past what felt, at least to me, was simply bad timing. The rule was, you weren’t supposed to have too-serious romantic relationships in college, at least that was the rule for him. There was a constant push-pull between us which was torturous for me. But I always loved him. My ultimate separation from him was both an intellectual and emotional decision. I knew I could never trust him after all the havoc he’d caused with my sense of security during our time together. And I’d found a healthier, more secure passion with Michael. Even with Michael, though, I took several years trying to be sure we could navigate our differences. During that California trip, Al, with whom I still communicated, finally felt ready to be with me, years after our breakup. He used all his sway to convince me to travel from San Francisco where I was with Fern, to Los Angeles where he was completing a PhD and preparing for law school. He wanted an opportunity to convince me that we should give ourselves one more chance to see if we could go forward together. Thankfully, I understood that seeing him again, no matter what the outcome, would be a crushing blow to Michael and me. Despite that first love mystique that still had some meaning for me, I had just enough good sense to say no to a visit. I wasn’t willing to risk what I’d found with Michael for a dramatic whim. I returned home having avoided my sentimental impulse. Michael and I were married the following year. I never regretted my decision.

Over the years, being well-loved by Michael went a long way in healing the scars on my psyche which had so changed me during that tumultuous time with Albert. I moved on with my life and was glad I’d been so lucky. I saw myself as a survivor of reckless, immature mental abuse. Being whole, despite that reality, was a win. I didn’t ever forget Al but I didn’t talk to him again for thirteen years. The next time I contacted him was when my beloved Fern died. Back in college, she’d been in love with Al’s college roommate for a few years and I wanted to find him, to let him know of her death. When I called Al, his wife answered the phone. I identified myself by name, adding that I was an old college friend. When Al came to the phone, he sounded excited. I heard him say, “yes, Leslie, it’s that Renee.” I was so stunned. In all the years since he’d been out of my life, I’d never once thought of him telling anyone, wife included, anything about our past history. Perspective is fascinating. I was wounded enough to believe that despite the power of our feelings, I was the only one who walked away from our relationship with real pain and damage. That phone call was a jolt. I could tell immediately that he was way too interested in prolonging our conversation, that his marriage was probably in trouble, and that as a feminist, I never wanted to undermine another woman who was in a bad spot. When we hung up the phone, I understood that I couldn’t be Al’s old friend. After 1988, I didn’t communicate with him for a few decades. Years later, a mutual acquaintance told me Al had since divorced and remarried. He also said that he was markedly changed and quite unlike the person we knew when he was young.
Then, sometime in the mid-2000’s, I opened Facebook and found myself staring at his still-recognizable face. The algorithms which suggest friends to you was possibly the reason for his sudden appearance in my feed, but after checking him out, I realized we had no friends in common. So I sent him a friendly, chatty note, saying I was surprised he’d reached out to look for me, along with some details about my current life. And just like that, he vanished as suddenly as he’d shown up. I could only assume he wasn’t savvy about how the platform worked and was embarrassed to be “discovered.” I never heard anything further from him and never found him again. My life was full and busy so on I went. Subsequently, my mom’s needs, my kids’ needs and ultimately, Michael’s cancer blotted thoughts of Al out of my mind. Still, every year, I always remembered his birthday.

In the spring of 2017, as Michael’s health steadily declined and he spent a great deal of time sleeping, I began sorting out papers and memorabilia from our past to prepare for what I’d decided would be more an exhibit of Michael’s interesting life iterations, rather than a traditional celebration. During the hours selecting what treasures I’d use for his event, I found a few pieces of writing from Al to me, written in the early ‘70’s. I decided to write him a note, explaining what was going on with Michael and to ask him if he was interested in seeing those interesting epistles he’d written so long ago. His response was polite; he wished me luck and said he wasn’t great at connecting with the past. The blur of Michael’s death and the next several months left little time to dwell on that. But near the end of the year, I sent Al a note explaining why I’d initiated contact with him years earlier and abruptly ended it. I thought that at this time in our lives, after decades apart, we might have at least some sort of connection. As people have disappeared from my life and knowing that the future holds more and more loss, I thought there was value in keeping in touch with those who’d once been so significant in my world. That met with a really negative response from him.

A while later, my old friend Brenda sent me the photo of me and Al on the front steps of the student union on campus, taken on the first day we’d gotten to know each other. In the spring of 2018, I sent him the photos and got a thank you email. I thought I’d ask if perhaps we might stay in touch after all but was rebuked by an abrupt response which made it clear that I should go back where I came from. I wrote him a response expressing my surprise that after over 50 years, even minimal contact was more than he could manage, but that I would honor his feelings. I thought for a long time about all the unknown but clearly negative emotions I seemed to elicit from him. For so long I thought I was the damaged party in our relationship but clearly, my view was too self-focused. His desire to leave everything back in that old time still seems weird to me and is really the only instance in which I’ve been unable to share a few memories with an important person from my past. I haven’t reached out to him since then. Sometimes I wonder if he’s still alive or if I’ll ever know if he’s dead. I find that idea that he could simply no longer exist without my knowing to be unnerving and creepy. For some reason, it just feels wrong. But oh well. I guess I’ll just continue to remember his birthday without ever acknowledging it until either my memory fades or I’m gone myself. In the end, I suppose our differences were always as serious from our very beginning as they proved to be late in our lives.

After resigning myself to this apparently forever loose end in my life, I’m somehow left with the lyrics of the Rolling Stones’ classic, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” tumbling through my mind. Indeed, I don’t get what I wanted in this instance. But I still can get what I need, at least some of the time. In this particular fall season of my life and on a distinctly more positive note, I’d had great concerns about whether this year’s dry, hot summer would devolve into a drab autumn. In early October, trees were either still green or just beginning to go brown, without the glorious colors which are so dazzling and a major highlight of the four-season area of this country. Thankfully, the past few weeks have brought a brilliant show to my designated tree city, one which is known for its wide variety of specimens. I’ll end with some of my favorite photos I’ve taken recently which always make the coming winter easier to bear.

Nature is a great balm for the life’s discomforts. I’m glad I get this beauty. Just what I need.

Right now, I have a number of friends and family members who are coping with cancer. It’s been 13 years since Michael’s initial diagnosis of Merkel …

Cancer in the Corners

Right now, I have a number of friends and family members who are coping with cancer. It’s been 13 years since Michael’s initial diagnosis of Merkel cell carcinoma and 8 years since his death. Those numbers seem so hard to believe as memories of those days are still so vivid. My conversations with those still coping with the morass of cancer led me back to these posts that I was writing to describe our experiences from back then. Maybe a few people will find something that resonates…

After completing a cancer treatment, our local oncology department has a tradition of having the departing patient ring a bell to signify the end of an arduous journey. Michael just wanted to get away and head into his old life. I don’t think he really believed that this radiation had cured him and he was anxious to get to get back to school, feeling like he wanted to attack all the work that he so very much wanted to do. “I’m not done yet, he’d say.” But he rang the bell anyway. He was also given the option of saving the hard facial mask he’d donned thirty times. That went straight into the garbage. He said he never wanted to see it again and would never use another one, ever. I think it may have been the first time he’d admitted how incredibly hard it had been for him to be bolted underneath that thing all those days. I thought it was positively medieval although I understood its real purpose.

We were now in the waiting period between treatment and the next scan. During the fall of 2012, the worst side effects of the radiation diminished and Michael regained weight and strength. Always an avid exerciser, he went back to running and biking.

Those hard, scary months between May and August receded into the past, rapidly replaced by what had been our normal life for so much longer. But there were subtle differences that we were aware of every day. Now cancer was lurking in the corners of our world, shadowing us, no matter what we were doing. I suspect there are some people who would go forward feeling that they’d put the trauma behind them, papering over the bad memories as fast as they could. With a diagnosis like Merkel cell, that was virtually impossible for us to do. We knew there had been metastasis, albeit a small one. But that fact was impossible for us to completely ignore. Michael, always the quieter of the two of us, was better at acting like our world was unchanged. Not me. As long as we’d be living on a three month check-up routine, both with his surgeon and our dermatologist, I was like the dog with the bone, gnawing away at this mysterious invader, trying to get a handle on what might lie ahead for us. I was already undone by the first misstep in our road, the fact that Michael could have swapped his dermatology appointment for mine which had been over a month earlier. I’d made the offer to him to switch his with mine but he didn’t realize that anything scarier than melanoma was out there.

His lesion was small and very different looking than melanoma. When we learned about MCC, one of its benchmarks was the speed with which it grew. I’ll always wonder if that extra month would have made the difference in stopping the cancer from exploiting those 2 little metastatic lymph nodes out of all 66 that he’d had removed. Only two. I have to smack myself in the head and say, spilt milk. Can’t go backwards, only ahead. After that early quick research that I’d done after the initial diagnosis, my studying took on a whole new life. An English major, I hadn’t spent much time immersed in science although I did love biology and the natural world. Because my mom had been sick so often in my life, I’d learned a lot about what can happen in our bodies and had gone through breast, thyroid and bladder cancer, respectively, with both my parents . 

Knowledge was my antidote to fear and anxiety. This MCC beast was no garden variety cancer. So I buckled up and took the plunge into the real science you could dig for on the Internet. I used PubMed a lot to read about studies, experiments and theories. I read about clinical trials and joined groups whose topics were neuroendocrine cancers. I dug through every website that referred to Merkel cell. When I didn’t understand the scientific language, I looked it all up. Surprisingly, I started getting comfortable in what early in my life, had seemed an inaccessible part of the world. I also saw the names and locations of the doctors and research facilities that popped up regularly, the people who were focusing on Michael’s disease. This was a delicate time for us. Michael moved slowly in life while I tended to zip along fast. The amount of information I was accumulating would consume me as I cast about for answers. I needed to be careful not to overwhelm him and his very different approach to this nagging fear we had.

What seemed to work best was when I would come up with some practical things for him to do, like taking immune-boosting supplements and trying to get him to compromise about the crazy long hours he worked. That was a big issue between us. He was so in love with teaching that he worked every night until midnight or one a.m. and then got up at 6, generally arriving at school by 7 and staying until 4 p.m. He’d come home, take a short nap, eat dinner and start all over again. I argued with him about this schedule which I thought would be arduous for someone half his age. But he was stubborn and relentless and I attempted to keep my mouth shut to avoid stress between us. At least when I could. I knew he was mustering his resources internally for whatever lay ahead. He simply had a different style than me, not surprising after all our decades together. I was usually stamping my foot at the finish line while he meandered slowly along the road.

Meanwhile, fall moved along. He had a check-up in September and then the first big deal, a PET/CAT scan scheduled for November 8th. Having had no systemic treatment, this was scary, as any random cells that could have moved through his lymphatic system or bloodstream would have had an opportunity to grow. Such anxiety. We had to wait a few days for the results which was really hard. Life feels so out of control during those waits, which it always actually is, but this extra load felt so heavy. Eventually the surgeon himself called with the results, elated because the scans were clean. We were so relieved and yet, very cautious. MCC tends to return in the same vicinity in which it was first detected. Michael was being examined in his head and neck area. But he had a 6’4″ body with lots of room for nasty cancer cells to hide. I was not content. But for this time he was okay. He and I were learning to live in our moments, rather than planning too far ahead. We had our usual family gathering for Thanksgiving, Michael’s favorite holiday. We’d had to cancel a trip to Sanibel Island that we had planned for June, 2012, right after his diagnosis. We rescheduled it for June, 2013.

In December, 2012, we headed to Starved Rock for what had become an annual holiday trip for us and our kids. I don’t recall who went that year but we did and we savored every moment, from the hiking in the woods, to our favorite room in the lodge, to the big dining room fireplace and the homemade fudge. We swam in the big pool encircled by tall glass windows so you can watch the snow fall while you’re being beachy. We lolled in the hot tub. We came back to share our annual New Year’s Eve dinner with our family and friends at Biaggi’s boisterous restaurant. And then it was 2013.

Michael continued his 3 month checkups. I was still taking care of our grandson, so I didn’t join him for most of those 3-month appointments until a meeting in June, 2013, which included our entire medical team, the surgeon, the oncologist and the radiation oncologist. This meeting was an annual event provided for any patient who was still negative for disease after treatment. Interesting cases like Michael’s were routinely discussed at our clinic’s tumor board so that new perspectives and ideas could be shared. We had a new, younger radiation oncologist at this confab, as our original one required a kidney transplant and was off with his own issues. I’d had a whole year to do research and I walked into that room loaded with ideas and questions. Michael let me run point on this because I do well in confrontations. The conversation kicked off with our surgeon being pleased at Michael’s stability and progress. We even had a letter from our Dr. Chris Bichakjian, an MCC specialist in Michigan, who felt that since Michael was a year out from his initial diagnosis, his odds of surviving MCC were as high as 70%. But then there was me. I couldn’t understand the protocols for treatment. To me, a protocol meant that if you employed a series of measures, you could expect a cure, an absence of disease. But MCC was incurable. To me, that translated into the fact that if you were lucky and fell in the center of a bell curve, you could have certain expectations. But that’s not how cancer works for everyone. I was frustrated that Michael hadn’t been scanned since November of 2012. I asked the team how often melanoma patients were given PET/CT scans. They responded with “every three months.” If Michael’s cancer was so much more lethal, then why wasn’t he being scanned that frequently? Their answer was that only one post-surgical scan was recommended by the protocol. Around and around we went. I noticed that the new young radiation oncologist was sizing me up. His name is Dr. Sinisa Stanic. He finally proposed a compromise, a follow-up scan in November, 2013, a year from Michael’s last one. He said, let’s do this for peace of mind. I wasn’t exactly happy but this was better than nothing. I realized that doctors like staying in their proscribed lines. They need them to keep things stable, to give themselves a structure in which to manage what is basically the wild west, the individuality of a patient’s response. In my regular I was always pushing outside the lines, casting boundaries aside. I think that’s what advocates should be doing anyway. In any case, we scheduled scans for November 8th, 2013, an exact year from the last one.

School ended for Michael and we took off for Sanibel, at long last. I had the summer to care for my grandson who was scheduled to start day care in August at just under three years old.

He was ready and I was grateful to have been able to complete my commitment to my kids. In the meantime, my daughter was pregnant again and I would have a few months off before becoming a caregiver again. I had moved my mom into an assisted living facility and she was as okay as she could be.

I wished living together had worked out but the combination of everyone’s needs, including mine, was just too much. After our Florida trip, our whole family released our collective breaths and tried to enjoy being together with our relative good news. The next big event would happen in November. I was still in my mental trench, studying, learning more.

Michael was in his summer mode, exercising, gardening and tweaking his classes for the following year. Our relationship was strong and intimate, peppered by our life-long issues of different style and speed modes, but resilient. We made a good team and we moved forward.

Me and Michael, 1972, at the wedding of our friends, Pam and Rich. I wish the photo from that 1972 wedding showed more details of my floor-length …

The Way of the World

I wish the photo from that 1972 wedding showed more details of my floor-length dress, which for several years, was the one I wore to all the formal events in my life. The fabric was crepe, the soft kind, colored blue/gray, with watercolor-like yellow and orange flowers splashed like modern art in its haphazard way, from bodice to ankle. The neckline was plunging because why not? That style was flattering for my frame. Wearing this dress was one of the first things I remembered when I got a text message yesterday, from my friend Brian, who was informing me that our old pal Allan had died. These days, messages and phone calls like that are arriving more frequently. Aging will do that. The “way of the world,” as I wrote to my other friends, Maurine and Mark, with whom I was discussing this latest death. But back to the dress story.

If only I’d had the presence of mind to carry a camera with me to so many memorable occasions from what I guess I’d now have to call the olden days. Although I’m sure that someone, somewhere has photos of me, or Michael and me, stashed in a fifty year old album in perhaps a closet, I only have the mental snapshots of these gatherings from back in the day. I suppose I’m lucky to have as many as I do. My dress and I were invited to the wedding of Paul and Mary Jean, in or near Chicago, in what I think was mid-February, 1977. Michael was a groomsman. So was Allan. Their guy crew was boisterous, to say the least, primed to party well before the march down the aisle ever began. When that procession started, the wedding party was making their way, for the most part, quite successfully, to join the bride and groom at the altar. That is, except for Allan, who had passed his alcohol/drug consumption limit well before the main event and subsequently, crashed to the floor in the midst of everyone. A flurry and scramble ensued to rouse him and get him to his feet. Quite simply, he was heavily intoxicated. I’m pretty sure he didn’t make it down the rest of the aisle. When the ceremony ended, I remember Michael scooping me up, pretty high himself, and flush with the romance of it all. We’d been married the previous May, and despite five years of living together, were still in a honeymoon phase. At least usually…On this night I myself was mostly normal, never having been a big drinker or stoner, despite the celebratory event. I think I always felt best when I had my wits about me. And therefore I was selected to drive Allan, in his car, back to Urbana, 130 miles south, where I could drop him off at the McKinley Health Center, a student service at the University of Illinois.

Allan was always a bit of a hypochondriac. He carried a smallish leather bag, similar to a cosmetics carryall, only his was filled with prescription bottles and health supplements, none of which stopped him from hammering himself with drugs and alcohol. I keep thinking how that night we were all worried about whether he had epilepsy, but I’m not sure he was ever actually diagnosed with any medical disorder. In any case, I was really nervous about that drive, on a cold, wintry night with a person who was periodically awake or periodically passing out next to me in the front seat. Would we make it home with Allan in one piece, albeit a marginally okay one? Well, of course we did. I can still feel myself watching him as he stumbled toward the entrance of McKinley, on Lincoln Avenue, a bit wobbly but assuring me he could get himself admitted, to be held for observation for at least a day. An unforgettable experience.

I have more memories of Allan than that one. For a period of time we revolved into and out of each other’s lives. He was in relationships with some of my friends. He was a musician and our social group often attended his concerts. He had a dry sense of humor and sometimes could be quite caustic. One evening when he was again intoxicated, he made a physical advance toward me which was out of line and also stupid, as I’d been with Michael for years. Those are the images I remember most. Eventually he moved to Chicago, went to law school and had a life. Over the years I saw him infrequently, when we’d head to the city for visits with family and friends. But in truth, our friendship became more peripheral to my life as I was busy having children. And all that is entailed by that life change makes socializing with dozens of people, especially those who don’t live nearby, tough to manage. My crowd was thinning. Eventually Allan moved to California which is where he died. Although I hadn’t seen him in a long time, he still remains stitched into the tapestry of my life that extends out behind me. The fabric that still lies before me has a smaller population than there once was – that’s the way of the world.

I’m not new to the absences of friends and loved ones. The parade of my losses runs on a path parallel to the weavings of my life. My baby cousin Iris, dead when I was 13. My cousins Eliot and Dennis, both dead by suicide, in their 20’s. The tragedy of my beloved friend Fern’s death at 37, after being close for 30 years, can still wrack me with grief. My grandparents, parents, brother and sister, aunts and uncles are lost to me now. Julie and Pat, the women who along with Maurine, were part of my posse, all the way through college and well into our 60’s, are both gone.

Me with Julie and Maurine, Summer 2018.

And the most intense passing for me of course, has been Michael, eight plus years ago, after being my life’s love for 45 years. I’m not sure I’ll ever become completely accustomed to his sorely missed physical presence. The more mystical inexplicable feelings, sensations and dreamlike moments involving him are a welcome mystery in my little universe.

My job is to go forward now, aware that fewer moments are ahead of me. I try to squeeze the most out I can get out of every day. None of us gets to know our destiny which I believe is probably a good thing. With time, more Allans’ deaths will be reported to me by someone or other. Except for the little bits of us in each other’s orbit that I remember about him and have chosen to share, everything between us would be unknown or forgotten in this complex existence. But in the end, I don’t believe that matters much. The truth is, we are all just passing through. Whether we consent or not, that’s just the way of the world. I’m getting accustomed to it.

Robert Redford – 1936 – 2025. Has there ever been a more beautiful grin? When I woke up two days ago, I checked my inbox as I always do, before I …

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