Cancer

“So. You have cancer. And it’s aggressive.”

Oh.

One of my doctors had just gotten the results of a test and called me at home. Results are on a scale of 1 to 10. They don’t worry about 2 and below. Anything above 2 is considered aggressive. I clocked in at 8.

I retired mid-December of last year.

Felt pretty good. I had gotten my sugar levels down and normalized my blood pressure.

Then there was a spike detected in my yearly physical in March. Since then, it’s been a rollercoaster for 3 months. Including the day we were called in for a consultation about the way forward.

As Judy quipped, “It’s not every day you get to find out whether you’re going to live or die.”

We had been on pins and needles for almost a month waiting for scan results. I tried to keep out negative thoughts, but I must admit I had several “losing my shit” moments that I tried to keep private.

Judy and I sat in a small room with 2 doctors.

The bottom line was: Surgery or die.

When Judy and I heard there was an option to not be dead, you could feel the mutual exhalation whoosh through the room.

So sometime after June 20th, I will have internal lesions removed. The good news is my prognosis is pretty darned good. The lesions are encapsulated by good tissue and if they get everything and my “edges are clean” as they say, I’ll be in okay shape. Might not even need radiation.

I would keep my fingers crossed, but it makes it harder to type.

A welcome side effect to being ill is people tend to circle the wagons. In less than a week, my 2 sons from my first marriage are coming to visit together. I haven’t seen Justin and Brandon in person for years. This past weekend, we drove with our 7-year-old granddaughter to North Carolina which takes 4 hours each way. We went to spend time with Judy’s son Adam who I consider one of my own. We hadn’t seen him in 3 years and we all just had the best time.

Adam shattered a kneecap a year ago when an 80-pound box of electrical equipment fell on him at his job. A year later, he’s still in serious discomfort. He can only drive for about 2 hours and that’s with a brace. He would have come to us, but no reason to make things more difficult. So we took a field trip. I was glad we did.

Like with most relationships, there have been serious bumps in the road. And then you get to this point where past transgressions dissolve in the face of wisdom. Sometimes you have to let shit go. On both sides. That’s always been a toughie for me. Hugs and a few misty eyes at the end.

On the drive home, I thought about my old friend Steve Jones who I hadn’t talked to in more than a handful of years. I thought to myself that I should contact him when we got home and use my cancer card as a wedge into starting a conversation.

I was dropping our bags in the bedroom when Judy called me from the computer room.

“There’s a message from Steve’s son. Steve’s dying.”

I got in touch with Kirb. “My Dad’s on a morphine drip.”

And then the hook I wasn’t expecting. “He just wants to hear your voice.”

When old VHS videotapes would wear from use, the sound was always the last thing to go. So while I am tough on the eyes as an older curmudgeon, the voice is relatively intact.

I am aware of the power of that instrument.

I don’t say that to be boastful. In fact, I used to hate my voice when I was a young man. Producer George Martin said John Lennon would often come to him in the studio and plead, “Do something with my voice!” One of the best and most distinct rock and roll singers hated the sound of what his fans thought was picture perfect.

I understood his sentiment. Sometimes your gifts have to be pointed out so you appreciate their import for others.

I can’t tell you how many hundreds of people whisking in and out of my life have said, “But then I heard your voice and I felt okay.”

I’ve been specifically selected several times for commercial voiceovers after businesses blindly listened to audio samples stacking me up again some pretty stiff competition.

“No. We want that one,” they’d say.

I’ve been invited to host on the radio.

I’ve been asked to do film narrations.

I’ve had directors and actors tell me I’m capable of casting a spell when I speak.

Hey. If you tell me something enough times, there’s a chance I might eventually catch on. You all have finally convinced me.

So here’s the thing about me and my voice. I know where all the dials are now. I can either be cooing into my little dog’s ear or I can go to eleven when I’m ordering a loose dog in the neighborhood to stop charging me. I’ve actually stopped dogs in their tracks when I turned up the volume and spiked commands with laser-focused intensity. And coupled with direct eye contact, I can make it work however I want to. It’s like a superpower almost.

Ninja audio, if you will.

So when Steve’s son told me his Dad really needed to hear my voice, I got it.

Anybody who’s ever been witness to the morphine drip process knows it’s a matter of days. Maybe only hours. I thought about trying to squeeze in a visit in person, but in my heart, I knew the voice would be enough. And that he probably wouldn’t live long enough if I flew out to Spokane.

So between Kirb and his sister Juli, on June 5th, we did a FaceBook video chat in the afternoon with Steve. He was unable to respond, but his eyes were open. As I studied his gaunt face, I looked for flickers of recognition. Nothing. But I talked anyway.

The fact of the matter is I’d been speaking to him ever since I got the news. I was telling him stories. Laughing. Crying. Telling him it was okay to let go if he needed to. All done telepathically.

Steve and I met when I was in my mid-20s, circa 1981. I’m guessing, but I think he was 8 or 9 years older than me. We were thrown together in a working environment and after some initial sparring, we became a house on fire. You talk about 2 people who were joined at the hip and felt like nothing was impossible – well, that was us.

Steve was brilliant at his work and I wasn’t too shabby myself. We were a dynamic duo and weren’t too shy about advertising. People knew we were coupled. And if you were part of the party, it was a fun place to be. But if you weren’t part of the solution, get out of the way. We didn’t take prisoners.

Being a couple of type-A dudes, we could clash. I mean, have serious arguments. Steve could be annoyingly temperamental. Even embarrassing. But I had a tendency to show my ass, too. We occasionally had such direct conversations in the office that coworkers thought we were duking it out. Yeah, we could flare up, but it was rare. And when the band was hitting all the strokes in concert, we were a powerhouse. 30 seconds after a blowout, we were laughing.

We became close best friends. Such good friends, that if only one of us had to travel for business, the one left behind was trusted with everyone’s kids.

We weren’t prone to drinking and driving, but once we settled in a room, we could drink oceans. Eat like there was no tomorrow. And we did. And we laughed. I loved every minute of it. We told each other personal things we’d never told anyone else. We spent countless nights sharing hotel rooms when we’d attend conferences. Thousands of conversations and whispers that are lost in the ether somewhere.

Steve was a person who taught me about not always following the rules. He wasn’t afraid to run his mouth and I wasn’t either. That can be a double-edged sword. Sometimes you get a lot done while others are clowning around and then other times, you might get in trouble. We were nicked by both sides of that sword. Sometimes we were praised, other times we got our hands slapped.

But we were in the thick together.

Friendships can drift apart and ours did. That’s the toll of geographical separation, marriages, whatever. I don’t even know how it started and then we just stopped talking.

And all of a sudden, all the grade school kids you watched for each other are in their 40s.

And then you get that message on FaceBook.

And he just wants to hear your voice. That one last touch.

I wanted to tell Steve hundreds of stories I’d already sent him mentally. But what you find is you don’t have to remind each other of the good times – we lived them. I ended up with just telling him how much he’s loved and that it’s okay to let go. And that he would always be alive in my thoughts.

One of the traits I loved about Steve was his willingness to address the elephant in the room. He was good at calling me out when I was being an asshole. He really had a way of cutting to the bone sometimes and if you like that, great. But if you don’t like someone breaking things down for you, he wasn’t your cup of tea. In my particular case, I needed to be shaken by the shoulders from time to time. I needed to sip the tea.

I share this one story to illustrate Steve’s candor.

In Germany, we worked in a small office of roughly 10 people. One of the military guys we worked with was older – close to retirement. I believe his name was Jim. Jim spent a lot of his weekends in military lockup. Except he wasn’t the perp. His wife was. They had a pattern of getting into horrendous arguments beginning on Friday nights after work and by Saturday morning, the first sergeant would be getting a call to come get Jim out of the pokey. The reason Jim kept going to jail was because neighbors would call in the domestic disturbances and the cops would have to knock on his door. Once you see there’s a fight going on, the cops have to remove one of the people from the situation. Jim’s wife was the drunk who would literally beat the hell out of her husband. He would stand stationary and take the pummeling. The cops would lean towards hauling the wife off and Jim would always say, “No, take me instead.” So they would.

The people at work saw this poor guy come in on Monday mornings with a nicely starched and pressed uniform, but he’d have a bruise on his forehead. Or a welt under one eye. Shit like that.

Then came the Monday when Jim sauntered in and his face had been raked on the left side. Like a werewolf had clawed him. Four deep and long scratches running parallel down his cheek.

We had never seen him this damaged outwardly.

Everyone in the office knew what was going on at home with him. They tiptoed around him and shied away from socializing.

So Jim is chatting like nothing’s wrong, surrounded by people averting their eyes.

Except Steve. He looked at Jim and casually asked, “Dude, what the hell happened to your face?”

Jim looked down and muttered, “Damn cat got me.”

You could have heard a pin drop in the room and it was carpeted.

Steve turned back to his work and said over his shoulder, “If I was you, I’d kill that fuckin’ cat.”

At the same time we were feeling sorry for the guy, everyone in the room wanted to laugh out loud just to break the tension.

In print, that seems cold. But lemme tell ya. When Jim had his going away luncheon, nobody wanted to attend. Maybe 3 people total which in Germany days was pathetic. But Steve was one of those people. He showed up. Joking. Warm. Kind.

And that was my mission when I spoke to Steve for the last time. I showed up. Joking. Warm. Kind.

Writers love hooks. And Steve gave me one as a parting gift.

The day after I spoke to him, Steve passed into the cosmos. June 6th. The 80th anniversary of D-Day.

I’m finishing this on Sunday, June 9th.

Beautiful day outside. Quiet.

Looking forward to seeing Justin and Brandon who are traveling from Maine, arriving on my 39th anniversary and staying through Brandon’s birthday and Father’s Day. My intent is to let rivers run rather than damming them up. Gonna see if wisdom leads to healing and new beginnings.

Wondering how our little Chihuahua mix will deal. Our son Ivan has walked through our door hundreds of times and little 9-lb Baby Sally still growls at him. Sally only likes Judy and me, so 2 big strange men should send her into orbit. Much like when Judy’s girlfriend Lou visited recently and Sally went off – so freaked out in combat stance that a particularly sharp bark involuntarily projectiled a thumb-sized turd horizontally out of her butt. The airborne turd’s trajectory was roughly 14 inches before it hit the floor.

Even Lou was amazed. “Did you see that?”

I have had various male best friends in my 68 years on the planet. Blessed with lots of great memories that flow through my mind at will – randomly touching my heart and often making me laugh out loud. Not everybody gets to say that and I am keenly aware of my good fortune.

When the friendships drifted, I let that process play out. So much so, I didn’t know until this week that Steve’s wife Melba had passed 5 years ago. According to his son, Steve went into a spiral of decline after her passing. As I would if I lost Judy. Yet I wonder why he didn’t reach out so I could offer comfort and counsel like he often bestowed on me. I was the guy who knew Melba when she and Steve started dating. We saw each other socially on a regular basis. I filmed their wedding.

And he didn’t reach out.

And yeah, I get that situations have more than one side, but I tend to blame me for not reaching out. Others don’t always have the ability, for whatever reason. As a famous person once said, “Blame is for God and small children.”

Stupid. That’s me. In spades on certain days.

Well, in my life, a lot of stuff is stupid in retrospect. For me, from a bird’s eye view, retrospect is easy. Fixing can be more complicated.

If I let it.

Sometimes you just need to show up at the luncheon nobody wants to attend.

Sometimes you just need to pick up the phone and cold-call.

Or send someone a note.

Agree to start over.

Let your wisdom do its dissolving trick.

Work that voice.

So Godspeed, my friend.

And I know you heard me when I said that.