A sudden loss

Saturday morning I had written a long blog entry about stage 4 stomach cancer, and was planning on posting it later that day.  Then we received some tragic news.  My mom’s cousin’s husband passed away suddenly from a heart attack while working out in the gym.  He was 53 years old.  Man, it’s not like I needed a reminder this soon that life is fleeting.

Uncle Timmy had been a part of my life since I was young.  His kids, my second cousins, were just a few years younger than me, so I have lots of memories of time spent at their house – sleepovers, days in the pool, playing bumper pool and arcade games in the basement, going to the beach, and the annual “pig roast”, which really served as a family reunion.  Timmy spent many years working with kids, as he had a great way with teenagers and young adults, and I know he had a large impact on my brother and sister.  When Lisa was in high school, he became the unofficial athletic trainer of her basketball team, volunteering to get them into a gym and motivating them to stay in shape through the offseason.  And if Tim wasn’t a NJ State Trooper and so willing to provide advice and support to anyone that needed it, I’m pretty sure my brother Greg probably wouldn’t be allowed to drive a car in the state of New Jersey anymore.  Since I moved down to Virginia, I haven’t done a great job of keeping in touch with all of my extended family in New Jersey, so I can’t really say that I got to know Tim well while I was an adult.  But I have those memories growing up, and I know the impact that he had on our family.  He brought people together.  Once Meg and I hosted our annual “flip-cup” tournament for the second or third time, I started drawing inspiration from Timmy and Jeanne’s Pig Roast.  I was hoping that I could turn it into an event like that, a summer day where all of our local friends would plan to get together, along with some family members who would take a trip down.  That’s what made me think to break out a PA system to explain the rules and play the national anthem, and that’s what made me think to create a banner with the previous year’s winners on it.  These are things I grew up with, thanks in large part to Tim. 

So my family takes another hit this week.  The first thing I felt on Saturday was shock, as I had just seen Tim and Jeanne a few weeks earlier, when they drove 7 or 8 hours roundtrip to be at Megan’s visitation.  The second thing I felt was guilt, because less than an hour after hearing the news, I was outside, continuing to do the yardwork I had planned for that day.  When Megan passed, I wanted the entire world to stop and take notice.  I didn’t truly expect that, but I still couldn’t help feeling that way.  But I’m realizing that life goes on, with or without you.  That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t take time to mourn and remember the loved ones that we have lost, and that doesn’t mean that it’s going to be easy or that the world is going to look the same to you ever again.   But the rest of the world isn’t taking a break for you, and that can be a tough thing to accept.

The third thing I felt is hard to describe.  I’ve recently noticed that something feels different when I think about death.  But first, I need to admit this - I have always been very afraid of dying.  I get nervous flying on turbulent planes, I don’t like participating in risky activities, and I’ve always struggled with the fact that we really don’t know what happens after you die.  I’ve also been very afraid of losing someone that I love.  If I didn’t hear from Megan for a few hours and she wasn’t answering her phone, my mind would start imagining the worst, that she got in a terrible accident or something.  And I worried that something would happen to someone close to me and I wouldn’t get to say goodbye. 

Last June, we went up to New Jersey for my sister’s bachelorette party.  While the girls were in Atlantic City, I sat out near the river in my parents’ backyard with my brother.  We sat out there for a while, had a few drinks, and talked about a bunch of things that I have since forgotten.  But I remember one portion of the conversation.  I’m not sure how we got on it, but I think we were talking about our grandparents on my mom’s side, and how we are lucky that they are still around and still such a part of our lives.  And I said how much it stunk that we lost both of my dad’s parents to sudden heart attacks.  Because I felt like I never got to say goodbye, I never got to open my heart and tell them I loved them.  So, I said, I hope it’s different with our surviving grandparents; I hope that we have some warning and can get a chance to say goodbye.  Because I wanted to make sure they knew how blessed I thought I was to have them in my life, how fantastic they are as people, and how lucky I was to be born into such a loving and stable family.  I didn’t want someone else to be taken from me suddenly without feeling like I had that goodbye.

A few weeks later, Meg went to the ER, and we started down this new path.  In a way, I felt like it was a cruel joke.  I said that I wanted the chance to say goodbye, and now I was going to have to watch the person I loved most battle a disease that most likely was going to slowly kill her.  It was like, “Here you go, take your time and say the goodbyes you asked for.”  I realized how selfish it was to say what I said then.  I don’t have control over when, where, and how the time is going to come for the people in my life.  If I want someone to know something, I need to let them know now.  That doesn’t mean I need to say goodbye to everyone like it’s the last time I’m going to see them.  But I need to show them through my actions the best that I can, and just make sure to take advantage of the time we have together.  If I feel like I’ve done that, then I won’t hold regrets over something that I never said, or the way that I left things the last time we spoke.  I’m happy that many in our family had a chance to say goodbye to Tim, even though they didn’t know it at the time.  He was in Florida last week for one of my other second cousins’ wedding, and I hope that they were able to create some memories that will now become so much more meaningful.  It’s amazing how so many of the most important moments in life seem like just any other day at the time.

I mentioned that the third thing I noticed is that something feels different when I think about death.  Somehow, I’m more comfortable with it now.  I don’t feel scared about dying, which is weird.  I always had this idea of how my life was going to go, and for 30 years, it went according to plan, pretty much perfectly.  I was terribly frightened of the idea that I would die before everything I planned had come to fruition.  But life can’t be planned.  And if I die tomorrow, I feel like I’d be able to look back on my 31 years and feel like I did pretty well for myself.  I think that’s what Megan thought when she told us that she wasn’t afraid to die.  At the time, I didn’t know how she could say that and seem so comfortable with it, but for some reason, now I feel like I understand.  I don’t know exactly why I have this feeling, or if it will fade over time, but I hope it’s here to stay.