saying it all

Day 5

I was doing fine without tissues. Until I received messages from two high school classmates of Rich's who, on Saturday, celebrated their 40th Reunion. Rich was looking forward to being with them but, as one said, he held on, to be with them as best as he could.

From one:

Many times I mentioned him to friends and co-workers, and I was like 'hey, I know this guy Richard Galik and he's the most brilliant person I ever met, and probably the most brilliant person that ever lived, and I went to school with him and he was in my class, and I graduated with him...'

And from another:

He was definitely the smartest guy I ever met. Even better than that though, he was even a nicer guy than he was smart. That says it all.

I can imagine Rich half-smiling and rolling his eyes at reading these praises, and then telling me stories about what he admired in their lives. What Rich had was a rare quality of not making more of himself than he was, but also not less. And that is how he treated everyone.

Which is good to remember, because in the last years, and especially months, Rich's tumor uncovered pieces of himself which he could not control, and even then he was more concerned how his physical implosion and sadness and anger were eroding my life.

I would apologize, sometimes, to the Hospice staff.

This is not who he is, I would say. He is the sweetest guy, always.

And they said of course, they knew that.

But I need to apologize, too. For those I hurt who, I guessed -- only a guess, I can never be certain -- were hurting him. For those I hurt on these pages. For those who hurt others because I hurt them.

Today I will visit Rich in the meadow, as is my habit, my joy, and my sadness.

Candace

the road goes ever...

Day 4

Yesterday we returned Rich to the earth.

A wet day, clouds hugging the almost-bare trees, a downpour as a friend pulls in the driveway. We're going to the funeral home to be with Rich before his last journey.

Rich is beautiful, wrapped in a muslin shroud, while in the background there's jazz playing.

I like hip funeral homes.

There's no sadness as we touch him, as he touches us. Death is the most meticulous destroyer of separation.

Lisa, the funeral director, and Jim, her assistant, lift Rich into the back of the van.

Jim, a retired school teacher, wants to tell me something. When he saw Rich's death certificate, he had shivers.

"I couldn't believe it," he says. "My father died of chordoma. He was 56 years old."

And all that could be done in those days, he says, was get a diagnosis, and then go home to die.

So, another member of the one-in-millions Chordomite family.

By the time we arrive at Greensprings the rain is light, and soon drops to a drizzle, and then a mist. But the friends keep pouring in, doubling the twenty or twenty-five estimate I gave to Lisa. It's noon in the middle of a workday, and I'm amazed and grateful.

We put Rich on the cart, jogging downhill through a muddy meadow that, when I bought our plots in May, was a wildflower field. Rich is lifted from the cart to the slats covering the grave, and then I say the best words I can.

We lower Rich into the earth. We cover him with pine boughs. I take three shovelfuls of mud and toss them down, and invite everyone to do the same. As I squat at Rich's head and watch this somber slip-slide dance -- no one falls -- there's a thick rectangular stone that calls to me. I get up, and find Jen, Greenspring's burial coordinator.

"That's the one," I tell her.

In a year, when the earth settles, I will have it engraved and plant shrubs or flowers in this soil that is more stone than dirt, yet produces grasses and flowers and evergreens.

Jen puts her hands together at her heart and bows to me. I return the gesture, and notice she and Lisa are crying.

I'm not. I have been, and will, but this is a moment not different than when Rich and I met, 36 years and 2 months ago. For no reason at all, I knew: This is everything.

Rich, then wearing a crewcut and his old Boy Scout shorts -- Eagle Scout, actually -- talked to me about his passion for physics and lacrosse and The Lord of the Rings and there was nothing in this that appealed; all of this was on the opposite side of my world.

But being with this boy made me so happy.

Still does.

And that is why the words I read were his words, a gift from Tolkien. He would post them on my dormitory room door, when we thought our road together was only beginning.

But it was not, just a meeting at one time, one place, and we're still on a road that goes ever on.

The Road goes ever on and on

Down from the door where it began.

Now far ahead the Road has gone,

And I must follow, if I can,

Pursuing it with eager feet,

Until it joins some larger way

Where many paths and

errands meet.

And whither then? I cannot say.

Still round the corner there many wait

A new road or a secret gate,

And though I oft have passed them by,

A day will come at last when I

Shall take the hidden paths that run

West of the Moon, East of the Sun.

May Rich's life be a blessing for all the world.

Candace

the last dance

Rich died as the sun was setting on Sunday.

He died in exceptional peace, returning to his Rich-essence, smelling sweet and so, so beautiful.

But how many hearts he has broken, how many tears water his way -- I cannot count. Friends, yes. And the staff with us in Rich's final hours. For Meghan, on duty only a few weeks, this was her first Hospice death, and she began crying when she confirmed what I knew -- no more heartbeat, no more breath, only silence as I rested on his chest.

John, of course, to whom I gave Rich's electric shaver, and who with Meghan and me washed him for the final time, and gently placed his head on the pillow, and covered him with a fresh sheet.

And when the funeral director rolled him out of Room #5 -- the best room, the corner room with view of pond and field and autumnal forest -- I kissed and said good-bye, handsome, I love you so much -- she cried, too.

"You must see this all the time," I told her today, as we made the final arrangements.

Not really, she said. There isn't as much love as you might think.

I write because I'm numb. Because I still don't get that this sort of love isn't everywhere, no big deal.

But now that Rich's body is gone, I don't know what will be left behind, or how explosive grief can be when mixed with high-octane love.

Over the past months, I have taken notes. In the days to come there will be many to thank, many phone calls to be made, many rabbits and mice to kill (that's Thundercat speaking; we all grieve in our own way).

For now, thank you for reading this, for all the past days.

For the future, I plan to continue this blog for 49 more days, as Rich and I move on.

In gratitude,

Candace

ready

A brief note. Rich has one, perhaps two days left. A week, says one optimistic nurse, but she loves him too much. As many do, I realize.

No more words, too weak, except five this morning, said loud and with unfathomable effort. To me, resting on his chest, where I still find a peace more soothing than the goosiest down pillow.

"I-am-ready-to-go."

Yes, I murmur. Thank you. I will miss you so much, so much.

How we live is how we die. And Rich never took on a task he couldn't complete with success and integrity. The last item on the list, checked off.

Tonight I will be sleeping at Hospice, until the end. The staff has arranged for a bed next to Rich, so we can be together one or two more nights.

Then I will go on, ready or not.

Candace

seeing what we wanna

Rich is near death.

Even those who know -- don't.

Theresa, an aide who always tries so hard, says Rich is hungry, he wants dinner, it's eight at night and he hasn't eaten since one...

"I'll take care of it," I say.

Out of the refrigerator she pulls a plastic tub of ravioli, a tub of soft spirally pasta covered in red, and now she's opening the vegetable bin...

"I'll stir fry some vegetables...he probably won't want the ravioli, it's out of a can..."

"The pasta doesn't look much better," I laugh. "Go. You have other things to do. This I can take care of."

I bring the microwaved spirals, a dozen or so, to Rich.

Rich?

That's who I wanna see.

I bring the fork to his lips. Hungry? I whisper.

He doesn't open his eyes. Slightly shakes his head, no.

I eat the dishful, and go back for more.

I once believed that humans can know God, but can never be God.

I could even produce theological proofs.

Now I know what I have always known, but didn't wanna see -- the opposite is true.

During these past months, I occasionally slipped back into, as Stephen Levine writes in A Year to Live, the "recognizable neighborhood, no matter how unsatisfying." And too limiting, and too small, and Rich isn't going to see Jesus or Buddha or Einstein (well, maybe).

He is going to see himself.

Then why Rich's broken-hearted sense of defeat and anger that is interpreted by some who visit as "now peaceful"?

Because he can't yet see, and sadness is not the same as peacefulness, and we see who we hope we are, not who Rich is.

And why my nauseating grief?

Because I know this neighborhood, in which all of the world was mine.

And I don't wanna leave.

Candace

who he is

Because I know myself very well, it is difficult to say who I am. -- Taiso Eka

"I am dessert," Rich says.

"That sounds profound," I say. "Or it may mean nothing. Not everything incomprehensible is profound. Or true."

He closes his eyes.

He has better things to do than listen to my gobbledygook. Trying to cough up phlegm, for one, but he doesn't have the strength, and I rub my fingers over his neck, feeling the bulge of the tumor growing, growing, remembering back five years when we first noticed this and thought, oh, just a misalignment of muscles, just nothing, nothing.

Rich came to know the name of what was inside of him. He tried to understand it with precise charts and measurements and CDs on file. But he never became his illness. As he never became what did not matter.

"Professor of Physics," I tell the funeral director when she asks for his work, his position. This is needed for the death certificate.

"He would gag," I then say. "Rich was not his title."

And he would be suspicious of any student that insisted on saying doctor, or professor, and not calling him by his name.

"We're colleagues," he would say. "I just know, maybe, a little more."

Truly, he knew himself very well.

Now, I don't know what he knows. He has entered what Zen masters call the "empty field," the incomprehensible place that can be touched in meditation where there is no object, no goal, yet liberates all desires, all "self-ness," all that is not.

Rich didn't do meditation. But as I watch the tumor swell and listen to his rasping breath and hold on to what still is, I know that he is far ahead of me in a place that is incomprehensible.

And true.

Candace

a new script

The tasks are narrowing. To one big one, and that accomplished today. Funeral arrangements, now set. I wonder why this is bearable.

Afterward, I go to Rich, and I close the door on the world. For a little while longer, it will be "us."

Two days ago, the Hospice "Women Singing" group gathered in the Great Room. Rich was in his chair, eyes half shut, but still eating a dozen forkfuls of a pasta casserole, a thin wedge of quiche, a few crackers.

As they waited for others, the women talked among themselves, and I looked at Rich. I knew exactly, word for word, what he would say.

He did, exactly.

"Men wouldn't be giggling."

Of course not, I agreed. They would be doing more important things while waiting, such as planning a war.

Rich nodded, approvingly.

I never was much for giggling and Rich never was much for war -- except when ruthlessly playing Risk -- but we had our script for almost every circumstance, playing the parts that made us laugh.

Today the words are cut further, limited to I love you and I love you too, as he grips me with his left hand and moves in and out of sleep. No food today, no juice, he doesn't leave the bed.

"Your eyes are still so blue," I say. "Ocean and sky, together."

He opens them, and looks at me.

"I'm ocean and sky," he says.

So this is why I can still laugh (not giggle).

But this is why I also cry.

Candace

open door

I marked Saturday as a day of rest. Visiting Rich, preparing some food, a walk, paying bills, some cleaning, some learning, perhaps write, a list for the coming week -- nothing more, just a day of rest.

I received what I needed.

I was flat-on-back sick, doing none of what I planned except drinking tea and eating some food, none of which I could taste.

A bug, I know; but I prepared a good home with an unlocked door. What this bug saw -- okay, I know viruses don't "see" but this is metaphor, just metaphor -- were Times Square-sized lights: NO ONE HOME.

For the Saturday and the days following (though, slowly, bug's bags are packing) I have been trying to move back. No -- not back. There's no place to go back to, as much as I feel and fantasize. Who I once was is gone, what I once thought can't be tasted, and although this has happened so many times before -- every day, a little -- holding on to what isn't prevents digesting what is.

What is: Rich is dying, perhaps slower than expected but it doesn't matter much if it is tomorrow or next month or even later. It will be too soon, and I won't be ready, and he surely isn't. Neither one of us is ready to open the door, even if there is no lock.

Candace