3. A Lifetime of Preparing For Death

After I was first diagnosed I began to notice that my inevitable death didn’t seem that foreign of a subject to me. I took plenty of time to reflect and take stock of the past sixty-plus years of this life, and I saw many examples of death. Examples that I now realize were meant to provide insight and prepare me for the inevitable. Life is full of lessons but most of us are too busy living life in a way that ignores questions like: How did we get here? Why are we here? What are we supposed to do while we’re here? Hint: Our lives are not accidents, we are here for a reason, and it’s not to accumulate things 🙂

I vividly remember being 7 years old and having two or three years of Catholic school under my belt. One evening while I was trying to fall asleep I kept replaying over and over in my mind the fact that I would be dead someday. According to the nuns I would end up up in one of three places upon death. If I had committed no mortal sins AND I had been to confession recently AND I had not committed any venial sins since my last confession, I would indeed go straight to Heaven and things would be fine and dandy. But if I had missed confession or committed a venial sin since my last confession I would end up in Purgatory, a smoky, but not fiery, place where I would exist for a long, long time until my sins were cleared, and then perhaps on to Heaven. The third option was well known. Hell. You did not want to end up there. My spiraling thought process that night sucked me into a place where I could only think about something the nuns repeated over and over. We would never be alive again. Ever. Never, ever, ever. And no matter how far into the future I tried to project the idea of time as we know it, ending, I scared the shit out of myself. I was in a trance. After a while I was finally able to snap myself back to the present moment. Slowly the terrible thoughts subsided. But in the back of my mind the concept of my life ending and time ended haunted me. At some point I became a curious seeker.

Seven years later in 1973 my next big lesson with death presented itself. And it was fucking heartbreaking. In a short four month period from April through August I lost my fraternal grandfather, my maternal great-grandfather and then my maternal grandfather. My fraternal grandfather John was the first to go. He was a smoker and drinker and led an unhealthy life. He was always in and out of the hospital. During my freshman year in high school he used to pick me up for lunch every day. On one hospital stay he never made it home. My grandmother assured me that he committed no Mortal sins and was definitely in Purgatory. She confidently added that he would be there for about 16,000 years, mostly for smoking, drinking, swearing, not going to confession, etc. The next to go was my great-grandfather on my mom’s side, Herbert. He used to babysit us as young children. He had a 1959 Cadillac Sedan Deville which he drove very slowly everywhere he took us. Many times I would go on rides with him as we delivered Gideon bibles to all the local hotels. One day out of the blue he began pissing blood. He ended up in a nursing home pretty quickly. I had just one more opportunity to see him. My mom rushed me into the car one day and we drove to the nursing home. The poor guy had gotten cancer and was blind and mostly unresponsive. The place was dark and dreary and quiet. At his bedside my mom instructed me to give him my finger to hold. She told him it was me and if he could hear her and if he understood her that he was to squeeze my finger. He squeezed it tight. Although I was fourteen I really don’t remember having any specific feelings that day. He was quite old and by all accounts had a great life. He was a second generation German baker, long retired. He owned four pieces of property including rental units and a commercial bakery, which he retired from many years ago. A short time after I visited he died. Things moved quickly after his funeral. My father moved our family about thirty minutes way for his new job. My maternal grandfather, David, had decided to close the family bakery where he, my mom (fourth generation) and me (fifth generation) worked part time. We were moving and he was already really short of help so he decided to close and get a part time job until he retired. Ten days later he dropped dead in the bakery as he was preparing to officially close the business. He was 56. Two grandfathers and a great-grandfather in just a few months.

In the early nineties it was my stepfathers turn. Bob, also in his fifties, was a hugely successful banker and all around smart guy. One day out of the blue he got a nosebleed that wouldn’t stop. Like ER visit nosebleed that wouldn’t stop. A few weeks later revealed a diagnosis of Multiple Myeloma. A couple years of the full cancer treatment menu of a bone marrow transplant, chemo, steroids and other concoctions, he finally succumbed to Leukemia (pay attention) a side effect of the chemo. My mom was left with a lake-house, cars, plenty of money and a broken heart. At eighty-six my mom is still working part-time, lives alone and still “talks” to Bob on occasion. I think she still misses him.

In 2012 it was my wife Laurie’s turn. She was diagnosed with cancer and had surgery followed by radiation. Radiation was 98% complete when she was re-referred to the surgeon. The radiologist said something didn’t seem right. The surgeon concurred and told us to get our affairs in order and probably order a hospital bed. A biopsy was ordered to confirm all this. During the biopsy procedure I got a call from the surgeon. The biopsy had been botched and Laurie now had a hole in her colon. The good news, the surgeon said, is that the biopsy showed no cancer. Even more good news, the colon was being repaired and Laurie would be fine. Being so close to death really opened our eyes to the preciousness of life. Since that day we have lived in a different way, seeing life and death through a much different lens. Within five years we hatched a plan to take a year off and travel the world. It was scary. We rented out our home, sold our cars, and turned our business over to someone else to manage. In November 2017 we left for India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa, Ecuador, Peru and Brazil. It was truly the trip of a lifetime. It was also the scariest thing I have ever done. But we survived. We returned full of life and ready for whatever lie ahead.

After my own diagnosis in 2021 I reminisced for weeks. I accepted that overall I’d been very fortunate. Life had always given me everything I asked for. I was truly grateful. I had nothing to complain about. I thought deeply about what I would do next with the time I had left.

Oh, and as for Heaven, Hell and Purgatory? I left them in the rear view mirror in my late teens. I read a book about comparative religions and another about Yoga. That is when my spiritual journey really began. Stay tuned.