Requiescat in pace

When I was 6, my dad took me for a ride around our neighborhood on an old bike he picked up at a garage sale. Obsessed with Shel Silverstein’s poem “Where the Sidewalk Ends”, I was always looking for opportunities to venture beyond the confines of our cul-de-sac. Fascinated by the sights and sounds around me and high off of the wind blowing through my newly feathered Dorothy Hamill cut, I lifted my face towards the sun and smiled. How vibrant all the colors seemed, like a moving wall of newly developed photographs come cartoonishly alive. How much bigger everything was back then too - the streets…the cars…the threat of a dog’s bark…the notion of forever.

Delirious with the sheer exhilaration of traveling at what I was sure to be the speed of light, I let my little flip-flopped foot dangle far enough down that it got caught in the spokes for just a second (yes, we were practicing unsafe riding habits at the time, but this was the 80’s and my dad was younger than I am today). The pain was instant, and I immediately erupted into the kind of wailing reserved for little children and the broken hearted. I still remember my dad carrying me in one arm while awkwardly wheeling the bike home with the other. 

Pieces of the conversation we had on our seemingly endless journey home have been lost to me over time, but my dad recently reminded me of one of the questions I asked him on that day. In between pitiful sobs I had asked if the pain would last forever, to which he assured me it would not. And it didn’t. Because that kind of pain can be muted - sometimes with just a kiss and the promise of an ice cream cone (and/or through basic first aid, of course). It’s the other kind – the pain that stems from losing someone or something that can’t ever be replaced – that just goes on and on, losing its sharpness over time, but never really disappearing.

I hate cancer. Really hate it.

Stubbornly fighting off death for as long as he possibly could, my uncle lost his valiant battle against colon cancer on Monday at 9:25 a.m. He was 83, but I thought he’d outlive us all. He was THAT tough. He was a man who favored crossword puzzles, kicked ass at Jeopardy and tennis, and loved the US Marine Corps being a former military man himself during his younger years in the Philippines. He once helped me score an “A” on an essay for my high school Honors English class. The topic was on heroism. He always encouraged me to sing, and I will do that for him at his funeral this Friday. He was  good to me and my not-so-little-anymore brothers, and we will miss him dearly.

Rest easy now, Uncle Se. Thanks for everything.