Feb 21, 2012 12:35
Long time since I've posted here. Everybody has moved to Facebook and Twitter. The posts get shorter and shorter. So this is really kind of a diary because I doubt if anyone will even read it, but that's what I need right now.
An economist I hate once opined that aging and death were not a binary phenomenon, by which he meant that instead of "here today, gone tomorrow," it's more like "here today, watch all your friends die off one by one, finally it's your turn."
In 1971 I had a boyfriend, JJ. We lived together for about a year. It was never a Big Love thing and in the end we parted and I took up with the man who would become my baby daddy. But we remained cordial. In the '80s we were off doing our own thing, marriage and children and my case. There were actually three of us -- in our building was CR, who had a baby of her own in '71. We were close, we three musketeers, until CR moved away in '72 and we got on with our lives.
Then in the '90s we reunited. CR came to visit, we reconnected, and then the internet happened and CR and I stayed in touch. The three of us became grandparent. We lost parents and spouses and siblings. Life went on as it does. In 2005 JJ and I paid CR a memorable visit to her home in Colorado, and in 2011 CR and I took a memorable cruise to the Greek Islands.
I could write many pages about how ordinary and yet how unusual JJ is. He and his four brothers were quite famous in the 1950s as stars of Marshall High School's state championship basketball team. Still remembered 50 years later, he was honored at a dinner in 2007. He was the short, wiry one, still looking good as he turned 70, active and healthy. Played pickup basketball still. He and his brothers hunt and fish in a serious way. He is the only African-American I ever knew (or heard of) who actually went on a hunting safari to Africa.
On his last hunting trip (to New Mexico, for elk) he became extremely short of breath. Long story short: renal cell carcinoma, more common in males (by two-to-one) and smokers (by EIGHT to one). He tried to quit. Now he has. Too late. Things are not going well. He's on chemo but when I shared his experiences with my medical consultant her remarks were not promising.
So I go over there every week to bring him some food that will tempt him, and talk about the old times. His brother takes him to chemo, he's got neighbors and grandchildren and baby mamas up the wazoo looking after him although he lives alone. I don't want to watch this happen and I don't want to think about how much of this is in my future.
And that's not even the Bad Thing.
domestic matters