Fuck it, eh.
My friend and coworker, Bruce, died today. After a lifelong battle with Chron’s disease, a lifetime of intestinal surgeries, hepatitis-C and a recent battle with an unfathomably rare blood infection, he died of Stage IV cancer of the everything. He never bitched. He never complained.
He once told me he spent a summer at The Mayo Clinic when he was 19. It was there he saw truly sick people, he said.
I ain’t got nothing to bitch about, he’d say.
He’s been working here for my family since before I was born. He grew a beard for The Bicentennial, making his beard only a few months older than me. For the past six years, I’ve sat in the cubicle across from him. We’d trade knowing glances when someone was full of shit. We’d throw shit at each other. We’d bicker. He taught me a lot about engineering. He taught me a lot about not taking shit seriously, particularly myself. I needed that these past few years.
Fuck it, eh, he’d say.
I visited Bruce in the hospital a couple of weeks ago. This was a few days before they told him he only had two weeks, but he was weak from other maladies and the cancer was Stage IV. There was little optimism. He made comments about "beating this shit" and getting back to work. But, it was halfhearted as was my "Fuck yeah, you will."
Mostly, we just bullshitted. Talked about lawns. Cars. Machines. Work. Engineering. He told the story of my grandfather hiring him in ‘72 after my grandfather moved the plant down to Alabama from Minnesota. He flew Bruce down from Duluth but forgot, as my drunken grandfather was wont to do. Bruce showed up to an empty house. My grandfather returned with cases of scotch and took Bruce to dinner and then out to strip clubs. He paid Bruce two weeks wages to just hang out, get drunk with him and mull the job over. Even though my grandfather was low balling him, Bruce eventually caved with the promise of part partnership. This never happened.
I’d heard this story and the other stories he told that morning time and time again. Usually, I’d interrupt him after a bit with, You’ve told me that a thousand times, you goofy old fuck.He’d respond, So, you’re gonna fucking hear it again. The same with his buddy and him catching the clap from the same carhop at a burger joint in Duluth. This time though, I let him tell the story. I let him digress. I didn’t talk. I laughed and listened intently. Not because I was hearing the stories for the first time, but because I was hearing them for the last time.
Fuck it, eh.
He once told me he spent a summer at The Mayo Clinic when he was 19. It was there he saw truly sick people, he said.
I ain’t got nothing to bitch about, he’d say.
He’s been working here for my family since before I was born. He grew a beard for The Bicentennial, making his beard only a few months older than me. For the past six years, I’ve sat in the cubicle across from him. We’d trade knowing glances when someone was full of shit. We’d throw shit at each other. We’d bicker. He taught me a lot about engineering. He taught me a lot about not taking shit seriously, particularly myself. I needed that these past few years.
Fuck it, eh, he’d say.
I visited Bruce in the hospital a couple of weeks ago. This was a few days before they told him he only had two weeks, but he was weak from other maladies and the cancer was Stage IV. There was little optimism. He made comments about "beating this shit" and getting back to work. But, it was halfhearted as was my "Fuck yeah, you will."
Mostly, we just bullshitted. Talked about lawns. Cars. Machines. Work. Engineering. He told the story of my grandfather hiring him in ‘72 after my grandfather moved the plant down to Alabama from Minnesota. He flew Bruce down from Duluth but forgot, as my drunken grandfather was wont to do. Bruce showed up to an empty house. My grandfather returned with cases of scotch and took Bruce to dinner and then out to strip clubs. He paid Bruce two weeks wages to just hang out, get drunk with him and mull the job over. Even though my grandfather was low balling him, Bruce eventually caved with the promise of part partnership. This never happened.
I’d heard this story and the other stories he told that morning time and time again. Usually, I’d interrupt him after a bit with, You’ve told me that a thousand times, you goofy old fuck.He’d respond, So, you’re gonna fucking hear it again. The same with his buddy and him catching the clap from the same carhop at a burger joint in Duluth. This time though, I let him tell the story. I let him digress. I didn’t talk. I laughed and listened intently. Not because I was hearing the stories for the first time, but because I was hearing them for the last time.
Fuck it, eh.