Death Isn’t For Sissies

A good friend of ours died from brain cancer this week. Losing people we love too soon is never easy, but this was especially hard.

Bill putting a garden window into Darcie's room

Bill wanted to live to see his grandkids grow. He fought so hard. He had such a positive spirit. When the MRI was clear this fall, the doctors told him he was one for the record books.

Then the next appointment they gave him until April. It was like being on a roller coaster, up and down, euphoria and depression.

I love aerobatics but I hate roller coasters.

Maybe I’m just angry because it shows, once again, how little control we have over anything. Maybe I’m sad because life just isn’t fair, and once again, this proves it. I don’t know. My mom has lost three husbands, so I’m no stranger to death. Bill’s wife has now lost two husbands. That’s part of my frustration – it is so hard on the ones left behind.

One of my girlfriends just doesn’t understand how a loving God could let this happen. I think it is so much more complicated than we can understand at our level. God is Love and “HE” isn’t up there on a throne whacking and hurting some people while finding parking places for others.

Pacing and kicking things in my yard the day Bill died, I thought about all these things. I also thought about possessions and stuff. Bill wanted to take the blanket my niece (his granddaughter) made him for Christmas when he died. So it went with him to the funeral home. (I started crying when I found this out….)

Delaney, my niece. She made a U of O blanket for Bill for Christmas. That was Bill's only big flaw: he loved the Ducks.

My daughter thinks “things” are too important to me. The truth is, I like my house and my stuff – and all the memories that go with it. But I don’t need them. And I do appreciate the thought and effort that went into some of my possessions that people made or gave me. They represent and remind me of their love for me.

Maybe some people hang on so tightly to too many things because it makes them feel more “in the world” – more tied to it. Safer.

 I’m not afraid of death. I came so close a few years back…but I’m still here. Why? Unfinished business? Luck of the draw? All I know is that the fear left me.

But given the choice, no matter how wonderful the afterlife is, I want to stay on earth longer.

When Bill moved to the county years ago, we hired him every time we saved enough money for another project.

Bill built our deck, put in new windows and doors, added walls to our dirt basement, a mudroom, a fireplace, two bathrooms and a bookcase. We loved having him here, and kept him from working by talking with him constantly.

Bill was just one of those people who could carry on a good conversation about anything. You wanted him in your house and your life.

We painted the basement once Bill was done!

We put a futon down in the basement and actually slept down there once. I swear I could feel the bugs crawling all over me all night.

The kittens liked the new deck!

My new bay window lets in so much light!

The only good thing out of all this is that, wherever we look, we can remember Bill every day.

Even this photo of my kids was taken in front of the fireplace Bill installed.

Brain and pancreatic cancers are horrible ways to die. But I believe it’s even worse for the loved ones involved in their care.

My grandpa went up to take a nap and died in his sleep. That’s the way to go, I think.

All I know for sure is that Bill will be missed…and remembered.

Grandaddy died in his sleep. That's the way to go.

I wrote this poem when I was so sick. I believed it then, and I still do, but sometimes it doesn’t help:

   CASTLES

I BUILD A CASTLE WITH MY HANDS…

MOLDING SHIMMERING, SHIFTING SANDS.

IN MY MIND I CLEARLY SEE

WHAT THIS CREATION MEANS TO ME.

TO TOUCH.  TO FEEL.  TO SEE.

MY LIFE IS A CASTLE IN MY HAND…

BUILT OF COUNTLESS GRAINS OF SAND.

CAREFULLY, PATIENTLY FORMED BY ME,

INTO A PERSON I ‘M PROUD TO BE.

I LIVE.  I LOVE.  I SEE.

LIKE THE CASTLE IN THIS RHYME…

A WAVE COULD TAKE ME ANYTIME.

AM I FINISHED, READY TO GO?

HERE IS A SECRET THAT I KNOW.

AT ANY TIME, MY CASTLE IS COMPLETE…

FINISHED, SPRAWLING AT MY FEET.

UNTIL IT IS GONE, I ADD TO IT:

A SHELL, A FEATHER, ANOTHER TURRET.

THIS IS MY LIFE, SHINING IN THE SUN…

AN INCOMPLETE PROJECT, ONCE BEGUN.

WHETHER I DIE NOW OR AT ONE HUNDRED AND THREE

I AM EVERYTHING I WAS MEANT TO BE.

LIFE IS A TREASURE IN MY HANDS.

TIME IS THE WAVE THAT WASHES MY SANDS.

I love life.

                                                                            

Father’s Day June 21, 2011. Daddy, we miss you!

James Baynard Bice III. His death was service connected, but even with the Freedom of Information Act they could never tell us what he was exposed to.

Jim & Margaret Bice on their wedding day.

Mom in our new neighborhood with me

Me! I got cuter once my eczema improved!!

Mommy & Daddy together

My dad died when I was eight years old. I remember him through pictures, stories and a few of my own memories.

Dad holding me on couch with mom.

Dad rinsing my feet under faucet.

Dad and me on steps...grandma watching. No one knew yet that he was sick.

One of my first words was “airplane” according to my baby book. I wonder if my dad held me up in the yard when planes took off from the Dover Air Force base…. Maybe he even told me I could fly one of those some day!

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  Me next to the tree Dad, Jim & I planted in 1962.

  

  Dad told Uncle Alden that "My Kathy can do anything."

Jim with his turtle we took home on the train. We spent summers at my mom's parents so that Dad could go to John's Hopkins for treatments.

Me with my doll, Debbie. Grandma made the bride’s dress and there were hundreds of beads she sewed on. I took her home on the train with Mom, Jim and his turtle.

Our last Christmas with Daddy

Sally, Brad, Jim, and me. Uncle Alden and Aunt Becky must have been visiting on Dad's last Christmas

Daddy was so sick, but he put this train set together for Jim on Christmas. He died in February.

I remember him finishing the basement so that we could have parties down there, and Mom says he built our garage. Daddy was diagnosed with leukemia when I was two. He had the longest case of chronic lymphatic leukemia on record when he died in 1963. Mom said he never gave up, and that he didn’t feel sorry for himself – he just tried to live as long as he could for us and for himself.

Mom pregnant with Jim, around the time she learned Dad was dying.

My cat had kittens, and Dad loved holding them and letting them crawl around his shoulders. We had her spayed later, and took her to the beach with us. I was so scared when she wandered next door where there was a Great Dane. She was weaving in and out under his legs, rubbing herself. Daddy calmed me down, saying animals know when they are safe.

Jim and me Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.

One day at Rehoboth Beach, I was playing in the surf. A sneaker wave caught me and threw me down. Choking, I tried to get up, only to be bowled over again. And again. Tired and discouraged, and out of breath, I thought I was going to die. Two strong arms picked me up and saved me. Thanks, Daddy!

Dad and Uncle Alden were always having fun at the beach. One day, after Hurricane Hazel hit, they dragged a whole soda fountain out of the ocean. Another day they found a bedstead. And another day, the waves knocked my daddy off his feet and out of his swimming suit. Mom had to retrieve it for him while he stayed in the water….

I remember the parents would start a game of Monopoly and continue it every night. There was salt water taffy over the fireplace, and we used to go ride the bumper cars and jump on the trampolines until Hurricane Hazel ripped the place up.

You would think, at eight, that there would be more to remember. I’m guessing that our home was stable and loving, and that is why I don’t remember more.

My grandaddy died when I was six, and I remember walking to the cigar store with him, probably Tuesdays and Thursdays. I remember him as kind and loving to everyone he met. He used to help the Amish tie up their buggy and help the women down, at a time when locals were not always as nice.

I had a teacher in second grade named Mrs. Hopkins. The kids were making fun of her “fat leg.” It turned out Sandra had gone to school with my dad. He sat me down and told me what a wonderful person she was. Mrs. Hopkins, or Sandra as my dad called her, had been to Africa with the Peace Corps and came down with Elephantiasis, a disease that can cause a limb to swell like that. He told me why it is so bad to make fun of someone, and how you could really hurt people with your words, people who don’t deserve it.

Grandaddy reading to me. I used to go into his old bedroom and open up his shoebox to remember him...some of his old cigars were in there along with his cologne.

We went out to eat Saturday nights to a restaurant called Alexanders with my Nana, Dad’s mom, after Grandaddy died. That I remember because the people who owned the restaurant always treated us like their own kids. We had shot glasses full of maraschino cherries, and wrapped piles of sugar cubes to stack. After dinner I was allowed behind the cash register to help out, and I loved looking through the lost and found of earrings and jewelry. My little brother spent his time in the bar, playing with the battery operated toys.

One Saturday night we took Nana home after dinner and there had been a break-in at her house. I remember the police coming and that there were cigarette butts behind a tree where the man must have been waiting for her to leave. To think the bad guy was in the yard when we pulled in the pick her up!

Nana, Daddy, me and my Aunt Becky

According to my mother, I am dangerously friendly. According to my father’s best friend, Alden Richardson, I am just like Daddy and Grandaddy: they never knew a stranger.

Uncle Jim, Uncle Moe, Uncle Don, Uncle Alden, Uncle Jim Jackson, Dad, Mom, Aunt Jane, and two of Mom's friends. Alden Richardson, Moe Hartnett, Jim Jackson and Dad were best of friends,

Grandaddy & Nana, Dad & Mom, Grandma & Grandpa