...so, it's been a little while and a long, strange trip. But in the immortal words of Gloria Gaynor, I'm back...from outer space. I just walked in found that my previous attempts at continous writing and posting, etc were still haunting the worldwide web. In the interest of all things raw, fleshy and high-octane, I've updated the look of the site and will continue to refine for your viewing, reading and using pleasure.
Needless to say, much has happened in the intervening year and a half, likely much more than
many of my faithful readers (all zero of them now) actually care to read about. Let's just say we're on our way back from the far side.
As I come back from deep-space hibernation, there are a few relatively unrelated things worth mention:
First off, a great big endorsement of another blog: AlbieRock.com. I recently came across this blog after purchasing a piece of Albie's art which is the battle-beastly dopeness. If you haven't read or heard of him, go check out his blog, immediate-like, and receive the troof with a big fat capital T. Albie's daily rant about the goings-on of his life as it pertains to life in general is worth reading and taking to heart. I've got to give credit where credit is due--following the posts was in large part responsible for my rekindled interest in resurrecting this old unwieldy, somewhat rambling beast. Keep it cranked to eleven, yo!
Next, another blog worth reading: BorrowedSuits.blogspot.com. This is my buddy Jim's ongoing commentary on all things political and pertinent in our realm. Jim's one of the most insightful people I know when it comes to politics and the workings of our great **ahem** nation. For a periodic dose of perspective on the news and current events, follow BorrowedSuits and get the mothballs out.
I've got to give props to the members of T.Doc Creative's local futball club--2nd session just finished up and between new additions and ongoing hustle, we finished in fourth place in the regular season and though knocked out in the first round of tournament play, managed to force the decision into PK overtime. If only we had a better goalie...Great job and great season to everyone and looking forward to another solid session starting next week. Anyone interested in some live soccer action ala Slapshot, we play on Thursday nights at The Dome on Warren Ave. You can find the schedule here: http://portlandsportscomplex.com/index.cfm?area=show_schedule&global_id=IS_Adult_Coed_Soccer_Rec_Session_2
And finally, but certainly not least, a brief memorial: for those of you who knew her, today is a bittersweet day. Today marks seven years since Karen Geneseo, my mother died. I tried to say "passed away" but that just seems like such a pansy-@$, weak way of thinking of it. So, the fullness of it, and try to grok it, is that she died seven years ago after a massive battle with the Big C. Three of them, in fact. In seven years, I haven't really thought about it much and I've really only remembered her in a kind of intangible, separated way. I guess partly to move on, partly because other things, i.e. life, takes up so much T-I-M-E, partly because it sucks trying to come to grips with the loss of someone so particularly awesome.
Now, it's easy to say your mom is awesome. "She's great. She's my mom. She's the best mom EVER!" Yeah, OK, I get it. Everyone, mostly, loves their mom and, if all is right with the world thinks highly of the woman that brought them into the world and is likely responsible for a huge part of who they are.
However, when I say that my mother was particularly awesome, it's really quite a huge understatement. My mother was a truly epic woman that lived a full, deliberate and adventurous life worthy of emulating. And it is a tragedy to have lost her so young. God knows her loss left a great gaping scar across my family. But seeing how this is the anniversary of her death, I think it's mostly appropriate to remember that today.
My mother was relatively healthy, i.e. didn't really drink, certainly didn't smoke and had never even been tempted by drugs despite having lived through the sixties. She walked several miles daily and ate fairly well. On a relatively routine visit to the doc's, they found ovarian cysts. Appointments were made and a minor surgery was scheduled to have them removed. And when I say minor, I mean two incisions, a quick scrape and clean, a couple of stitches and then home for tea and triscuits. Really, like a three-hour affair, including the wait time before, 'cuz we all know how the hospital rolls.
Now, when they opened her up for the scrape and bake, what they found was not ovarian cysts, but a whole eff-load of the Big C. Mom was lucky in that the doc who was performing had the knowledge, the experience and the expertise to not only know what she was looking at and know what needed to be done, but also had the ability and the stones to just get it done. On-the-spot emergency full hysterectomy. And it must be noted that both my moms and my pops had some big-@$ stones to be able to make that decision right then and there. I cannot imagine the gravity of that decision and know full well that many, many weak-sauce anybodies would have floundered and lost the moment.
The good news was that they thought they got everything. The bad news was that when they went back in a week later to make sure they got everything they realized that there was in fact a whole eff-load more of the vileness all wrapped up in my mom's guts. Metastasization anyone? Yeah, that's the real kick in the 'nads right there, innit? Like the screened goal off the rebound or a punch to the dome wrapped around a roll of pennies. Severe crapulousness.
The Docs (and we're going to capitalize this in reference to the several doctors and months of tests they--my mom and dad--went through) gave her 6 months. How's that for some cold, mutha-uckin' sh@t-salad served up, huh? Go to the doc one day with nothing wrong and a handful of days later you get a big, fat death-sentence dropped on you. And then the question becomes: do we fight it and inject, vile, toxic nastiness straight from the Nth circle and get sick from the cure or do we say "eff it" and see how long we can stay healthy before the cancer starts making us sick? Cause in all reality, in the case of cancer, it is definitely a case of the cure being worse than the cause.
Not an easy choice, but my folks stepped up and went straight into lockdown, survivalist, back-me-into-a-corner fisticuffs mode. Aggressive chemo and radiation, plus whatever cutting-edge new study, possible cure kind of drugs were out there. They never backed down, didn't stop doing the things they loved, just modified how they did them and when, didn't stop going to the places they loved. Didn't let the disease own them.
And we all got front-row, blood rains down on your tux from the knockout punch ringside seats to the battle and got to witness my mother, a vivrant, young, early 50s woman, mother, wife, teacher, daughter, aunt, friend and all-around awesomeness wasted away as the cancer and the chemo and everything else out there gnawed its way out from the inside.
By this point in the story, if you're still reading and you have half a brain cell, you know how this ends.Sort of. Because my mom died in the same way that she lived--strong and on her terms. They gave her 6 months. Two years later, she let go after a long, harrowing fight. After her diagnosis, she managed to get in two more Christmasses, two more Thanksgivings, two more Halloweens, two more summers at the beach and two more anniversaries with my father. In that time, despite many complications, close calls, midnight trips to the hospital and all the other indignities of fighting an ugly, petty disease of epic proportions, she stayed fierce and strong.
On her anniversary, Valentine's Day, she wound up in Mass General, and despite the gravity of the situation, when I went to see her that night, was more concerned with getting me a date with one of the nurses she said was "a nice girl and pretty" than with her own comfort. When she got home, her condition got rapidly worse and hospice started. As things degraded she became house-bound and tied to a morphine drip, she made sure she was clear enough to visit with everyone she loved, to say good-bye, to allow them to see her and come to terms with it. She waited for her brother to come, finally, after much delay--I think she knew how hard it was on him, how hard a time he was going to have with it. She waited till the weather broke. She waited till my father, brother and I were all in the room with her and the priest had said last rites and left.
And then she let go.
No sooner were the three of us back in the room with her after seeing Father Degnan to the door than she let out her last breath. My brother was holding her hand and looked up to say "she's gone" but he didn't need to. We all knew. We all felt it. And suddenly it wasn't this epic woman lying there in the bed. It was just a husk.
It was a Friday. And her body was still just a husk at the wake on Monday night and at the funeral on Tuesday. Middle of February and it was 55 degrees out and sunny. Go figure. And by the way Jeff, she showed up in a dream recently and wanted you to know that she thought your comment about the incense in the church was funny.
I've thought a lot about death since then. I've thought about the sauce it took to make it through. I've thought a lot about the dignity with which my mom took it and that many people don't get that chance. And the tough part is, there is no answer or massive revelation to be taken from the experience and there is no meaning behind why some people die when they do. And as much as it sucked, hard. There's nothing wrong or bad or even necessarily tragic about death. Because everyone dies. Period. It's just a fact of life. The part that's tragic is when sh@t's left undone. If you live each day as if it were your last, your death will be much less tragic when it comes. And it will come. And the getting to dead part, generally, that part sucks too. I mean, there's really nothing too fun about fighting cancer for two years. For that matter there's really nothing too fun about overdosing and bleeding out your eyes to death. Or terminal diarrhea. Or being killed in a car crash or drowning in freezing water, trapped under the ice or being trapped in a burning building or in being the victim of a random, violent attack or the countless, myriad other ways to meet your ultimate demise. It's not he being dead part that sucks. It's the dying. And the leaving behind. And the knowing that there was stuff you left undone.
I learned stuff, a lot of stuff, from my mother, every day of my life. And I guess there are lessons to be learned in her death, in the way she met it and, more importantly, in the way she lived. Which is to say, fully, strongly and uncompromisingly.
Strength is important. You've got to have the juice to keep going and keep being dope. In talking about strength, I think it's important to mention a few other folks today. First, my old man. My father had the stones and the juice to make the hard choices and live that god-awful, gnawing, vile disease right alongside my mother and never look away. If you want an idea of how hard this is, go to the pet store and get a gold fish. When you get home take it out of the water and watch it till it stops twitching. Just the idea of this makes you queasy, right? Now imagine watching while that happened to the one person you loved above all others, that you had spent 30+ years with, committed and there was nothing you could do except watch. That's some hard-hitting, no-bullsh@t, high-octane stones right there. That is love. That is commitment.
Next up, my mother-in-law, the woman that bore my lovely wife for almost ten months. For as much crap as I give her, she's a pretty awesome lady and from what I understand beat the Big C. Word!
Our friend Jamie's mom is going through this right now as well. Big Ol' Mutha-uckin' C. And she's taking it on the best she can. Big "Keep the faith!"s out to Jamie's mom and Jamie for doing th right thing.
I realize this has been wordy and for all you uned-u-mi-cated slogs out there, sorry there's no pictures. But this is about what's on my mind. So if you follow, just found or have been waiting for more posts on RocketFuelSushi, I'm back. Tell your friends, tell your enemies, tell your frenemies, whatever. I'm not going anywhere for a minute, so find me on the air, and I'll keep the science coming.
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