My husband’s father had been battling some kind of illness or another since I’d first met him. He’d lived a rough life, a tradesman’s life, surrounded by chemicals and characterized by long hours and tough conditions in body and paint shops in Denver. But it wasn’t until 2009 that his illness was given a name: lymphoma. And they gave him less than a year to live.
Lymphoma is a tough bitch. Known treatments more or less fall into a hole when lymphoma is the diagnosis. The doctors said they could treat his symptoms, but that the cancer would not be stopped. He was up for any kind of treatment: chemo, stem cells, transplants, clinical trials. He was going to fight it by any means necessary, and he did. But among the ugly truths about cancer, the one put so eloquently in one of Christopher Hitchen’s last columns for Vanity Fair is that what doesn’t kill you doesn’t always make you stronger. In fact, in the case of cancer treatments, what doesn’t kill you can bring you right up close to death, and what eventually saves you can make you want to die.
Yet, nothing was out of the question for Roy. He wanted to live, at least long enough to do important things like be an important part of his granddaughter’s life, and to learn a little bit more about me, the woman his son married. He wanted to learn more about the man his son had become, with whom he had only recently begun to truly reconcile after a tough childhood and tougher young adulthood. This Tuesday morning, three and a half years after he was given just a half-year to live, he slipped away in his sleep. Quietly and without the complications of breathing machines, ugly decisions, painful and expensive measures to keep him alive. We saw him together for the last time on Saturday evening (Dale had seen him Monday evening, only hours before he passed) and while it was clear he was pleased to see us, he looked depleted in a way I’d never seen before. He was just so tired, so delicate-looking, so small. I didn’t think it was the last time I’d see him alive… but I thought it was going to be one of the last.
Dale and I have been together for about five years, and I think that most of the strength that forms the foundation of our marriage has to do with the fact that for most of our years together, we have held each other up in the face of this awful diagnosis: the trips to the hospital, the treatments, the insane levels of financial and emotional stress it injected into an already-dramatic family dynamic. I truly believe a weaker connection would have been broken by the events of the last three and a half years, but for us, it has brought us closer in ways I don’t think either of us ever anticipated. I wouldn’t wish this kind of situation on my worst enemy’s crab lice, but the truth is, life happens. And when you face life with a partner, both the good parts and the unimaginably bad parts, it is often the bad parts that truly make or break the bonds you share.
I never knew I could be this strong for someone, and the part of Dale I’ve seen in the face of these tragedies is the part of him that I have come to most admire. While it’s ground us both down plenty of times, and while we haven’t gotten here without the occasional aide of a strong cocktail, when the worst times bring out the best in someone, you can’t help but love them even more.
I already miss Roy. He and I related on a number of things: cars, vintage films (and vintage starlets), food, history. I am sad that I never really got to know him as well as I would have liked. I could have sat in that dusty, tchotchke-filled den and talked about Volkswagens and Stuart Andersons steaks for hours. While Dale and I grew up in vastly different homes and in vastly different ways, Roy and I could always find something to chat about. He spent the last years of his life doing everything he could to raise his granddaughter in an incredibly difficult circumstance, and doing everything he could to make up for the struggles he faced when raising his own family. He wanted to make things right with his son, and I think, in his way, he did.
The way Roy would talk about food was the way I talk about food, and toward the end, he didn’t enjoy eating like he always had. I know that for me, that would be torturous. He was so glad we were there for Christmas, but you could tell he couldn’t enjoy it as much as he wanted to. He was just so tired. His body wasn’t letting him do the things he loved, even on a basic level. I know that if this was the way I had to live, I would only hold on for the really important stuff. I think that he did just that. Thank you for the time we were able to share, Roy. You will be missed.
