Remember I said I thought Deb wanted to avoid a public spectacle? The next day, Deb and I went to Gunther Toody's, one of those cheesy 1950's-style diners, for my birthday lunch before she had to go to work. She flashed the ring to the waitress, who then promptly told the other waiters and waitresses, and the next thing you know we're wearing paper hats and they're singing to us.
Strangely enough, I don't remember Deb flashing the ring any more after that.
Monday, October 29, 2007
The Engagement Story
I've told a short version of the engagement story, but I haven't told the long version.
This was in 2003. We had been living together for a few months and I realized that I was enjoying coming home to Deb (and after getting enough hints that she wanted a wedding ring), I decided, what the hell, let's get engaged.
(Later, of course, the whole thing triggered a massive panic attack and nearly broke us up, but I didn't know that. At the moment, it seemed like a good idea.)
Like every man in the world, I knew nothing about jewelry, but lately Deb had been teasing me with jewelry ads, pointing to rings in them and saying, "That'd make a perfect engagement ring." I acted nervous whenever she did it, pretending to squirm. So I took one of the jewelry ads we had gotten in the mail and left it on the dining table. She picked it up, opened it and pointed to a ring with a heart-shaped diamond in it, to tease me. I remembered which one it was and went to the jewelers and got her that ring.
I was planning to take her to Olive Garden on my birthday, which was also the day we met and the day we celebrated as our anniversary. I figured I would wait til we got there, and when the waitress asked us if we knew what we wanted, I'd say something like, "Yes, I do," and get down on my knee with the ring.
The only problems were Deb had to work on my birthday, and I knew she'd hate a public spectacle. So we were going to go on Dec. 7, the day before my birthday. This is, of course, also Pearl Harbor Day, and I figured, OK, if the marriage didn't work out, I could always blame it on getting engaged on Pearl Harbor Day.
The 7th was a Sunday. I was still willing to do the public spectacle thing, but I finally decided I couldn't embarrass her. We were having a late morning. She was downstairs fixing coffee, and I was upstairs in the bedroom trying to compose a speech. I figured out what to say, and the time was as right as it was going to get, so I called down to her, telling her to get upstairs, there was something I needed to ask her. As she was climbing the stairs, I got on my knee in the doorway and held the ring box.
She rounded the corner and saw me. She realized what was happening. Before I could say anything, she came up to me, looked down and with tears beginning to form in her eyes, said, "Yes."
I sighed and told her, "I haven't asked the question yet!"
This was in 2003. We had been living together for a few months and I realized that I was enjoying coming home to Deb (and after getting enough hints that she wanted a wedding ring), I decided, what the hell, let's get engaged.
(Later, of course, the whole thing triggered a massive panic attack and nearly broke us up, but I didn't know that. At the moment, it seemed like a good idea.)
Like every man in the world, I knew nothing about jewelry, but lately Deb had been teasing me with jewelry ads, pointing to rings in them and saying, "That'd make a perfect engagement ring." I acted nervous whenever she did it, pretending to squirm. So I took one of the jewelry ads we had gotten in the mail and left it on the dining table. She picked it up, opened it and pointed to a ring with a heart-shaped diamond in it, to tease me. I remembered which one it was and went to the jewelers and got her that ring.
I was planning to take her to Olive Garden on my birthday, which was also the day we met and the day we celebrated as our anniversary. I figured I would wait til we got there, and when the waitress asked us if we knew what we wanted, I'd say something like, "Yes, I do," and get down on my knee with the ring.
The only problems were Deb had to work on my birthday, and I knew she'd hate a public spectacle. So we were going to go on Dec. 7, the day before my birthday. This is, of course, also Pearl Harbor Day, and I figured, OK, if the marriage didn't work out, I could always blame it on getting engaged on Pearl Harbor Day.
The 7th was a Sunday. I was still willing to do the public spectacle thing, but I finally decided I couldn't embarrass her. We were having a late morning. She was downstairs fixing coffee, and I was upstairs in the bedroom trying to compose a speech. I figured out what to say, and the time was as right as it was going to get, so I called down to her, telling her to get upstairs, there was something I needed to ask her. As she was climbing the stairs, I got on my knee in the doorway and held the ring box.
She rounded the corner and saw me. She realized what was happening. Before I could say anything, she came up to me, looked down and with tears beginning to form in her eyes, said, "Yes."
I sighed and told her, "I haven't asked the question yet!"
What I said exactly I can't remember because I was really nervous, but it was along the lines of her making me happier than I ever thought I would ever be or ever deserve to be, and I wanted the chance to make her happy for the rest of her life. She said yes again, and I gave her the ring.
We got dressed and went to Olive Garden, where she proceeded to flash the ring to everyone, from the person taking names for the waiting list, to the waitress, to the food servers, to the other guests.
And I was afraid she didn't want me to make a scene?
Frankly, I was getting embarrassed, if only because I had gotten her the half-carat ring. I told her so, but she told me she was so happy with it she didn't care how big it was, and she kept showing it off like it was as big as her fist.
At the time, I was cringing, but now it makes me happy that I was able to make her that happy. After that, she always liked to tell the story about how I tricked her into picking her engagement ring, and even when she got sick and the ring couldn't fit on her swollen hand, she put it on a chain and wore it.
I had the ring put in the box with her ashes.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
The question
Still haven't forgiven cartoonist Tom Batiuk for having Lisa Moore die of breast cancer (and for, if anything, making it too abstract ... being taken away by a man in a "Phantom of the Opera" mask?), but I am impressed by one thing.
He announced this year that after Lisa died the strip would flash forward a decade so he wouldn't have to spend time showing the characters, especially her husband Les, mourning. I thought that was understandable. Being well acquainted with mourning, I can tell you it's not fun to experience or to watch. If anything is less promising for comic-strip material than terminal cancer, it's got to be grief.
He flash-forwarded the strip, but is spending the first few days flashing back to the period right after Lisa's death and how Les handled it.
Having been there, I can say Batiuk is dead on. He has Les say that right after Lisa died, he threw himself into the arrangements in order to have something, anything, to think about other than "Did I do everything I could?"
That, I can tell you, is the first thought you have. While Deb was dying, I put in a call to her oncologist, to ask whether there was any last-minute thing to try to save her, to see if he had done everything he could do.
In typical medical-office efficiency, my call wasn't returned until after Deb was gone. When I had him on the phone, though, that wasn't my question anymore.
I asked him if I had done everything I could do.
I got the answer from him I expected, about the cancer being too far gone for treatment, about even he was surprised how quickly she had gone, about there being nothing anyone could do.
I did preoccupy myself after Deb died, mostly with work. Being short-staffed was kind of a blessing because I got to pick up overtime shifts. Even now I take ones I can get, feeling guilty when I can't. I know a lot of it is trying to keep that question away.
I know the cancer was virulent, and I know short of becoming a doctor and finding a cure for cancer there is nothing I could have done.
But ...
I wonder what would have happened if I had been more of an asshole and camped out at Moffitt Cancer Center and gotten them to see Deb even though they told me that they had no room.
I wonder what would have happened if after she told me the lump was growing I took her to the emergency room and forced them to give her a biopsy a couple of weeks earlier.
I wonder, I wonder, I wonder.
The questions don't plague me as much as they used to. I suppose that's part of acceptance. Still, I remember how real the questions were to me.
Everyone will have to face this grief in their lives, yet no one gets any preparation for it. No one tells you in school, or at work, or at church, that someday you will have to face a loss that will cut you off at the knees and leave you on the ground.
It might be your parents. It may be a sibling. It could be a spouse. But someday, someone who is at the center of your world (and it's probably more than one person) will die, and you will have to deal with unimaginable grief, pain beyond measure and, of course, the question.
But really, what could they tell you about how you will handle it? Some people put their lives back together in a few months; some never get over it.
Still, a little warning would be nice. Maybe they could put it on milk cartons or something.
He announced this year that after Lisa died the strip would flash forward a decade so he wouldn't have to spend time showing the characters, especially her husband Les, mourning. I thought that was understandable. Being well acquainted with mourning, I can tell you it's not fun to experience or to watch. If anything is less promising for comic-strip material than terminal cancer, it's got to be grief.
He flash-forwarded the strip, but is spending the first few days flashing back to the period right after Lisa's death and how Les handled it.
Having been there, I can say Batiuk is dead on. He has Les say that right after Lisa died, he threw himself into the arrangements in order to have something, anything, to think about other than "Did I do everything I could?"
That, I can tell you, is the first thought you have. While Deb was dying, I put in a call to her oncologist, to ask whether there was any last-minute thing to try to save her, to see if he had done everything he could do.
In typical medical-office efficiency, my call wasn't returned until after Deb was gone. When I had him on the phone, though, that wasn't my question anymore.
I asked him if I had done everything I could do.
I got the answer from him I expected, about the cancer being too far gone for treatment, about even he was surprised how quickly she had gone, about there being nothing anyone could do.
I did preoccupy myself after Deb died, mostly with work. Being short-staffed was kind of a blessing because I got to pick up overtime shifts. Even now I take ones I can get, feeling guilty when I can't. I know a lot of it is trying to keep that question away.
I know the cancer was virulent, and I know short of becoming a doctor and finding a cure for cancer there is nothing I could have done.
But ...
I wonder what would have happened if I had been more of an asshole and camped out at Moffitt Cancer Center and gotten them to see Deb even though they told me that they had no room.
I wonder what would have happened if after she told me the lump was growing I took her to the emergency room and forced them to give her a biopsy a couple of weeks earlier.
I wonder, I wonder, I wonder.
The questions don't plague me as much as they used to. I suppose that's part of acceptance. Still, I remember how real the questions were to me.
Everyone will have to face this grief in their lives, yet no one gets any preparation for it. No one tells you in school, or at work, or at church, that someday you will have to face a loss that will cut you off at the knees and leave you on the ground.
It might be your parents. It may be a sibling. It could be a spouse. But someday, someone who is at the center of your world (and it's probably more than one person) will die, and you will have to deal with unimaginable grief, pain beyond measure and, of course, the question.
But really, what could they tell you about how you will handle it? Some people put their lives back together in a few months; some never get over it.
Still, a little warning would be nice. Maybe they could put it on milk cartons or something.
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Art imitates life
I didn't read "Funky Winkerbean" while I was growing up. The Yuma Daily Sun only had about 20 comics, and they were the basics ... Peanuts, Beetle Bailey, Blondie and, for some reason, Rex Morgan.
I finally caught onto it about the time Deb got sick and I was looking up sites about breast cancer. Turns out one of the major characters in the strip, Lisa, had had it and recovered. Pretty inspiring stuff.
Earlier this year, the artist, Tom Batiuk, had Lisa have a recurrence, and at first it looked like she was going to be all right. There was one strip (I'd print it here, but I don't want to get into legal trouble) where, after she was told she was cancer-free, she's lying in bed, and at first she looks confused, then relieved, and then she's asleep. I wrote Batiuk an e-mail, thanking him for presenting the ending Deb didn't get in real life.
A few weeks later, he revealed in the strip that the test results were switched and Lisa's cancer had, in fact, spread. I felt like writing another e-mail calling Batiuk every name in the Oxford Obscene English Dictionary.
Since then, it's been downhill for Lisa, and there's been news stories that she will, in fact, die before this month is over. From the look of this week's strips, it may even be this week.
I really shouldn't be reading the strip at this point. After all, I've lived through a cancer death, and I really shouldn't want to read about it. But I AM reading it. Reluctantly, but I think I need to read it.
As anyone who has read what I wrote about Deb's last few days knows, I said I didn't know what was going on when it was happening.
By watching someone else go through it, even a fictional character, I realize I should've known what was going on, but I was in near-complete denial.
There was a moment when, after the doctor told us the test results about Deb's cancer spreading, and we were left alone to decide whether to give up treatments and call hospice, or ... well, there really wasn't a choice. Deb was too weak for any treatment.
It was just me and her, and she had said, "I guess that means no cruise."
In my mind, I knew what we had just been told and what it meant. That Deb was going to die. My heart, though, wasn't going to give up.
That was when I became the optimist, the one who said she was going to get better and go back into treatment and be all right. I wrapped myself up in that fantasy, and it wasn't until the hospice nurse told me Monday morning that she was dying that I let it go.
In retrospect, I wish I hadn't done it. I wish I had forced myself that Friday to be aware of how little time there was. I wish we had talked about what was about to happen. I think she didn't want to upset me, so she didn't bring it up. And by Sunday it was really too late because she had lost coherence.
I know it was a defense mechanism and I shouldn't feel badly about it because that's what I needed to do to get through the trauma, but I do feel badly. I also know what's done is done and regretting it won't change it.
On the other hand, the last eight hours or so, from the time I was forced to deal with what was going on until the moment she died, is, strangely, one of the most precious experiences I've ever had. I was completely aware of how short our time was, how important every moment was. That's why I'm proud that I spent that time talking to her, telling her I loved her, retelling the stories of our life together, reading her "Winnie the Pooh" and telling her it was OK for her to go.
Maybe that's why I feel badly. Like every other experience in my life with Deb, I wish that experience had gone on longer as well.
Now the optimist in me wants to see Lisa come out of it, like I wanted Deb to. The realist, however, knows what's happening this time, because I've seen it before.
This time, I have no illusions.
I finally caught onto it about the time Deb got sick and I was looking up sites about breast cancer. Turns out one of the major characters in the strip, Lisa, had had it and recovered. Pretty inspiring stuff.
Earlier this year, the artist, Tom Batiuk, had Lisa have a recurrence, and at first it looked like she was going to be all right. There was one strip (I'd print it here, but I don't want to get into legal trouble) where, after she was told she was cancer-free, she's lying in bed, and at first she looks confused, then relieved, and then she's asleep. I wrote Batiuk an e-mail, thanking him for presenting the ending Deb didn't get in real life.
A few weeks later, he revealed in the strip that the test results were switched and Lisa's cancer had, in fact, spread. I felt like writing another e-mail calling Batiuk every name in the Oxford Obscene English Dictionary.
Since then, it's been downhill for Lisa, and there's been news stories that she will, in fact, die before this month is over. From the look of this week's strips, it may even be this week.
I really shouldn't be reading the strip at this point. After all, I've lived through a cancer death, and I really shouldn't want to read about it. But I AM reading it. Reluctantly, but I think I need to read it.
As anyone who has read what I wrote about Deb's last few days knows, I said I didn't know what was going on when it was happening.
By watching someone else go through it, even a fictional character, I realize I should've known what was going on, but I was in near-complete denial.
There was a moment when, after the doctor told us the test results about Deb's cancer spreading, and we were left alone to decide whether to give up treatments and call hospice, or ... well, there really wasn't a choice. Deb was too weak for any treatment.
It was just me and her, and she had said, "I guess that means no cruise."
In my mind, I knew what we had just been told and what it meant. That Deb was going to die. My heart, though, wasn't going to give up.
That was when I became the optimist, the one who said she was going to get better and go back into treatment and be all right. I wrapped myself up in that fantasy, and it wasn't until the hospice nurse told me Monday morning that she was dying that I let it go.
In retrospect, I wish I hadn't done it. I wish I had forced myself that Friday to be aware of how little time there was. I wish we had talked about what was about to happen. I think she didn't want to upset me, so she didn't bring it up. And by Sunday it was really too late because she had lost coherence.
I know it was a defense mechanism and I shouldn't feel badly about it because that's what I needed to do to get through the trauma, but I do feel badly. I also know what's done is done and regretting it won't change it.
On the other hand, the last eight hours or so, from the time I was forced to deal with what was going on until the moment she died, is, strangely, one of the most precious experiences I've ever had. I was completely aware of how short our time was, how important every moment was. That's why I'm proud that I spent that time talking to her, telling her I loved her, retelling the stories of our life together, reading her "Winnie the Pooh" and telling her it was OK for her to go.
Maybe that's why I feel badly. Like every other experience in my life with Deb, I wish that experience had gone on longer as well.
Now the optimist in me wants to see Lisa come out of it, like I wanted Deb to. The realist, however, knows what's happening this time, because I've seen it before.
This time, I have no illusions.
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