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.