All that Remains, Journal Page February 16 2010
For the past month or so, illness and death have been on my mind. It began this summer when an uncle, almost 90, got scratched by his cat and suffered some long term health effects from the incident. While preparing for my fall show, I checked on him as frequently as I could as he dealt with the painful side effects of his medications. It was a relief to speak with him this week and find out he’s finally on the mend. No sooner had this happened when I received news that another elderly uncle of mine had just died from complications from a fall and liver disease. To add to this unhappy news, I discovered another close relative is battling a second bout of cancer and yet another good friend’s parent is suffering from the same disease. During these moments it’s hard to wonder if anything else matters… even art…
Feeling engulfed by the fragility of life and the nearness of death made me think back to my father’s passing of bone-related cancer (multiple myeloma) over 20 years ago. Given three months to live, he held on to life for seven miraculous years more. I was 18 when the disease took over his life and ours. All those years, which went by in a blur, were spent visiting him in the hospital every other day; living in limbo – never knowing for sure how long he would survive. When he was too ill to speak or heavily sedated all I could do was hold his hand to let him know I was there. When he was feeling well we had some good conversations about life and even death as well as the shenanigans that went on in the hospital. Some years he seemed constantly at death’s door; while other times, he went into periods of remission. He continually surprised us all, including his doctors and nurses, with his tenacity to live… even after falling once and breaking his hip, he survived the arduous surgery along with cancer. Dad worked as hard as any healthy person, nursing his broken hip back into the best form he could with lots of exercise. I still can’t get over the strength it must have taken to do that alone. I’m quite positive that the things that prolonged his life were the birth of my youngest sister along with his love for gardening. Later I learned, that the company of my husband and I – what I thought were futile visits, meant so much to him, too. Those memories of dad’s days in the hospital are sometimes all that seem to remain, but as unpleasant as they were at times, they also revealed a stronger and, sometimes, softer side of him I’d never seen before.
Summer is ended now and, as I look out my window and see the autumn leaves make their first appearance and the roses continuing to bloom despite the drastic drop in seasonal temperatures, I remember fall as the season we received dad’s death sentence. But I remember too that that didn’t stop his desire to live and to heal. And, so I hope that for my friends, relatives and you and yours who are undergoing similar painful experiences with loved ones that you too and they will find hope and courage in these hard times to survive despite the odds against them.
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