He really made me who I am. When he first came to live with us, my mom and me that is, I was this shy, awkward little girl. I was scared of everything, not to say that I'm not anymore, but that's irrelevant. He came into our house and drove me up the wall. He made me drive those stupid go-karts that I was too weak to operate, which I still, to this day, refuse to drive. He'd throw me up in the air, he'd make me run around the house with him chasing me – anything to pull me out of my shell. I guess that I must have gotten used to him pretty quickly though. I remember this one time he took us to these Bryn Athyn cathedrals and made me jump around on rocks inside of a little pond. I knew I'd fall in, but he pulled me in with him anyway. I fell in, of course, and my shoes and socks were soaking wet. So he took off his socks and gave them to me to wear. As if that weren't enough, he pushed me to climb up a wall of rocks so he could take a picture. So there I was, two feet tall, pulling my weight up these stupid rocks, with my slippery shoes – but I made it. The picture turned out pretty nice looking anyway.
He was the kind of person that had an answer to everything. Any question I asked him, no matter what it was about, he had something to say on the topic. It was almost as if he knew something about everything. I don’t know where he kept so much knowledge, but he definitely had it. He was the “most” knowledgeable about math and science. Anytime I’d ask him for help solving an equation or understanding a concept, he’d have tons of ways of tackling the issue. He’d go on for hours about the topic, usually confusing me more than I had been in the first place. But that was really what he loved to do: share his knowledge. He loved to teach people, he wanted everyone to know what he knew; he wanted others to understand. But even if I didn’t, I couldn’t help but smile listening to him talk. He was so enthusiastic, so energetic, and any story he told was interesting, whether it made sense or not.
He was always telling jokes. He used to tell this joke about a stupid couple. The couple is sitting around the kitchen table, talking, and the husband says to his wife, “You know what? You’re so stupid, you’re as stupid as wood,” and then knocks on the table to emphasize his point. The wife would then reply, “Oh, someone’s knocking at the door. Let me go answer it.” And the husband would come back with, “No, no, I’ll get it!” Ha, ha. The joke was funny, even after he told it thousands of times. And he would keep repeating it, and I laughed every time. Just hearing his voice was uplifting. He brightened up any day with a joke relating to any situation I was facing. Even if I had no clue what the joke was about, I would laugh. He tried so hard, for me and for everyone else he met. Anything he did, he gave it his all; he never held anything back.
He used to be fat in the days before he started dating my mom. But I guess he must not have liked himself that way, and he was so motivated to get into the shape and form he had been in during his younger days. He started running and exercising daily. He was “built” in some sense, but just entirely physically fit. He ate right, too. He always ate a big breakfast, but nothing fattening, and hardly ever sugar. He didn’t like the taste I think, so, when he ate any type of candy it was too sweet for him because he wasn’t used to the taste. He would eat a fairly large lunch, consisting of salad, some type of meat, just generally filling. He’d eat tons of fruits and usually some type of “Special K” cereal or something of that sort. He’d usually add apples or bananas to it, and always share with me. He cut up apples every night, and I always managed to steal pieces of it, and he had to cut himself more, but he never got mad at me. He would never eat past six or seven o’clock at night: eating past that time would change all the calories into fat. That’s what he always warned me of but I really never followed the rule, which is probably why my body is 100% fat. Of all the people to get sick, I still have no idea how it could have been he. It kind of kills all reason for staying healthy. Every time my conservative grandparents would tell me to put shoes on in the house, or put a hat on when going outside so I wouldn’t get sick, it just made me angry. He always wore shoes in the house, he always put a hat on outside, but that didn’t get him very far. Then again, maybe it kept him alive as long as it did. Was it fate or did he change fate’s course?
About staying in shape, he ran seven miles or went to the gym every morning at around four or five o’clock. Let’s talk about endurance. He never skipped a day, never fell out of character. He had this goal of putting my mother and me into shape. He found an article in some running magazine that showed a “simple” way of getting into running mode and running up to twenty minutes non-stop. So we started this cycle thing, the first few days with running one minute and walking the second, and so on for twenty minutes. Then the running time increased and the walking time decreased. I guess I wanted to kill myself throughout the whole cycle, but by the time I was actually running for that long, it was SUCH a good feeling. I definitely could not have pushed myself to do it on my own, and it made me all the more thankful to him for pushing me. He always did things like that, things that seemed so crazy while they were happening but which always brought positive results in the end. And I wouldn’t give them up for anything.
When he first got himself into the hospital, I remember being almost annoyed because it didn’t seem possible to me that someone so healthy could actually be sick. And that was how I felt throughout the entire time that he was suffering. It just didn’t make sense. And no matter what happened, I always thought that he’d pull through because that’s just who he was – the kind of person that could win any battle, the kind that could overcome any obstacle, and the kind that really wasn’t afraid of anything, always willing to try something new, something different. One night I heard my mom crying downstairs and screaming for me to come down because he was hiding in the closet. He finally popped out saying, “I’m coming out of the closet, I’m depressed.” And it made me so confused because he had tears streaming down his face. But he was still being himself. Despite the depression he was suffering, he made a joke out of it. He sat down and we started talking about how he was feeling. He told me that the entire day he’d been listening to Bach symphonies and couldn’t stop crying. Then, he said, “You know what? I’m not afraid of dying, I’m not scared of death, I guess I’m ready for it.” And that was so scary for me to hear because I was scared of his death, I wasn’t ready for it. But honestly, I didn’t really think there was any chance of him dying.
His disease somehow decided that it wanted to take his life. One thing after another happened; as soon as one problem had passed, another was waiting to take over. The lymphoma, which is supposedly the “easiest” cancer to treat and which the doctor promised to rid his body of, appeared all over the place. It started in the lymph nodes, adrenal glands, and stomach-type area. It went away after several months of chemotherapy, but less than a month later, the left side of his face was swollen up, red, purple, just not the way it was supposed to look. So they started radiation, his hair started to fall out. But personality-wise he was still the same person. He decided to shave off all of his hair, and started by shaving off only the left side. He had my mom take pictures and put those into a photo album, which my mom can’t bear to look at. My grandfather, though, loved the picture. To him it really defined my stepdad’s personality, even at a time when he was obviously ill. When the face started to heal, his legs started to hurt him. He went with my mother to the hospital and ended up coming home with a cane and a leg that barely worked. These leg problems worsened and by the end he was barely walking. He could hardly stand up and sit down by himself and felt that he was a burden on all of us. But he wasn’t.
Then the doctor put a port into his head with which she could do chemotherapy directly to the brain. One morning he lost consciousness and collapsed at the foot of the stairs. He was barely breathing and making horrible grunting sounds and not responding at all. When the rescue workers came to our house and gave him some oxygen, he revived and was back to his normal self, joking with the workers, who really didn’t understand his jokes but laughed anyway. He went back into the hospital and there was a clog in his lungs, which they somehow treated and he was back home. He had all these different therapists come in to work with him on his strength. One said that her main goal would be to build up his endurance, which was the worst thing I had ever heard. I mean, he used to run miles in the morning and now he could barely walk! But at least there was hope. Then, of course, the port just HAD to get infected. And then meningitis somehow developed. He had antibiotics that were poured into the port in his chest and were apparently working because soon enough the infection was practically gone. The port was removed finally but the meningitis did not actually go away as the doctors had hoped. He was back in the hospital and more cancer cells were found in the spine.
He said he didn’t want any more chemotherapy, but my mom’s tears convinced him to do it anyway. But something had to go wrong again. Tests showed masses on the lungs and the liver, and the doctors said he was too weak for treatment and would not give him any. Then he got pneumonia, as if everything else wasn’t enough. The entire family sat in the hospital: me, my mom, my grandparents, his son and daughter, and even his ex-wife (she and my mom had started to get along, which lessened any prior tension). It was the worst feeling to sit in that room and watch him with every possible medicine being poured into his body and an oxygen mask on his face that just kept the level high enough for him to live. He responded to our words for the first few days we were there, but soon he could only listen (if he was awake for longer than a second). And I knew he was going to die, but I just couldn’t convince myself that it was reality. When he finally died, I knew it was good in the sense that he was done suffering, but I felt a pain worse than any other.
Seeing him in the casket, I wanted to throw up. I hated how he looked in it; nothing was right. He was actually DEAD, never going to open his eyes again, never going to smile, never going to tell another joke. Nothing. He was gone. He was dressed in the suit he was married in, how ironic that it was worn on one of the happiest days of his life, and then maybe on the worst – bittersweet I guess. The funeral home covered up the scars on his head from the port and made him look “peaceful,” but it wasn’t right. Sitting through the service, I kept hoping he would just open his eyes, and it would have all been a dream – a horrible nightmare. That’s just who I am I guess, a dreamer, maybe a psycho. But it was my WORST nightmare.
I received a card from a friend of the family that read something to the effect of, “Let your memories help you overcome your pain.” And that’s really what I’m doing. A friend asked me what my favorite memory is and, to be honest, there are too many to name. He used to steal pencils from his work for me. He would always test me for any test I was having the next day, whether it was math or history. He’d never let me down, even if he couldn’t pronounce most of the words I was trying to learn. And studying with him gave me confidence. Once he was helping me understand a chapter in science and we were working on a question about vacuums. Genius me, I thought they meant vacuum cleaners, and when he realized what I was thinking, he started laughing and didn’t stop…EVER. (I imagine he’s still laughing about it in heaven.) But I loved it when he teased me like that. I loved having my own personal “inside” jokes with him.
But when I really think about this disease that took control of his body, I think it lost. He lived life to the fullest and was so full of life. He may not be physically alive now, but he is alive through all the people whose lives he touched. When I look at my baby sister, I see him. So overall, he really won his battle.