Today, I go visit ....
Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2017 7:44 am
... my best friend from high school.
At hospice, in her home along the scenic Perkiomen Creek outside Philadelphia.
She fought and won twice against a rare cancer. This third bout, though....
She was getting chemo and she and her husband were planning a weekend with us down the shore in August -- a month ago. She was terribly drained and nauseated -- unlike her previous chemo bouts -- and her blood sugar numbers were wacky. So we tabled the visit for the fall. October of even November, when we could drive and see the holiday decorations in Cape May.
Turns out, the nausea wasn't from the chemo. It was from a tumor on her duodenum. The doctors couldn't put a stent in and the tumor was inoperable.
And so, as her husband put it, "all of Diane's options suck."
She has had a couple of long talks with her chaplain and the hospice nun (who was her brother's senior prom date -- we always joked that dating Stevie sent women into the convent). So, she is at peace with mortality. Taking it better than I am, to be honest.
Add to this.... Sunday was the last of the old neighborhood reunions that I ran. I have done it 12 years... following on the 18 years that a guy named Johnny Quinn did it. The reunion started out 30 years ago, so Frankie Pacifico and Frankie Palumbo, both of whom had terminal cancer, could see some of the guys from the old neighborhood again.
Thanks to social media, we were able to keep it at a steady 150-200 attendees every year, even as people passed away. But the youngest people who attend at 63 and Boonie and I want to travel and I don't want to be responsible for the money and arrangements.....
There are nascent plans for a big blowout goodbye reunion of three parishes (only one of which still exists) - and the two corresponding public schools (only one of which still exists) - in a couple of years. Same thing .... if you graduated grade school through the Johnson administration .... We are going to meet in February to start discussions. I am supplying name lists and such.
One of the guys in my cousin Hugh's class (Class of 1960 from grade school) was designated as spokesman. He thanked me for "keeping Paradise (the neighborhood) and Corpus Christi (the parish) alive." I got a standing ovation; I thanked everyone and talked about how -- with everything that goes on in the outside world, growing up in Paradise is the tie that binds. We then sang Auld Lang Syne.
Not a dry eye in the house.
Couple those two things with bumfie passing yesterday and I know I will be a mess tonight. I am holding everything in for Diane's sake. this will give me a chance to see how good an actress I really am.
At hospice, in her home along the scenic Perkiomen Creek outside Philadelphia.
She fought and won twice against a rare cancer. This third bout, though....
She was getting chemo and she and her husband were planning a weekend with us down the shore in August -- a month ago. She was terribly drained and nauseated -- unlike her previous chemo bouts -- and her blood sugar numbers were wacky. So we tabled the visit for the fall. October of even November, when we could drive and see the holiday decorations in Cape May.
Turns out, the nausea wasn't from the chemo. It was from a tumor on her duodenum. The doctors couldn't put a stent in and the tumor was inoperable.
And so, as her husband put it, "all of Diane's options suck."
She has had a couple of long talks with her chaplain and the hospice nun (who was her brother's senior prom date -- we always joked that dating Stevie sent women into the convent). So, she is at peace with mortality. Taking it better than I am, to be honest.
Add to this.... Sunday was the last of the old neighborhood reunions that I ran. I have done it 12 years... following on the 18 years that a guy named Johnny Quinn did it. The reunion started out 30 years ago, so Frankie Pacifico and Frankie Palumbo, both of whom had terminal cancer, could see some of the guys from the old neighborhood again.
Thanks to social media, we were able to keep it at a steady 150-200 attendees every year, even as people passed away. But the youngest people who attend at 63 and Boonie and I want to travel and I don't want to be responsible for the money and arrangements.....
There are nascent plans for a big blowout goodbye reunion of three parishes (only one of which still exists) - and the two corresponding public schools (only one of which still exists) - in a couple of years. Same thing .... if you graduated grade school through the Johnson administration .... We are going to meet in February to start discussions. I am supplying name lists and such.
One of the guys in my cousin Hugh's class (Class of 1960 from grade school) was designated as spokesman. He thanked me for "keeping Paradise (the neighborhood) and Corpus Christi (the parish) alive." I got a standing ovation; I thanked everyone and talked about how -- with everything that goes on in the outside world, growing up in Paradise is the tie that binds. We then sang Auld Lang Syne.
Not a dry eye in the house.
Couple those two things with bumfie passing yesterday and I know I will be a mess tonight. I am holding everything in for Diane's sake. this will give me a chance to see how good an actress I really am.
