I hope that it will not strike people as inappropriate, but on this Memorial Day I would like to remember those we have loved and lost to cancer.
My family has so far been fortunate enough not to be plagued by cancer; what has been the most typical cause of death has been heart disease of one sort or another. Thirty years or so ago, my brother was diagnosed with a very early stage melanoma. He had surgery to remove the lesion, and since then he and we have been very lucky that he has not had a recurrence.
Thus my personal experience of cancer (apart from my own) has been limited to a few relatives and acquaintances. Here I would like to salute two relatives in particular to start this evening’s series of remembrance: my great-uncle, who died in 1968 or so, and my quasi father-in-law, who died in 1993. Please join me below for my reminiscences.
Monday Night Cancer Club is a Daily Kos group focused on dealing with cancer, primarily for cancer survivors and caregivers, though clinicians, researchers, and others with a special interest are also welcome. Volunteer diarists post Monday evenings between 8-9 PM ET on topics related to living with cancer, which is very broadly defined to include physical, spiritual, emotional and cognitive aspects. Mindful of the controversies endemic to cancer prevention and treatment, we ask that both diarists and commenters keep an open mind regarding strategies for surviving cancer, whether based in traditional, Eastern, Western, allopathic or other medical practices. This is a club no one wants to join, in truth, and compassion will help us make it through the challenge together.
My great-uncle Mike was married to my maternal grandmother’s sister; he and his wife came to the U.S. from Austro-Hungary shortly after my grandmother and her parents, if I recall the story correctly, all in the few years after WWI and before draconian immigration quotas were imposed. Mike worked in auto plants for several decades and had two daughters with his wife, my great-aunt. My mother always wished that she had been born into their family, mostly I suspect because my great-uncle was a very mellow and gentle human being. He seemed to be devoted to his daughters (unlike my own grandfather, who had no use for girls, only his sons) and they grew up in comparative emotional security.
When I knew my great-uncle, he had already been retired for several years. He and my great-aunt had bought a few—maybe 10-15—acres in one of the east-side suburbs of Detroit which at that time was barely incorporated and still quite rural. He farmed most of the land and sold the produce at the side of the dirt road that ran by their house. I remember chasing quails through the plowed fields before the planting began, hoping of course to get close enough to touch one before they fluttered away. Toward the back of their property a little creek ran through the woods, and that was the farthest I was supposed to go on my own. Next to the house, they had pear, peach, apple, apricot and cherry trees, along with a grape arbor and gooseberry, raspberry, and currant bushes. They might have grown strawberries too, but even without those their farm came close to paradise to me.
Both my grandmother and my great-aunt canned feverishly at the end of the season, using the produce of the farm. I remember shelves and shelves at both of their houses of canned pears, peaches, green beans and pickles. Best dill pickles ever. Best pears, too.
On summer holidays, especially the 4th of July and Labor Day, the whole extended family would turn out for the feasts that my great-aunt, my grandmother, and their friends would produce. Considering the tiny kitchen they worked in, no more than 8 x 8 feet, I don’t know how they did it. And the heat! Since they did no cooking outside. But those meals were fantastic all the same. Roast pork, breaded chicken, stuffed cabbage; mashed potatoes or potato salad; several sides of vegetables; dios torte (a walnut sponge cake with chocolate filling); cream puffs; and at least two pies, most often cherry and peach.
This was all women’s work, of course, and my uncle Mike would preside cheerfully over the gathering, smoking his pipe and offering some of his home-made wines to his guests, especially when the meal was over. He made a very sweet but delicious after-dinner cherry wine that I still remember fondly, even though I was much too young to be having alcohol when I last had any of it.
On other summer evenings, a smaller group would gather at their house to play pinochle. In later years I would play too, but back then I would only be allowed to keep score, perching mostly by my mother to do so. Their house was tiny, but the whole front section was taken up by their screened-in porch. Their house was remote enough for the dark to be really dark, the stars and moon to be really bright, and the sound of the crickets to be raucous, almost loud enough to drown out our conversations. Most of the time everyone spoke in English; my mother never learned to speak Hungarian, and my father didn’t understand any at all. But frequently one or another of the old folks would have a side conversation—whether about family business, or cards, or what, I have no way of knowing—but I still miss hearing the mysterious sibilance of their speech. I do not think that any sound recording of their conversation was ever made. These calm summer nights still represent the best memories of my childhood.
Uncle Mike came down with stomach cancer, I believe, when he was in his early 70s. I don’t remember any open discussion of his condition, or of his prospects; I am pretty sure that the prognosis was grim as soon as he was diagnosed. I remember seeing him once or twice when he was ill, when he was a gracious and kind to me as ever, despite enduring what I understand now to have been considerable pain. Very soon after he died, my great-aunt sold the house and farm and went to live near one of her daughters in Florida. I saw her very seldom after that.
In many ways, I date the end of my childhood to the loss of my great-uncle and their farm. Other family fractures followed shortly thereafter, and now I would not know most of my maternal cousins, let alone my great-aunt and uncle’s descendants, if I ran into them on the street. Quiet and unassuming as he always was, my great-uncle Mike played an important, tempering role in the family, and we were to miss his influence more than we knew.
Fast forward a quarter-century, and the experience of living with, and dying from, cancer had become very different.
Bob, my quasi father-in-law (that is, the father of my female partner of ten years at the time of his diagnosis with prostate cancer) was almost the antithesis of my great-uncle Mike. He was a fine example of a self-made man, a description whose irony and inaccuracy he freely acknowledged later on. The youngest child of a working-class family, he was born to an alcoholic day laborer who rarely worked at all, and a live-in housekeeper who didn’t even realize that she was pregnant with him until she went into labor. He was born just days before the market crash of 1929, and as the family’s fortunes worsened in the Depression all five of his older siblings pitched in to make sure that he had the education and backing he needed.
It wasn’t easy for him, either; he went into the service right after high school, I believe, and earned both his bachelor’s and law degrees at night, working during the day to support his young family (including his oldest, my partner, who had been born while he was stationed in Germany, right after the Korean War). He established a small law office but did very well for himself, and by his late 50s had been invited to join one of the major law firms in Pittsburgh as a senior partner. He was a rainmaker for the firm and was proud of his professional achievements.
When he and I first met, we did not get along at all. I thought he was an egotistical prick, to put it bluntly, and I am sure he thought I was an arrogant and rigid little bitch. Both of these assessments were undoubtedly well-grounded. But ten years along, he and I had reached an uneasy truce, with some measure of mutual respect if not affection, and he was usually pleasant enough when we visited.
Then he was diagnosed with Stage IV prostate cancer, just before Thanksgiving weekend of 1991. The next 18 months were a blur. Things were very complicated anyway, because I was beginning what would eventually turn into a complete break-up with my partner; this process was made more difficult and more poignant given her father’s rapidly worsening illness. He survived only 18 months. I remember at that time how relentless the whole process seemed—that there was never a time of respite, a plateau upon which we could catch our breath. No, he went steadily and quickly down hill, too sick too fast to take the last trips that he had planned, including a father-daughter pilgrimage to Cooperstown that I am sure my ex still regrets not having had the chance to do.
Unlike the era of my great-uncle’s illness, however, my FIL was ill during a time of much greater openness and family involvement. Overall, I think that is a great improvement. We all had a chance to make amends, to become at peace with each other (well, at least as best as we could—but that’s another long story), and to acknowledge the love and compassion that we did feel. He and I had some astonishingly intimate conversations that I still cherish, along with deep regret that it took this existential crisis for us to connect as well as we did in the end.
His death was remarkable. He had had at-home hospice for a little while when it became clear that he was sinking fast, and that we had better hurry over if we wanted a chance to see him before he left. As I recall, he was mostly lucid but resolute about dying by the time we got there. One of the parish priests—who in that instance behaved with genuine grace—had kept him company for several hours, helping him stand as he wished, and then return to bed when he was too weary. They prayed and talked together, too, but mostly the priest simply stayed with him. It was inspiring and humbling to watch. But not as inspiring and humbling as it was to watch Bob get ready to die. I had no idea until that time that it can be work, just as birth is work, to cross over. Whatever his motives and capacities, he had clearly decided that his time was up, and that he was ready to go. I hope that I can be as composed and brave as he was when it is my time.
I know that you all have many people to honor and remember, so I will open the floor to your reminiscences. Of course, you will note that I have not mentioned the wonderful and much-missed Kossacks we have lost to cancer over the years—which is because I am hoping that those of you who actually had interactions with them will be able and willing to share your recollections.
Peace and blessings to all. May the memories of those we have lost bring us comfort.