A death in the family
My wife, Amy, asked me to post this update that she wrote:
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A beautiful end to a wonderful life.
That’s how my mother described my grandma’s passing tonight (Friday) at 9 o’clock.
I’d written before about how, at grandma’s request, the family had been singing hymns to her for the past few days.
Tonight, it seems, they sang to her from 6 p.m. on, right up until she passed.
The signs were there. The end was near.
And the end was peaceful and painless — and filled with the hope that accompanies the faithful’s departing.
Blogging it out
My wife, Amy Raymond, wrote this last night, specifically intending for it to be posted on this blog. Amy is the assistant news editor at The Oklahoman and the editor of Viva Oklahoma, the company’s Spanish language publication. She’s also my favorite person.
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I am writing this now before the end arrives.
The health of my grandma, Irene Schmidt, has been declining precipitously in recent days.
I spoke to her on the phone on Sunday. We stayed away from a trip to Kansas because I had a cold and didn’t want to spread it. It was an incidental conversation. And it could be my last with her.
I’ve been waiting for the phone call — the one with the bad news and funeral plans.
Thursday night, I got a different kind of call. Bittersweet might be the best way to describe it.
There was the health update — she can barely drink and isn’t eating anything. She’s not able to talk very much but has gotten in a few zingers.
She said she had thoughts in her brain that wouldn’t come out. My cousin who was there visiting said she could get a new one of those in heaven.
“Put me in the front of the line, then,” my grandma said. ”I want a good one.”
Not being able to get thoughts out must be tough for a woman who readily speaks her mind.
She seems to be handling things OK, my mom says.
My grandma is 92 and a woman of great faith, so she’s ready for what comes next.
It’s that faith that was the rallying point Wednesday and Thursday for those in my family who are overseeing her care in these last days.
A chaplain asked my mom and aunt if they wanted to sing a hymn Wednesday. They’d been away from my grandma’s bed, but she heard singing and asked them to move nearer.
The chaplain bailed after about three hymns, my mother reports, but the others sang “every old church song you could ever think of” for about an hour and a half.
My grandma tried, unsuccessfully, to clap along with the singing.
And Thursday, she asked for and got a few more hours of song and the joy that comes with it.
My grandma is 92 and a woman of great faith, so she’s ready for what comes next.
I just hope the rest of us are, too.
Another story drawing to a close
I haven’t posted anything on here for awhile. Maybe you noticed.
It’s been hard to find motivation lately. Chapter 3 was not well-received in some quarters, which wasn’t entirely unexpected, I guess. But it’s never fun knowing that you’ve upset people, especially when doing so was the furthest thing from your mind.
The main reason I haven’t written, though, is that Jim is only one of the people in my life who is facing death. And while Jim has gotten reasonably good news the last two times he’s seen his doctors (and now has a new treatment option that could lead to more good news), Irene Schmidt has worsened. We’re told she probably has less than six weeks left.
Irene, you may recall, is my wife’s grandmother. She lives near Wichita, KS, and has had a long and full life. She’s a great woman, lean and persnickety, who spent her life working on a farm and taking care of her husband, who died years ago. She’s plain-spoken and honest. She seems surprised by kindness and uncomfortable with praise; her thrifty practicality and work ethic sprouted from the tough soil of world wars and the Great Depression. She was born shortly before the Spanish flu pandemic began in Kansas and spread to kill tens of thousands worldwide, and now — in her last days — she’s watched the overwrought accounts of swine flu.
She has cancer, of course.
If she were younger, the doctors might have tried to fight it. She considered that option, but at 92 chose instead to make her final months as comfortable as possible. So the cancer has taken root. Her belly is fat with it, as if she is carrying a grotesque baby. The end is near.
I knew when I accepted this project that Irene’s death would be a part of it, that my sadness would be dwarfed by my wife’s sorrow, that I’d have this sick, hollow feeling each time I saw my wife’s eyes cloud over and threaten rain. I knew that. But there’s a sort of hopeless paralysis that I didn’t expect. People talk about the grieving process and the circle of life, but it’s hard to take solace in science when people you care about about disappearing into their graves.
In the past six months, I’ve gotten to know Jim and his family — borrowing their hardships in order to share them with you. I’ve lost a niece I never met and felt powerless to comfort my brother and his wife. Soon, I will lose Irene and support my wife through her grief.
I don’t like this whole circle of life thing. And these days, I just don’t have a lot to say.
Bizarre
This may be the oddest cancer-related story I’ve ever come across. Check this out.
John Kanzius
A while back I posted about the death of John Kanzius, a fellow from my old stomping grounds (Pennsylvania) who was working with one of Jim’s doctors on a cancer-fighting machine.
Today, I got an e-mail from the Erie Times-News about Mr. Kanzius — and what’s happening with his research. Thought you might be interested.
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Thursday, April 16, 2009
Carrying on Kanzius’ fight
That John Kanzius’ fight against cancer now carries on without him is a stark reminder of the awful and implacable power of his target.
That hundreds of people turned out to pay their respects during the calling hours after his February death speaks volumes about how the man and his mission captured the hopes and respect of his hometown.
Kanzius’ ingenuity and passion for seeing the project through, even while slowly losing his personal battle against the disease, have created a sense of determination and obligation that outlives him.
There’s a lot more to do, and a lot more money will be needed to do it. And there would be no more fitting tribute to the man and his work than to make sure his drive to kill cancer with radio waves continues without pause.
Erie Times-News health reporter David Bruce is doing his part by continuing to track and report on the progress of those efforts. Following is Bruce’s take on where things stand as the key people around Kanzius adjust to carrying on without him.
John Kanzius died about two months ago.
But work on his cancer-killing device continues at research laboratories in Houston and Pittsburgh.
“We’re working on many different cancer types – liver, colon and pancreas,” said Steven Curley, M.D., principal researcher at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. “We’re also working on prostate cancer, breast cancer and leukemia cancer lines.”
Curley, a surgical oncologist, has taken on additional responsibilities since Kanzius died Feb. 18 after a seven-year battle with a rare leukemia.
Curley has become the face of the project. He recently met with Arnold Palmer to discuss ways the golfing legend can raise money for further research.
Palmer, a longtime cancer research advocate, has said he is interested in Kanzius’ device.
Curley also is heading back to Washington, D.C., in May to meet again with U.S. Food and Drug Administration officials. The FDA must approve Kanzius’ device before it can be tested on humans.
Human trials on the device are expected to start by 2011, Curley said.
“What has happened is that people like myself and Charlie Rutkowski have stepped up to take care of a lot of these things without the benefit of John’s input,” Curley said.
Rutkowski is one of the owners of Industrial Sales and Manufacturing Inc., a Millcreek Township business that helps build Kanzius’ devices.
Curley and Rutkowski aren’t the only ones who have stepped up in recent weeks.
Donations to the Jon Kanzius Cancer Research Foundation have increased since Kanzius’ death.
The foundation has raised nearly $2 million for research at M.D. Anderson and the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Center.
“Donations were very heavy right after the funeral, and they’ve been steady ever since,” said Maryann Yochim, foundation president.
The foundation is scheduling a second telethon in September to raise money for the project.
It will be broadcast Sept. 17 on WICU-TV and WSEE-TV (in Erie), and might also be carried on television stations in Pittsburgh, Orlando and Houston, said Pat Fetzner, a foundation board member.
But all the progress doesn’t lessen Curley’s anger and frustration at losing Kanzius, who became a close friend.
“I still miss John,” Curley said. “Driving home sometimes, I get an overwhelming sense of anger. Cancer claimed yet another outstanding individual.”
Susan Boyle
Have you seen the video of Susan Boyle astonishing the world?
I’ve watched it repeatedly, and each time I get chills. In case you missed it – which is unlikely, since it’s had more than 20 million views online – Boyle is the 47-year-old Scottish woman who blew away the audience and judges on “Britain’s Got Talent” last weekend.
Check it out here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY
Before she went out on stage, she admitted to the show’s hosts that she’d never been married or kissed. Since her mother’s death two years ago, she has lived alone except for a cat named Pebbles. And, she told the hosts, she planned to “rock” the crowd.
Then she stood before 3,000 people and smiled at the judges, among them Simon Cowell, who has turned unkind comments into a career on the popular FOX television show, “American Idol.” Audience members snickered as she said she wanted to be a singing star, and Simon fairly dripped disdain as he stared at her squarish build, Brezhnev eyebrows and unruly hair. It just got worse when she started gyrating her hips in a nervous attempt to display confidence.
Everyone expected a freak show. Surely this unglamorous woman from a small Scottish village was daft. Like William Hung, who embarrassed himself with a ghastly performance of Ricky Martin’s “She Bangs,” Boyle would be comically, painfully inept. You could almost see Simon sharpening his tongue.
But amid all this — the laughing crowd, the cynical judges, the giggling hosts — something amazing happened: Reality television captured a moment of genuine emotion, of human transcendance. The world watched a star being born.
Within the space of a few notes, Boyle transformed from an object of ridicule to a heroine with the voice of an angel. Singing the perfect song — “I Dreamed a Dream,” a difficult piece from Les Miserables about the death of hope — she won over the crowd in seconds. The cameras cut away from Boyle’s performance to show the judges agog with shock, mouths hanging open, transfixed. By the time she was done, people were crying, humbled, embarrassed by their own preconceptions.
I could watch it a thousand times.
I read an article today that offered a reason why Boyle’s story is so uplifting: It’s so unexpected that it seems as if it could not happen in real life. It’s a story we’re all familiar with, but only within the carefully scripted confines of fiction. It’s “The Full Monty,” “Napoleon Dynamite,” or any of a hundred teen movies produced each year. Unlikely heroes defy stereotypes to achieve something impossible, getting the boy or girl and winning over everyone who oppressed them. The meme is ubiquitous in the make-believe world but almost unheard of in reality. And we all watched it happen.
In interviews this week, Boyle has remarked that everyone who used to pick on her is cheering her on now. The children who used to tease her because of her old maid status and plain appearance stop to wish her luck. She’s gone from the ugly duckling who has never been kissed to the belle of Britain’s ball — and the favorite to win the television competition.
It’s a real-life underdog story.
It’s a beautiful thing.
Interviewer becomes the interviewed
I ask a lot of questions.
When I interview someone, they’re stuck in the hot seat for an hour or more. I don’t mean it be that way; I just want to make sure I have all the details straight. So I go back over the same topics more than once. I try to nail down the timeline. I try to unearth the backstory. Basically, I just listen as long as people are willing to talk.
I’ve always sympathized with my interview subjects. I knew, at least on an intellectual level, that being interviewed by me is an exasperating, draining experience.
But I never experienced anything similar myself — until last night.
My niece, Linnae, called from Pennsylvania. She’s in junior high, and for a class assignment, she has to write a four-page biography of someone she finds interesting. She chose me.
I’ll admit, I’m flattered. I’m sure she put it off until the last moment and turned to me in desperation or something, but I choose to believe she truly finds me fascinating.
Linnae asked if she could interview me. I said yes, thinking that she’d ask a few questions and be done with it.
Instead, she subjected me to an hour-long interview that covered my life in 10-year increments.
She started out simple: parents’ names, siblings’ names, how many years there are between us. What were my parents hobbies or interests? Where did they work? What did I like to do?
Gradually, though, Linnae pushed for more in-depth questions:
“Were you in a fraternity? Why or why not? What did you think about the college you chose to attend? Where did you go on your honeymoon? What did you do there?”
On and on.
“Please describe for me your dating life between the ages of 21 and 30,” she ordered. “During those years, did you suffer any serious setbacks in your life? How did you feel about your existence? As you drew closer to 30, how did your attitudes toward aging change? How much did you earn per year during that time?”
She wanted names, dates, times, locations. She wanted me to explore my feelings about events in my past.
By the end of the interview, I was enervated, wrung out.
“Thank you,” she said sweetly. “I think I have enough to fill four pages now. Love you. Bye.”
I wandered out into the living room, told my wife what’d just happened.
“What do you think?” my wife asked. “Does she have a future as a reporter … or as an interrogator for the FBI?”
I’m thinking CIA. Al Qaeda wouldn’t stand a chance.
This weekend?
Chapter 3 is scheduled to run this Sunday. Things can always happen to change that, but that’s what we’re looking at right now.
Congratulations
Nathan Brown, a Norman poet and one of Jim’s close friends, won the Oklahoma Book Award for poetry tonight. Specifically, he won for his book, “Two Tables Over.”
Jim and another friend, Dorothy Alexander, were finalists for their own poetry books.
Simply being considered for the award is an honor. Being a finalist is even more impressive.
So congratulations, Jim and Dorothy — and an even bigger congrats to Nathan. You all did great.
To learn more about the awards, go to www.odl.state.ok.us/ocb/obaward.htm.
Rewind
OK, forget what I said about Chapter 3 running this weekend. It’s not.
The editors have decided to hold the story to make sure they can give it the space it deserves in the newspaper. These are long stories with large photos, and they take up a lot of newsprint. They don’t want to cut the story or photos down to fit a smaller space.
As soon as I know when Chapter 3 will run, I’ll let you know. Sorry for the inconvenience!
Ken
