So, this wave of things began a few weeks ago, when my room-mate found out that his dad had taken some bad falls and was in the hospital. He got checked out and they found that he had cancer in his lungs and it had spread to his brain. The prognosis wasn't good and he started to fade fast.
At the same time, two of our friends told from Columbus were expected twins though a surrogate that lived near us. As it got closer to the time for the delivery, we invited them to stay with us so they wouldn't have to make the long drive.
My room-mate is still recovering from his nose surgery at this point and I'm pretty much doing just what I do - stay out of the way and try to help everyone. It works, mostly.
The babies came first - a few false alarms and then the new parents went to the hospital for the c-section. With the four of them headed back to Columbus, we could focus on my room-mate's dad.
The poor guy was hurting, he stopped eating, and then swiftly faded mentally. His family decided to take him home and just before Memorial day weekend, he finally stopped fighting and let go. It was swift, as these things go, but it also took forever.
My room-mate was there when his dad passed away and I headed there as well not long after, with my new suit and some origami flowers, for the funeral.
The visitation hit me the hardest - just couldn't seem to wrap my head around the idea that his great story-teller had no more stories to tell. At least, none that we could hear.
One of my last projects at work before I left for that weekend was to work on a commencement speech for the university president. My small task it to take the word doc format and turn it into a web page. Most of these don't mean much to me - but this time the speech really struck me and I ended up buying the book it referenced that evening and reading it over the weekend.
The speech is here - but the section that really hit me (and it hit my room-mate as well when I shared it with him) is as follows:
"The bad news is that atoms are fickle and their time of devotion is fleeting – fleeting indeed. Even a long human life adds up to only about 650,000 hours. And when that modest milestone flashes past, or at some other point thereabouts, for reasons unknown your atoms will shut you down, silently disassemble, and go off to be other things. And that's it for you."
(Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything, 2003)
My room-mate wanted me to read this at the service - but due to some massive internal strife among his siblings, I didn't get the chance.
And that part, the conflicts they are having, is the saddest bit of all. So much anger, resentment, and petty squabbling - it was terrible to watch. At a time when the family should be pulling together in their grief, they are tearing themselves apart.
I tried to stay out of it - quietly reciting the mantra of my #1 rule - "Don't (mess) with crazy people,". And I relegated myself to the "reaching of things high up" and "lifting of things that are heavy" rolls - the real problems were not things that I could fix.
So, we wrapping things up with a service on a beautiful sun-shining day. And I went back to my life - wondering about my own atoms and what they'll be when I'm gone.
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