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| My family in Buffalo, N.Y. visiting my cousin, Alan, and his parents. That's Mom, Ricky, me, and Peter, with Robert, the tall teenager, in the back. |
Two Weeks and Three Days Later
Ah, Peter. My housemate, my best friend, my brother, died of
a vicious metastatic cancer on August 9th, 2018. I drove him to the oncologist
on July 17th for his biopsy results and his doctor gently told him
that he couldn’t cure his cancer; it had metastasized to his liver and Peter
calmly opted for hospice care. The doctor approved his decision. Having seen
how Peter had suffered in the weeks leading up to this appointment, and having
seen how my brother struggled to make the trip across town with me and sit in
the waiting room and the doctor’s office with dignity and grace, I understood
that his days of leaving the house for medical attention should come to a stop.
I drove us home as carefully as I could, but seemed incapable of smooth
braking and we both winced every time the car jerked again. He tried to
comfort me.
So then there was a bit of time. His close friends came by
with homemade soups and smoothies, yoga music, essential oils, and a foot
massage (Sandy and Lisa), a wonderful Saturday night dinner (Katrina and
Roger) from one of his favorite restaurants, with extra soup offerings from our
Chinese place, (he loved the egg drop soup and Katrina brought some by every
few days after that as long as he could eat) flowers, love and comfort. And he
told his friend Victor, who has a house-painting business, to paint the house
white. He’d have a big white tombstone, he said, because he wasn’t going
anywhere. (Peter hasn’t. His ashes are here and if I ever leave this house, I’ll
bury them under his bedroom window.) Christine, the hospice nurse was so good,
so kind. Thank you, Covenant, for sending her to us. My brother Robert was here
for Peter’s last week in his body. Robert left Philadelphia for Florida sooner
than he’d planned and came as soon as I said “we need you now.”
Peter and I, eighteen months apart, grew up together in
northern New Jersey, in a town called Ramsey. Robert was the oldest and Ric,
who died in 2008, the youngest. We lived for the first 10 years there in a G.I.
neighborhood. Two to six kids in every house in our development, fathers who
commuted to NYC for their jobs, and in almost every house a mother who stayed
home. Some of my most vivid memories of Peter are of playing in the woods,
skating on the pond, practicing for circuses and parades around the
neighborhood. Peter was the director and producer, ringleader of the circuses,
inventor of new adventures. He’d usually take a backstage role and give his
friend Cormac the Tarzan part or whatever, and I either played Jane, or, my
favorite, the monkey. I could write a book about my brother, and maybe someday
I will, but the pain of missing him is acute right now and I think I’ll close
this down now.
First, though, I need to thank you. For comforting Peter
with your cards, calls, and visits, and for holding me up during the worst of
the last three weeks before he left us, and for your wonderful support since. I
was so sure I’d go first, you see. Peter was the one who knew how to take care
of things, do things. I cooked, collected stray cats, read, and wrote poetry.
But my brother Robert, my cousins, neighbors, all of you that I haven’t met
except online, but feel that I know well, and my dear friends will help me. I’m
learning to ask. Later today, a Sunday, Phyllis and Paul will pick me up for
dinner at Richard and Sandy’s. Lynne cooked me a delicious dinner on Thursday
and listened while I talked and talked and talked, Chris took me shopping for a
rug for my dog yesterday, and a neighbor
cut down a branch that had fallen too close to our fence. Soon, I’ll get back
to the Unitarian services I love and maybe find I can begin giving back, eh? One line of poetry, by Czlaw
Milosz, has nestled in my thoughts again: “There is no one between me and you.”
