Priceless Memories

Eight years ago, my sisters, our husbands, and our children traveled from our corners of the country to meet at my grandmother's house in Alabama.  The day after we had arrived, our group of eleven piled into cars and drove across the state line to Wild Animal Safari in Pine Mountain, Georgia.

When we got there, we found out that there were 15-passenger vans available for rent to drive through the park - and the vans were zebra-striped!  We knew it would be much more fun for all of us to be together in one vehicle to travel amongst the animals who roamed free over the many acres there.  We paid the admission and the rental fee and then headed towards our Zebra Van; as we were boarding, my brother-in-law Peter walked over carrying a giant bag of animal feed.  He said it was a better deal to buy in bulk instead of purchasing individual containers of food for each of us to feed to the animals in the park.  I will never forget the look of wonder on Grandmom's face when she saw Peter carrying that huge bag; she laughed excitedly as she took her seat in the van and then said, "The animals sure are going to LOVE us!"  

Somehow it worked out so that my brother-in-law David took the wheel in the van - some of the time with my niece Daly on his lap - and with my daughter Molly in the passenger seat in front.  The rest of us sat on the bench seats in the back with our windows rolled down, ready to feed the animals as David slowly drove along the gravel road, stopping frequently as wildlife approached the van.  

There was a great variety of animals in the park, from antelopes to zebras.  We all had a blast, including and maybe especially Grandmom, who smiled ear-to-ear the whole time that we were there and laughed hysterically when a big slobbery bison leaned in through the window and tried to lick her in the face!

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We had such a good time there that day that a couple of years later my husband, my daughters, and I went back to the park with Grandmom.  The second time, when it was just the five of us, she was moving much more slowly than the first, and we just drove through the park in our car since we were a much smaller group.  After we had driven through the safari part of the park on our return trip, we went in the gift shop.  Grandmom, who, as I've mentioned, lived on a very tight budget, thanked us for taking her and for paying for her admission, and then she said she wanted to buy a souvenir for us to take home.  Always the practical thinker, she picked out a pair of salad tongs with a zebra carved into the handle of each one.  When she gave them to me after she had paid at the counter, I noticed the price tag said $19.99.  That was a lot of money for a person of her income to spend on a non-necessity, I knew, and she knew that I knew it.  I looked at her, thinking that I should decline the gift and try to get her to return it, but then she said, "Thinking I was going to be able to take a vacation somewhere this summer, I had some money saved. Today has been as good as any vacation, and I don't need anything else, so please accept my gift."  

The zebra salad-tongs, today

A few weeks before, Grandmom had stepped into a hole in her backyard while hanging clothes on her clothesline and had broken her leg.  My dad had tried for years to get her to let him buy her a dryer, but she insisted that it was a waste of money and she didn't need it.  After all, she said, she had raised a family and had lived without one for eighty years, and who could argue with that logic?  When she had fallen, she laid in the yard, unable to get herself to a phone, for about an hour until her next-door neighbor pulled up in his driveway and saw her.  He had called the ambulance and then my dad, and my parents had come to be with her while she was in the hospital.

When I'd called the next week to check on her, she told me that she had a walking cast on her leg and that she would appreciate some help with a couple of things so she hoped we could come to visit her soon.  Of course, I arranged to get there as soon as I could, worrying that things must really be dire if this independent woman needed help taking care of herself.  When my husband, my daughters, and I got there, though, we found out what she actually wanted help with, and it wasn't technically self-care: she wanted assistance with pulling her refrigerator out from the wall in her kitchen so she could do her scheduled quarterly cleaning behind it and with cleaning up debris that had fallen into her yard.  Other than that, she had it covered, she told us, and so we did those chores and then decided to head to the Safari Park the next day.  (Side note: Grandmom had told us to put any limbs, sticks, or leaves from her yard on the curb across the street from her house instead of in her trash can, but I had dumped a bucket of semi-wet leaves in there anyway, thinking it didn't really matter.  As we walked out to the car to leave for the park the following morning, she cooly lifted the lid of her garbage can and peered inside, and then she said, "Somebody put debris in here!"  I had to admit that I had done it, and she said, "Well, next time remember to put all of that stuff on the curb where it's supposed to go; that's what I do!"  Ouch!)

We had a lot of fun on our return trip to the park, but not nearly as much as we'd had the first time when we had gone as a big group.  I have treasured those salad tongs since that day, though, remembering fondly both of our trips there with Grandmom and remembering how she so generously spent her vacation money to buy them for us.

Several years after our second trip to the park, Grandmom had a stroke, and her physical and mental decline began.  Many, many times when we visited her after she was in the nursing home, we talked about how much fun we'd had at the Safari Park; in fact, when her condition had progressed to the point where she couldn't carry on a conversation, we often described things from the day when all 11 of us went in great detail, in an effort to help her to remember that wonderful day and to help her to focus on a much happier time.  

On the night before Grandmom died, as my mom was sitting with her holding her hand, my sister Jennifer called Mom's cell phone and asked Mom to hold the phone up to Grandmom's ear.  Although Grandmom had been unresponsive for several hours before, as Jennifer again tried to use her words to paint a picture for Grandmom of that great visit, Grandmom smiled and her breathing pattern became more relaxed, and I have no doubt that that happy memory was one of the last things on her mind as she transitioned out of this life.

"Not too many people can say they've been kissed by a bison!" Grandmom said. 

Grand Canyon Memories

This is a guest post written by my mom, whom I asked to tell the story of when she and my dad went to the Grand Canyon several years ago on vacation ... 

One year, for our vacation, we decided to go to see the Southern Rim of the Grand Canyon. Wanting to absorb the full thrills of the National Park, Bill was really looking forward to running some of the trails along the rim.  After spending the night in the historic lodge at the top of the canyon, we planned to ride mules down the trail to spend the night at The Phantom Lodge at the bottom of the Grand Canyon and then to ride back up the trail the next day, a Bucket List item for me. 

Along the mule ride down, we had to wear hats that were secured so that they wouldn’t blow off and scare the mules or litter the park and loose clothes that would protect us from the sun but later be warm enough as the temperature would become much cooler as we approached the bottom of the canyon.  I was concerned about what to wear and the steepness of the trails, and so, for my security and peace of mind, early on the morning of our ride Bill ran the trail for about three or four miles down and then back just to check things out.  He came back with a report for me. (Side note: He often did this while we were on vacation or in a new place in order to locate playgrounds for the kids or interesting things for us to see and do.)  The trail was about three feet wide and gravel and the weather was great – about 75.  I was thrilled!

I was assigned a mule named Ida who was short and sturdy.  Bill’s mount was a gigantic gal by the name of Madonna.  He was placed near the end of the mule train.  Everyone was given canteens to hang on our saddle horns and a small switch that the cowboy leader called a “motivator”.  We used both of these items quite a lot. 

We began our adventure on the gravel trail just as Bill had predicted, but after the first few miles the path became very narrow with lots of stones.  The mules were very sure-footed, but the stones often didn’t provide much traction for them.  We had been told to never lean in the saddle and Bill found this impossible.  As he suffered from a fear of heights, he kept leaning into the mountain, away from the opening to the drop off into the canyon. His mule was much taller than any of the others, and it must have made it more difficult for him to trust her as he was sitting up so high.  We had to stop and cinch up his saddle a few times.  Eventually, the trail led many times to a switchback turn, which caused the mule to project its head out over the canyon in order to turn its body.  For an instant, it felt to the rider almost like hanging in space while the mule repositioned itself to go another direction.  Can you imagine how much Bill disliked that maneuver? Sometimes even I closed my eyes on that part of the ride. 

After five and a half hours of awesome views of the Grand Canyon and the crossing of the Colorado River, we arrived at The Phantom Ranch.  We had a delicious steak dinner and slept in a cabin that fortunately had blankets on the beds as it was indeed very chilly. The next morning, the mules were ready early to leave for the ascent, but, as we were packing up our stuff, Bill told me that he just didn’t enjoy the ride down and would rather run back.  I told our cowboy leader that Bill wouldn’t be joining us, and so his mule was tied to mine. The rest of the group gawked as Bill ran by while they were mounting up. 

We stopped a few times along the ride to rest the horses, but not for long.  Bill said that he stopped for water once, but we didn’t see him until we got to the top.  He had already showered, changed clothes, and was waiting for me, Ida, and Madonna beside the mule corral.     

If You Knew

If you knew that you probably wouldn't be here next week, next month, or next year, would you do things differently?  

Would you slow down and spend more time talking and just hanging out with the ones you love, would you rush around trying to pack in everything you could into the time you had left, or would you jet off to some remote location and sip cool drinks on a sunny beach somewhere?  Would you leave your work behind, choosing to treat each day as a vacation, or would you double-time it in an effort to finish what you'd started, in hopes of clearing your desk?  

I think sometimes people go through life just trying to get through the daily grind, setting a goal each day just to make it to 5:00 and hoping to build up enough vacation days to take some time off a few times a year. It's a easy pattern to get into, for sure.  That wasn't my dad at all, though.  He regularly set goals for lots of things.  He liked quotes that inspired action, like "A goal without a plan is just a wish" and "To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe" and of course his favorite, "JUST DO IT!"  In essence, he was a roller-coaster guy, not a merry-go-round guy:

              "I like the roller coaster; you get more out of it!"

Through my dad, I learned while growing up to believe that anything was possible through hard work and perseverance.  And, for the most part, I feel like that held true in my life, up until the time he got sick.  

But I have to say that, had he known his days were numbered before that awful day two years ago this month when he was taken to the hospital by ambulance and the trial of our lives began, I don't believe he would have done many things differently.  

For all the questions and the if-then deliberations in my mind from over the last few months of Dad's life, there is one thing of which I am absolutely certain: if life is measured by adventure, my dad had a full one. 

Throughout his life, my dad identified things in himself that he wanted to change and then he made those changes.  In fact, thinking back to one of those things from when I was a teenager makes me smile even today:

About the time I turned 15, my dad told me that he had read somewhere that research had shown that a teenaged girl whose father told her at least once a day that he loved her was much more likely to graduate in the top of her class and to be happy long-term in life.  He said he knew that my sisters and I knew that he loved us but that he wasn't sure of exactly how often he told us out loud that he did, and so, just in case (another favorite expression of his), he was going to set a goal to say it to us every day at least until the time we graduated from high school.  ("I'll still say it to you after that, but you'll be away at college so it may not be quite as often," he said to further explain his plan.)  He didn't go into detail as to how he was going to be sure that he remembered to say it, but I knew him well enough to know that he would have some sort of system.  And sure enough, the next time I got into his car, I saw what it was:  he had placed a sticky note on the dashboard of his car, and on it he had written "Tell the girls I love them." Apparently the system worked, because, as far as I can remember, he told us that every day until we left home and every time he talked to us after that.

The last email I ever got from my dad was about planning for new adventures as he looked ahead to what he was going to do after he had completed the Ironman triathlon in which he was scheduled to compete but didn't get to.  Here's what he wrote in his typical stream-of-consciousness type of email:

From: Bill Bullard <bbullard@hurleyandassociates.com]]]]>

Sent: Wed, September 29, 2010 2:38:15 PM

Subject: Iron man

This will probably jinks it, but my foot is much better. I have 4 training wks to go---   Plan is to do three long runs (app3 hrs), 3 long bikes (80-100 miles and three long swims of about 2 miles each. In between stuff doesn’t matter much, I am told. If I can do these I should be fine, although walking will be part of the Plan which it is for most anyone not really competing. Nice to do around 14 hrs but just to finish is okay. Need to find a tattoo place in Calif to get Ironman logo on my calf. Lee gets one next yrr

Love ur crazy//Dad

told mom this would be the only one. Got to think of a new adventure—but no heights or extreme cold.

Thinking about the way that my dad lived his life, I see clearly that he didn't need a terminal prognosis to define his priorities or his goals.  He never sat it out, he always gave it his all, and he enjoyed every day of his life.  And if adversity is the test by which character is revealed, then I'm proud to say that my dad passed the test with flying colors.

Mark of Honor

During the months while my dad was in training for the Ironman triathlon before he was diagnosed with cancer, he mentioned several times that he was thinking about getting a tattoo after he finished the race to celebrate his achievement.  He said that he wanted to get the Ironman logo on his ankle.  Finishing the Ironman was definitely a Bucket List item for him, and we supported his plan to get inked after such an impressive accomplishment.

In the days before and just after the time when he had surgery and when we got the diagnosis, he brought up the subject of the tattoo again, wondering aloud if it would seem like a misrepresentation if he went ahead and got the Ironman symbol on his leg even if he wasn’t able to complete in the event.  I can still recall the feeling of the precariousness of the air in his room in the Neuro-ICU as I think back to the last conversation I had with him about the subject.  “I’d hate to get it done and then have people ask me about it and then I’d have to say I didn’t really do it,” he said to my sister Jennifer and me, certainly picturing himself - as did we and as we surely wanted him to do – years down the road, reminiscing about his battle with brain cancer as a thing in the past.  

“What if we get one too – would that make you want to do it?” Jennifer asked him.  

“What?? Y’all can’t get one!  It’s only for Ironman athletes!!”  he said, incredulous at the apparent ludicrousness of the idea.  We watched him for a minute as he seemed to be working something out in his head and then he said dispiritedly, “I guess I don’t need to get one either.”  The look in his eyes and the emotion in his voice were heartbreaking, and, looking back, such a harbinger of things to come as he was forced to rewrite his Bucket List again and again due to his declining health.

On the Saturday after my dad went on ahead, we held a memorial celebration in his honor.  I don’t recall how the topic of tattoos came up then as I talked to my mom’s cousin and her husband, but I do remember the stunned look on their faces when I told them that my sisters, my mom, and I were discussing getting a memorial tattoo.  They exchanged a look that appeared to me to be one of horror and pity, one that said, “They are in shock but hopefully they won’t do anything CRAZY!”   I didn’t care, though; like everything my family had been through over the eleven weeks preceding that moment in time, we knew that our situation, our experience, and our perspective were unique, something that no one else would ever totally understand or view as we did.  

Last summer, on our first family vacation without Dad, my sister Nancy brought up the idea again, and my oldest daughter started saying that she wanted to be in on the commemorative inking as well.  The problem was that we weren’t sure of the design we wanted to get or where on our bodies we wanted to get it.  We went back and forth with thoughts and ideas; the frontrunner was a picture of a running stickman that would go on the back of each of our left shoulders.  Still, though, there was some uncertainty, or at least some inaction, and the plan remained inert.

Over the course of the last year, in the time span from one family vacation to another, my sisters, my mom, my daughter, and I all agreed that we liked the idea of having the image be consist of a depiction of the way Dad typically signed off when he wrote notes and messages to people, with two lower-case printed b’s followed by two forward slash marks as an accentuation or underscoring of his initials.  We also decided, based on an astute comment made by my youngest sister Nancy’s best friend, that we wanted to have the tattoo in a place on our bodies where we could easily see it, with the idea that that could bring comfort and inspiration to each of us.

And so, last week, on the day we all gathered in California, three of us decided to take the plunge – Nancy, my daughter Maddie, and me.  My mom and my middle sister Jennifer went with us to the tattoo parlor (they are still considering getting ink and plan to use the same design if they decide to go ahead with the idea at some point), and Mom brought along several samples of things that Dad had written to show the tattoo artist, who actually traced Dad’s writing for the pattern she used on all three of us.

Nancy and I opted to get the design done in navy blue, Dad’s favorite color, and Maddie chose black, which I thought was funny because Dad often wore those two colors together when he ran (“Real runners don’t wear matching outfits!” he claimed.).  All three of us decided to get the design placed facing us, on the inside of our left wrist, since Dad was left-handed, and positioned slightly off-center, to symbolize Dad’s uniqueness.  In what I thought was a really cool and kindhearted gesture, the tattoo artist placed the sticky note that’s she’d used to make the template of the design on the table beside us so we could see it as we got it done.  One after the other, we were marked, in honor and in memory of the man who will always be as much a part of us as the ink on our wrists.

When my daughter told one of her friends what we'd done, her friend said,
"Some families plant a tree in someone's memory, but this is way cooler."

It's not an Ironman insignia, but I think this one was well earned and sits as a mark of honor too.

Going On

I have been considering taking up boxing.  Not really for the exercise but so that I can get a big punching bag and write things like New Normal on it and then beat the shit out of it.

When my dad was first diagnosed with the brain cancer that took his life only ten weeks later, lots of people kept telling my family that we needed to find a “new normal.”  God how we detested that term then, and how we hate it now.  There is NOTHING normal about what we went through or living the life we have been left to live without my dad.   It’s more of a slanted or tainted or stained continuation, one with beauty and good and excitement and happiness in it to be sure but one that we know is not as good as it should have been.

My parents had planned to go on an Alaskan cruise for years before my dad got sick; taking that trip together was a Bucket List item for both of them that did not come to fruition.  

This week, my daughter, who just graduated from high school and who had a trip like that on her own young Bucket List, is taking that trip with my mom, a divergence with necessary perspective, the perspective and the tenacity to move forward that we learned over the course of our lives from Dad.

In my family, we have always known we needed to count our blessings, to relish the quality moments and even more importantly, to consider the times when we were simply together as a family to be of the highest quality.  Our standard family motto when we are planning a vacation together is “The details don’t matter that much – we can have fun together in a closet or a box!”

Dad’s illness brought that sentiment even more into focus.  It emphasized to me the need to consciously hoard those memories, just in case.  Back then, I didn’t really believe a “just in case” would ever happen, but now I know it can and at some point it will.  

That is how we are having to adjust.  Life goes on; it really does.  And still, considering the world without him in it stretches my mind further than is comfortable for me. It’s like trying to grasp the scope of the solar system or shrink myself to a set of random carbon blocks.   I still do not fully believe he is gone.

Like a monk-in-training, though, I am trying to appreciate the little things as well as the big things, the quiet and the noise, the minutes, the hours, the days.  To pause and count my blessings, to stop and smell the roses, both literally and figuratively.  I am trying to go on and have peace and to be happy even though Dad isn’t here.  

Seizing the Moments

The last time I saw my dad healthy was on a big family vacation at Lake George in upstate New York.  As usual, we did a lot of hanging out on the trip ("binding"), which was great.  One of the activities we did during that time was to go to the Adirondack Extreme Adventure Course, an intense rope course composed of stunts involving zip-lines, Tarzan swings, hanging nets, wobbly bridges, and suspended logs.  Through an Internet search of things to do in the area, I found information about the park and encouraged others in the family to sign up.  Unfortunately, I didn't pay much attention to the term "extreme" in the title beforehand. I also didn't realize just how high in the trees the majority of the course would be situated or how long the course was (we later found out it usually takes 3-4 hours to complete the course).  

When we got to the park, we were given instructions and a quick safety lesson, and then we lined up and started climbing.  I knew Dad was afraid of heights, but, as I said, I didn't think the course was going to be roughly twenty feet off the ground.  I was pretty nervous while we were on the course, both for my own sake and because of a few other people in the family whom I knew were struggling for various reasons, including Dad.  In the many athletic pursuits in which I had participated over the years with my dad, I had never felt such a sense of protectiveness towards him; he was the one who was typically having to assist me.  Dad was completely capable of managing the physical demands of the course - he was already in training for the Ironman triathlon at that point - but he was anxious about the distance to the ground.  He wasn't about to quit or even to admit that he was scared, though; that was a given.  As always, Dad stuck with it and finished, laughing and cutting up along the way.

No one could have possibly predicted what would be going on just 3 months later - or less than 3 months after that.  While Dad was sick, I often thought back to the time when I was watching him on the Adirondack course that day.  I could clearly remember feeling like I needed to safeguard him, to shield him or "spot him" on the bridges and ropes, maybe not as much from what was required of him along the course but more from his apprehensiveness; I didn't want him to be scared.  It was a weird kind of foreshadowing for the way we would have to guard and encourage him though the fear and instability during his fight with cancer.  

I often think about the last “this” or “that” for my dad – the last birthday card he sent me, the last time I talked to him on the phone, the last time we ran together, the last email and text he sent me.  Thinking about those things makes me so sad and, truth be told, afraid, almost to the point of being paranoid, because it leaves me wondering WHAT’S NEXT, what could be just around the corner at any point in time … I know that’s not productive, and probably not all that healthy, except that it’s part of this crazy grieving process, and I also know that it’s something I cannot avoid.

Thinking about “lasts” for my dad makes me think about the popular message Carpe Diem, seize the day.  I love the movie “Dead Poets Society” as much as the next person, but here’s what I’ve started to consider since my dad went on ahead:

People are always talking about living for the moment, enjoying each moment of each day, and trying to find joy in everything one does.  While I understand the sentiment behind this goal, I have to say that for me, the whole Carpe Diem thing doesn’t really fit.  Not all the time, and not for everything I do.  In fact, that message makes me feel like I’m falling short of something (Gratitude? Time? Perspective? Joy?) if I am not in a constant state of happiness, if I’m not smelling the roses every single second of every day.  I think it’s a good idea to have the perspective that today was a good day when one’s head hits the pillow at the end of each day, but, really, if I truly set out to live each day to its fullest, I wouldn’t be taking care of what needs to be done (going to work, occasionally cleaning the house, cooking supper, etc.).  It might make for an easier day that day, but on down the road, not so much.

I think it’s possible that a person who truly lives in such a seize-the-day state is faking it or lying, being reckless, and/or at least partially hovering close to some mental problems, in many cases.  From fighting traffic to balancing the checkbook to emptying the trash (don’t smell THOSE ROSES!) to scooping the litterbox, it’s inevitable that there are some things in life that aren’t all that!  But here’s the important part of this message:  THAT’S OK!  It doesn’t indicate weakness or failure or ingratitude or anything else.  Feeling the pain, complaining every once in a while about the grind, looking forward to the weekend doesn’t mean that one day we’ll be SORRY for anything.  

The author Dorothy Parker said, "I hate writing. I love having written."  That about sums up what I’m trying to say.  Life, and some of the things in it, are HARD sometimes.  And that’s ok to admit.  When I consider the whole “appreciate every minute of the day” thing, I think it’s so ironic that being expected to maintain that “I’m so lucky/everything is great” attitude 100% of the time just ends up being JUST ONE MORE THING on our to-do list, in the column of things that never gets to be crossed off, giving us something ELSE to worry about, to feel inadequate about, and to feel guilt over, a top-off of what could become an inevitable DOUBLE FAILURE.

I’m pretty sure that’s NOT the real message behind Carpe Diem.  I think we can and should choose to be grateful for what we have, make the most of every moment, and take a deep breath when things seem overwhelming.  I think we should appreciate the simple things in life, love one another, and do the best that we can in any situation.  I think we should Carpe whenever possible but that we shouldn’t feel guilty if that Carpe isn’t for the whole Diem.

I think time comes in two forms – Real Time, which involves the ins and outs, the struggles, the grind, the waiting in line, the countdown ‘til something else happens (5 p.m. Happy Hour, bedtime, vacation time, time to eat chocolate, etc.); and Good Time, the actual smelling-the-roses, savoring-the-coffee, basking-in-the-spender moments.  The spiritual times when we take it all in, whether we do so intentionally or accidentally.  It’s when we notice the magic, the goodness, the love, and the peace.  It’s counting your blessings, feeling lucky, no matter what the actual circumstances are.  It’s getting perspective.  Those are the moments we need to bookmark, to hoard in our memory banks for later, to seize, for just in case, for the future when we can look back and reflect on the goodness of life.

Part 7 – A Revised Bucket List

Continued from Part 6

When people talk about having a Bucket List, they picture themselves in the same physical and mental condition as - and usually in better financial condition than - they are at the time, being able to do things that they want to complete in their lifetimes.  We thought of a Bucket List in that same way, until Dad couldn’t. 

Two days after Dad’s surgery, the oncologist came to see him in the ICU and, with my mother and my youngest sister there, told him about the cancer.  Dad asked what would happen if he didn’t have chemo or some kind of treatment, and the doctor said, "Your lifespan would be shortened considerably.”  

In what Dad seemed to consider to be the worst part of the news, the doctor told him that he would not be able to drive a car or to go to work during the treatment period, which he said he anticipated to be about for six weeks.  The oncologist said that, if they could get the cancer into remission, it was highly likely that the cancer would recur despite treatment but that there were different options including clinical trials  that could be considered at that point.  Dad asked how soon treatment could be started ("The sooner the better!" Dad said.), and the oncologist told him he would need more time to recover from the surgery but that chemo would probably start before Thanksgiving.  

Dad, working on his Original Bucket List, in better days

Later that day, Dad was transferred from the Neuro-ICU to a room on the Neuro floor of the hospital.  (I was so relieved that the doctors wanted him to be on that floor instead of the Oncology floor.  It seemed to me to be a symbol of Hope at the time, but we later found out the quality of care at that hospital was actually better in Oncology.)  Some of Dad’s tubes and wires were removed, and, with a walker and lots of assistance and supervision, including constant reminders to keep his hands on the grips of the walker, he started to be able to move from the bed to a reclining chair or the bathroom and back. 

The no-sleep persisted, and so we had lots of time to talk to Dad.  With the tentative plan for chemo in place, he began to think about other plans for the future.  We all desperately wanted to have something for him – and for us – to look forward to, and thus Dad’s Revised Bucket Plan began to take shape.  There wasn’t going to be any skydiving or mountain climbing for him, but there were still things he wanted to do, and we wanted so badly for him to be able to do them.

Another thing ticked off the Original Bucket List

Dad’s Revised Bucket Plan took many forms over the upcoming days and weeks; we spent countless hours talking to him and to each other about what he would be able to do for the rest of his life, with a particular focus on quality and fun and fulfillment.  Dad already had more than the average person under his belt as far as major life accomplishments (for example, he’d run the Boston Marathon twice, and he once ran a half-marathon down Pikes Peak - a.k.a. "El Capitan" - in the Rocky Mountains), but he had many more goals left to accomplish.

One of his biggest original goals was happening one week later – the Ironman Triathlon – and it was evident that he wasn’t going to make it.  Right after his surgery, he asked if I would call and see if his registration could be deferred; he thought he could do the Ironman the next year instead.  Cruelly, though, he gradually realized that wasn’t going to happen, and, over the course of the next few weeks, he kept having to change his ideas about what would be possible for him.  Finally, he ended up focusing on wanting to be on a relay running team for a long-distance event; he and I spent hours one night looking up such events and finally settled on one  called the Illinois River to River Relay in which an 8-person running team tag-teamed to cover a distance of 80 miles, with teamwork and covering the distance being more of a goal than speed.  He said, “I could tell the team ahead of time that I might have to walk a little bit, just in case.”

Dad and one of his best friends Bob at the 100th Boston Marathon

Dad with one of his best friends Wayne after they finished the 100th Boston Marathon

The focus of the second part of his Revised Bucket List was family.  He wanted to go on a big family vacation – at first to a beach (“Preferably to the Pacific,” he said.) and then that got revised to just going to a lake or a river nearby with the whole family.  He said he really wanted to go to an NBA game with his children, my two younger sisters, my brother (from my dad’s first marriage), and me.  “Long-term,” he said, “I’d like to be around to dance at my grandchildren’s weddings.”  I thought that was a kick-ass goal, especially since his youngest grandchild wasn't quite two at the time.

And last - but certainly not least - on his Revised Bucket List was to get a cat.  He saw this as possibly the biggest challenge of the things on his list; my mom isn’t a big fan of cats, and so he knew he would have to convince her that it was a good idea before he could execute his plan.  We spent lots of time debating about how he should approach her and then, after he said he thought she was “starting to cave,” we talked and talked about what the cat should be named.  It took him several days to decide on a name, but he was clear all along about what he wanted in a cat: “one that's not too young but not too old, that will be friends with the dogs [their two greyhounds] and that will be a lap cat.” 

What I learned from watching my dad revise his Bucket List so quickly and so drastically is that there is little difference between something that makes you happy and something that doesn’t; the trick is to convince yourself that they are the same.  On one hand, it ripped my heart out to see a man who was so enthusiastic and energetic having to resort to modifying his Bucket List, but on the other hand I was so incredibly inspired and touched that this same up-for-anything guy was so humble and willing to make those sacrifices so as to become satisfied with a Plan B, something different and ultimately less but fulfilling and sweet all the same.

Up next … Part 8 – Safety First

The Vacation - Part One

My side of the family tries to vacation together once a year, and last week was the first time we took a trip as a group since Dad went on ahead.  

Part of the family met at my house the day before we were scheduled to meet in Florida as a big group, and we decided to pack the car that night so that we could hit the road bright and early the next day.  
 

My husband and my mom were in the 
driveway, trying to figure out how to best mount the car-top carrier that my mom had brought from her house.  It had only been used once before, and Mom couldn’t remember the details of which side should be positioned towards the front of the vehicle and how the clasps were supposed to be secured to the luggage rack. 

After they had been out there for about 15 minutes, I went outside to check their progress.  As soon as I stepped out the door, it occurred to me that every other time we had taken a trip like this, Dad was in on the preparations.  “He should be out here, too!” I thought, as my eyes filled with tears.  

 Dad loved to be in on the action.  He loved to “assist” in repairing and renovating, constructing and configuring, fixing and fabricating, even though he was not at all known for his handyman skills.

When I was growing up, it was Mom who hung the pictures and the curtains after every remodeling project or move to a new house.  When Dad was faced with a mechanical or a building project, he almost always did one of three things:  hired it out, rigged it up, or broke it.  He regularly got teased by the rest of the family for doing things like using a Brillo pad to scrub dead bugs off the front bumper of a car (oops!) and was an honors graduate from the School of Duct Tape.  I guess I watched him in his efforts a little too often because, until I met my husband, I hung pictures up in my apartment by hammering screws into the walls. 

I knew Dad would have wanted us to take this trip.  Well, technically he would have wanted to go on it with us, but, since that didn’t work out, he would have wanted us to go and to have a good time.  I was determined to honor him by not making this trip a Cry Fest.

As I took a minute to get myself together, I saw how challenging the task of mounting the car-top carrier was, and so I looked on the side of the big box that the carrier came in to see if there were any tips.  Nothing.

Mom and I flipped the box upside down to see if there were any written directions inside that might solve our problem, and an instruction pamphlet fell out onto the driveway.  Mom picked it up and opened it to see what we should do, and right away we knew Dad was there to help with the preparations for the trip, as usual:  stuck to the inside of the installation instructions was a sticky note with hints, in his left-handed chicken-scratch style of writing, of how to most easily mount the carrier to the top of the vehicle.  A cheat-sheet he had written, to make things a little easier.  

"To open, lift red button, turn left till clicks. Turn back and press button." 

                        It worked like a charm!  Thanks, Dad!