Remembering Chuck

March 8, 2012 marked one year without Chuck. To honor his memory we gathered with friends and family, shared some of his favorite food (Dee-Dee's buffalo chicken dip, calamari, chicken parm with salad and crusty bread), listened to the music he loved, and remembered.
Remembered his wit, his need to make sure that everyone was having a good time, had enough to eat and drink - drinks that never seemed to to diminish because he would always, always refill when you where not looking leading to many seemingly unexplainable hangovers. Real funny, Chuck.

Remembered his charisma, how he genuinely engaged people in conversation meant solely for them. Chuck didn't "do" small-talk but would quietly observe, making engaging him in small-talk all the more appealing.

Remembered his camaraderie. Chuck was surrounded by people he wanted to know more, as well as with those he could talk to without speaking. The latter were a select and cherished few. His death changed them all leaving a seemingly endless empty space, loneliness in a crowd of one, an eternity of unfinished sentences, and anger.

Remembered his laugh or lack thereof. Chuck was not a "laugh out loud" kind of guy, as a matter of fact it was a rare treat to catch him smiling. His sideways smile was reserved for T a knowing smile for Charlie and for or me, well, I usually got the silent laugh - one that shook his body but made no sound while his tightly closed eyes and broad smile made it clear that he found himself hilarious at my expense. However, I did always end up laughing with him because despite his pensive demeanor, he was very funny. The few pictures I have of Chuck smiling I will cherish.

Remembered his physical strength. Man he was strong.

Remembered his character. Chuck did not judge nor did he hold grudges. He taught the boys to be respectful and accepting of others and to have the courage to be steadfast when adversity tested their resolve.

Remembered his love of football and how this aided in his comeback from his initial battle with T-PLL.

Remembered his obsession with the gym and quest for abs. "This summer I will have my abs." Lol! I heard that for 12 years and can pretty much guarantee that he has them now! :)

Remembered his love of the sun, the beach, and being shirtless whenever possible.

Remembered his dancing skills...or not. Charlie refers to this as "doing the Chuck" and has his father's move down to the facial expression. Very funny to watch the two of them dual on the [kitchen] dance floor.

Remembered G&R, Poison, Journey, and the others on his playlist that echo who he was and bring him to life whenever I hear a favorite song.

Remembered his book club and the resulting blessings.

Remembered how he loved to play cards. 2009 was the Summer of poker. Chuck would play weekly despite my protesting and questioning the necessity of gambling bla, bla...I have learned so much about time wasted on senseless arguing that the "bla" speaks for itself.  2010 was the Summer of nose bleeds, fatigue, irritability, bruising, and what we thought was an injury induced large spleen. Nope. 2010 was the Summer of cancer, not just any cancer but T-PLL, "a rare and highly aggressive form of leukemia."  Talk about being dealt a shitty hand. By late Fall Chuck had spent many sleepless nights leading up to or proceeding treatments playing poker online with his best friend. These hours could have easily been filled with dread, fear, and a sense of loneliness only known by those fighting to live were instead spent creating strategies, bluffing, folding, losing and winning. Poker nights had taken on a new meaning - those late night games filled the void of uncertainty caused when cancer recreates relationships and redefines who you are in the eyes of others - in those hours he was transported back to the summer of 2009, when poker was a night out with friends and he was just one of the guys. I'm not sure if either knew how essential those 2:00 AM games were in terms of recovery but I do believe that both men needed to play - needed this time to just be who they were: best friends playing late night poker. Nothing more, nothing less.

So many more memories but none as important as remembering his love for his boys and how hard he fought to live for them. I can still see Chuck pushing his body to it's limit over and over again, willing the cancer to cease it's senseless attack. When they are older I will tell the boys what Chuck remembered in the end, how his memories of playing catch with them in the back yard became reality when meningitis robbed him of the here and now. Chuck remembered their laughter, felt the sun on his skin and the grass underfoot. Chuck was there with his boys and he was happy.

He remembered and so will they.

Embrace, Learn and Carry On

On March 3, 2010 my boys saw their father for the last time. I tried to prepare them but kids cannot grasp what it means to be intubated  by handling the tubes prior to visiting. The boys just wanted to see their dad, to hug him, talk to him, to tell him to hurry up and come home. I'm not sure why I chose that night or why I even thought it would be a good idea because when the moment arrived I wanted to swoop them up and run. What had I done? Their last memory should not have been fear, tubes and machines. Poor Tommy, he was so excited. I can still see him bounding into the room, his happiness melting into horror as he stared at what used to be his indestructible father. He wanted so desperately to talk to him, to climb up into the hospital bed and "watch TV like I did the last time" but the lifeless body sustained by a breathing tube was too much for his young mind to process and he ran from the room crying "I'm afraid!, I'm afraid!" I had been numb for weeks but when I watched my little boy finally understand just how sick his father was something in me snapped. As I spiraled downward, our then 9 year old slowly approached the hospital bed with silent tears streaming down his face. Charlie leaned forward without hesitation, kissed his father on the forehead and said "good bye, dad.  I love you".  Darkness consumed me. I knew Chuck was crying inside that shell holding him hostage; cursing cancer and the pain it was causing his boys.

Charlie. How could someone so young be so astute? His courage that night continues to inspire me. When the routine of the MICU, the doctors, nurses, rounds, beeps, EKGs, EEGs, biopsies, PET scans, CAT scans, white counts or lack thereof become common place, you allow yourself to ignore the obvious. Observing Chuck thru Charlie's heartbroken eyes forced me to see what I refused to acknowledge since being told in November that the cancer had come back as a lymphatic tumor. Chuck was going to die. I knew well before it was ever discussed with his team of doctors that he was not going to make it but I tuned it out - refusing to see what was shown to me. My boys forced me back to reality. I remember thinking that night that I had ruined them, tainted their memory of Chuck and caused irreversible damage. But, as I sat head-in-hands with my back against the cold glass of the walkway windows connecting the MICU to the Children's hospital, I heard Tommy laughing. He was laughing. Forcing my head up, my vision clouded by tears laced with furry, I saw my little man's smiling face in mine asking if he could "sleep ova Gam's house" (those who know T know that "ova" is not a typo :).  When I told him that he could, he hugged me said thank you and bounded away. Watching him was surreal; like a parallel universe. Tommy was wreaking havoc as always while Charlie was pensive and withdrawn, eyeing his brother with a new sense of responsibility. I know now that Charlie was born into this role and in that moment I screamed at a God I hardly knew. Why them? What did they do to deserve such pain and suffering? Why? Why? Why?!!!!! In time I would come to understand but right then I hated the God my husband embraced. What did his prayers get him? Nothing. The anger has diminished and is no longer directed at God but at what I view as a senseless loss. Faith eased my husbands fear and offered the unconditional love he had sorely lacked for most of his 34 years here on earth. For that I will be forever grateful.

Neither of my children have spoken of that night. Daily conversation and recollection has ensured their memories are centered on those moments they want to keep close, times shared that define their relationship with their father rather than those defined by TPLL. But still, they are so young, will memories dim; voices fade? This is Charlie’s greatest fear - that he will forget his dad.

These are the reasons why memories, good and bad, must be guarded from alteration. Our past is who we are, or were, depending on whether or not we chose to learn from it. Burying, revising, or omitting events that brought us to the place we now occupy does all involved an injustice. It is only by embracing who our loved ones were in life we are able to carry on their legacy with honesty, integrity and lots of laughter. My boys deserve nothing less.

Slide Shows

When my husband passed away last March a flood of such memories threatened to suffocate all that I had come to embrace as reality. The image of our then 5 year old son, sitting on the floor at the memorial watching his father's life flash before his eyes in the form of a slide show has been burned into my memory and my heart breaks every time I allow myself to revisit that place of deep, dark sorrow. "Poor Tommy, he will never understand"... have you ever seen child's heart break? I thought I had until that moment, when everyone else disappeared, and it was just Chuck and Tommy. What will he remember? Who will he know? Will his memories be his own or will they have been rewritten for all of the right (?) reasons. Will he remember asking, many months before, if I "missed daddy" and responding to my "yes" with "Why? Do you miss fighting?" Probably not, but I will. This seemingly "simple" question forced me too see the lasting damage we caused in our quest to be right, or maybe we were just angry that neither of us could remember why we stayed together in the first place. Honestly, I don't know why were so miserable but I do know that we created a slide show of our own, one that had been burned into the memories of our boys. The plan was to make it up to them, to replace the negative experiences with positive. When I was told that Chuck would likely succumb to cancer I promised him, and myself, that I would surround them with  good men, that I would choose wisely and never again subject them to the negativity they once associated with marriage.  We were given the opportunity to reconcile and rectify those events that had threatened to create lasting damage to childhood memories - this was a gift I will be forever grateful for.