DEAREST DARCY

BIRTH-LIFE-DEATH…

Seems to be just about the whole story… 

It encompasses everything, just in those three words.

We call it a lifetime, some say how many moon cycles, or rotations around the sun. These are all huge ideas and thoughts, but really, its all over and done with before you even know it.

Some people have certain goals in life. One of mine has always been to share my time with someone who is into life as much as me or maybe even more. I’m a little cynical and need a push every now and then. When I met Darcy, she was the one. Trust me out there, you JUST KNOW IT, when it happens. Our paths crossed earlier in our friendship, but it wasn’t until March 17 2000 that we really hooked up. We were never really apart, from that day forward. It would take another 15 years and cancer, to rob me of this. And my once in a lifetime opportunity to be “somewhat normal”. 

I am thankful for our time together, don’t think that I’m not. It’s just that I’m angry of the missed time that will never be between us. Even IF it meant divorce or mundane living. Living on the streets and poverty or whatever. I just never anticipated HER DEATH in all of this. EVER!!! ME dying? Well that’s more likely the way it should have played out. I ride the motorcycles and took copious amounts of drugs. She was just a lite smoker AND a physical trainer for christ’s sake!

But THEN it happened. 

I was watching tv one night and Darcy was in the kitchen doing something. All I heard was the loud sound of what sounded like bowling balls falling on our floor. I yelled into the kitchen to check on her but got no response. I jumped off the couch and found her lying on the kitchen floor splayed out like a pretzel or something. Her legs were bent out from her hips and her arms were above her head. I screamed for her to wake up. She started to come to and mumbled something. I can’t recall exactly what. I told her I was gonna have to call the ambulance, but she insisted I didn’t. 

I then dragged her from the linoleum to the carpeted exercise room and it was like moving a wet bag of cement. She was barley conscious as I pulled her from the kitchen to the other room. 

I got her propped up against the wall. By then she was finally coming to. She asked me what happened? I ask her, if she had eaten anything and did she have some liquor to drink? She told me no, on both accounts. Then it all just passed, just like that! She snapped right out of it. She was better and we were back to watching tv. 

But something else ominous happened.. She woke up one day with the light just killing her eyes. She said it was painful and hurt her brain to look into the light. We had her on the couch with a towel over her head for a day or two as she stayed home from work and we let this pass. That was weird, but passed as well.

Then the pains started in her back. We thought they were tight muscles or something, so we had her on the floor with tennis balls on her back, rolling around on them to loosen up the tissue. Her pain persisted, but we thought nothing of it really.

THEN she started having some weird feelings in her hand. THEN trouble with one of her eyes.

I can remember seeing our general physician that we shared. He looked at us both and said “I’m gonna make an appointment for you today, and I want you to go see an opthalmologist. I had no idea what that was. But with the look on his face, the mood changed really quick. Almost like, HE knew this was bigger than all of us and we may never be visiting HIS office again. 

This was his good bye. 

So, we go across town, to the office and they see us right away. We get into the office with all this M.S. stuff and brain model molds. Oh, shit… This is getting serious. SO, this cat does his thing, and without batting an eye, says the same thing Dr. Chin did. “I’m making an appt. for you today and I want you to go.” DAMN!?!?! We go to THIS appt. and it’s kinda standard eye care stuff. We do our test and go home. 

This was all on a Saturday or Sunday I believe, because the next thing I remember is being at work and getting a call from Darcy, crying and telling me to come get her at work. She got the call back from the doctors and she has cancer!!!! HOLY SHIT!!!! I cried all the way to get her and we both cried all the way home. We really had the wind sucked out of our sails. We had only been married 12 years and together for over 15. We travelled all over. Saw things that no longer exist. Some not even on this earth anymore. We loved NYC and were devastated just like everyone when 9/11 happened. We saw Prague. Hung out with Turbonegro in Koln. Travelled to see bands from all over. 

There was obviously still so much to do. That all just walked out the door. Dreams disappeared into oblivion when this news came down. Everything kinda came into sharp focus, but was a blur at the same time. Like the immediate  future and how long did we have left together? How long did we have to drudge through this cancer mess? We talked of murder-suicide… That was off the table for now!

Darcy was such a strong person. She wanted to tackle this thing head on. She had suffered some major injuries throughout her life. Peteler tendon ruptured walking down some stairs. Broken wrist (twice). Near misses with hitting things. 

I mean, she had seen more injuries, than I had as a skater in my whole life. So, she was gonna take this cancer and whoop it. For sure! She had so many friends from work that came to our aid. Her friends in general were split down the middle. Some came around, and some, we never seen again. Her parents of course were there at our house ALL the time. I mean, their daughter was sick and it was probably crushing on so many levels. 

We ALL experienced her sickness and subsequent passing with varying degrees of pain. But for now, the food was coming in fast and furious and the freezer was full. We had rotating shifts of people that would come before work or after work. 

And that’s another thing...  Darcy was working for a while into her treatment. We even would load the wheelchair up and get her into the the building. It was rough… I remember one day, a guy I didn’t know introduced himself. He wanted to know if he could ride the elevator down with me to my car. As we rode down, he just shook his head and was at a loss for words but then started up. He said he couldn’t understand why we made such an effort to come in every day. I just told him “You don’t know what you can, or will do, until it happens. This is what SHE want’s to do. I will not stop her.” He shook my hand in respect after he helped put the wheelchair into the trunk. Darcy and I kept this routine up until one day I got a call, again at work, and it wasn’t Darcy. It was her boss who sounded a little panicked. She said I needed to come to get Darcy. She had fallen at work. She hadn’t really hurt herself, BUT, she was basically told that she was done for now. That hurt her more than anything.

From here, we sorta just ran to the chemo treatments down on Interstate Blvd. Kaiser. Which was the way we took to work every day and I still live within a half mile of there, to this writing. It sucks to see it all the time. That’s why I had her cremated somewhere I would NOT pass every day. It’s hard enough just being in this town. The sick time she acquired at work, we cashed in…. Payed off all our debt from construction projects over the past 10 years of owning the house. Then went and saw Elton John in Las Vegas. That was Darcy’s idea and it was a great one. Awesome show etc. but the “being in Vegas” was really hard. She was wheelchair bound and everything hurt. The bumpy cobble stone walk ways of Caesars were fucked up. Even the bumps in the side walks made her grimace. 

The airport security in Las Vegas had me so mad, I was ready to blow like a test missile. They had Darc get UP and OUT of her wheelchair to check for what? THEN, the made her go again, because they didn’t search her pillow she was sitting on or something like that. I was going nuts!!! Screaming and hollering…. I guess this was just the beginning of that sort of behavior for me. But back to our travels real quick. 

Ya know, people always say stuff like “If I found out I had cancer, I’d blah blah blah…..” Fill in the blank with whatever fantasy. 

But the truth is, you’re either in treatment and can’t really go anywhere. OR you are so sick from treatment, that just traveling to the toilet is enough for the day. Let alone, go on safari or write that book you always wanted to write. Everything is just a little too much. IF you’re luck enough to fight off the illness long enough, GREAT. But that wasn’t our case.

When we were in Vegas, Darcy had to be helped to the bathroom. I’m not ashamed to say it, nor was I ashamed to help her. But, one night I awoke in bed to hear a muffled groaning sound. It took me a second, then I jumped out of bed and ran to the HUGE handicapped restroom we had. She was laid out in front of the toilet crying in pain. I went from zero to 100 in a second. I picked her up. And, I say that like it’s nothing. IT WAS HARD getting her back in that wheelchair while sliding all over the marble floor. I asked if she had any pain, she said no, then we got her back to the bed. While I’m putting her to bed again, I was kinda mad and asking WHY she did that all by herself and didn’t ask me to help her? I had helped her every single time before that, and would still do so after, as well. 

In my mind I knew the answer already, but I was just lashing out. Well, she lashed out at me and said “Dean, if you knew what I know, you wouldn’t be mad at me.” 

It crushed my soul. I didn’t sleep a wink the rest of the night. How could I? I was mean to my wife and she pulled from deep in the deck and got very REAL with me. She had protected me from so much. She knew ME and was very protective and understanding of the whole thing. Now we were getting real.

When we got home, we talked about how we would see this thing through with courage. Show our friends and family that we could be strong, no matter what. Unfortunately, for friends and family, each had individual ideas of how they were gonna handle this whole thing.

Some people were total class and respect. They were available when needed and even made themselves available after she passed. They also gave us space when needed as well. Then we had friends who just HAD to get THEIR time in with Darcy. Hell half these people had never even been to our house in the first place, period!

And this was OUR house they were coming to. I mean, a visit and whatnot is fine. We even had those scheduled. But people just dropping by, got old. Having her convalesce at home was hard. People treated our house like a hospice unit and I was relegated to front desk clerk. I thought, I knew a lot about people and human behaviors. Ya know, what to look FOR and OUT for…. But NOTHING can prepare you for the places each of us go when death comes calling. 

Again, certain friends and family members just never came around again. EVER!!! Either they just wanted to give us space (which I appreciate) or they “just couldn’t deal with it.” (which I get, but can’t respect). Like I wanted to deal with it? Either way, at the end of the day, it was just Darcy, me and our pets. And we were dealing with it....

Our house in St. John, that we bought together, worked on together, that is where she wanted to die. It made sense. I was only too happy to try and provide for my wife this one last time. We eventually DID have a hospice nurse and set up Darcy in the front room with a nice day bed. She could see out the window and had a comfy set up. She spent a lot of time there by now, as the foot traffic got heavier. The family was ALL over the house. ALL the time. So much went down in this dept. I have a hard time even to this day discussing it. 

ONE of the fallouts is, I have no communication with my ex-in laws. They wrote me off completely. Although, her Dad DID call me after she passed to check on me. ONCE!!! Word came down some years later that her Mother was upset at me for “Wanting Darcy to hurry up and DIE!” She just took certain things that I did out of context and placed her shit on me. 

See, Joyce had just recently lost her husband. Darcy and I helped out a ton when that was going down. This had to be killing Joyce (Her Mom) and I think she was super critical of everything I did. One thing was, I was getting rid of our bed upstairs. Because, WE didn’t sleep in it anymore and NO ONE was EVER gonna sleep with me in that bed. PERIOD. Now ya see, Darcy was not aware of this fact as I had done it on the sly. That is until her bitch of a mom pops off on me one day “Why ja’ git rid of the bed upstairs, DEAN!!!!????” Darcy popped out of her morphine haze and said “What?!?” Man, that pissed me off. Not to mention her lesbian, real life older sister, made some remark to me one day that: “That’s what husbands are supposed to do, DEAN!!!” FUCK ME!!!!! Jeezuz.

THEN?!?!? Darcy’s birthday!

Now, just a little context. 

We are in early May 2015 and her birthday is May 18th. One thing, Darcy wasn’t the hugest fan of her birthday. BUT her mom DID make the same cake each year since she was a baby and blah  blah blah…. Well, obviously this year was gonna be different and Darcy was in no mood to do this birthday shit. She couldn’t really “Talk”  at this point, but could still nod, mutter and mover her big toe. We asked her about having a party and a furrow came across her brow. That was all we needed. Her eyes narrowed like “How dare you even think about that!” That was it. NO party, moving on….We ALL agreed. Done deal.

Then her Mom went home that night and cried a pity party and whipped up her pink frosting and by god, SHE was gonna have a party. We were notified as much the next morning when she showed up for her bed side vigil. Darcy was indifferent but I hit the roof. I came unglued. I smashed my phone on the floor and it bounced and landed up on the top bookshelf. Right next to this book we had been reading about dealing with death. Fuckin’ weird.

I had lost ALL control of my house, my wife, and it seemed my life. My brother and I had been working on a project that Darcy had planned FOREVER since we moved into the house. It was a concrete walkway on the side where we walked to enter our house. With the addition of bamboo it was the last thing on a LONG list of home improvements we had been doing since the economic downturn in 2008. So, while her birthday approached we were busting our humps. The people visiting continued and so did the party. Pink balloons and cake and ice cream and all that. I couldn’t help but feel…. Helpless. Like Darcy. Laying there. Everything was out of our hands now. We barely had each other anymore to hang on to. It was auto pilot from here on out anyway. We literally had 10 more days. 240 hours.

We prayed some, (which we/she never did) I also would play some of our favorite tunes. I cried at her feet so she wouldn’t see. She probably heard me though. Her hearing was still good. As I played our favorite Sinead O’Connor album, she shook her big toe at me. As if to say, I Love You. Thank You. I’ll Miss You.

Then one day, about 10:00am, I jumped in the car real quick to go get some t shirts that I was printing. I got home and she was gone. Just like that. I know she heard the car start and decided it was time. I left the house and she was gonna make her exit. 

Always protecting me. To the end.

I miss you my Angel. Your were my once in a lifetime. My soul partner. My rock and roll handler. 

MY EVERYTHING.

Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again?

The Angels:

Without you near me

I got no place to go

Wait at the bar

Maybe you might show

Am I ever gonna see your face again

Am I ever gonna see your face again

I've got to stop these tears

That's falling from my eye

Go walk out in the rain

So no one sees me cry

Am I ever gonna see your face again…