It was a cold night near the end of 1991. I'd finished berating myself for being a chickenshit wimp, done with giving myself a pass because my dad had died just a few months earlier. I showered, dressed, and drove away from home into the night to Saint John's Hospital in Oxnard, California. I was born there. But for the next few nights, I would keep my cousin Jimmy company. Jimmy was my closest cousin on my mom's side, so it was only right that I would join him at the hospital to watch his dad die.
My uncle Owen was fast losing his fight against prostate cancer. A big, tough man, he'd ignored symptoms until the cancer spread.
I hadn't seen Jimmy in over a decade. He'd moved to Houston and had nearly severed ties with the family. It didn't feel the same at first; that old cousin bond seemed gone forever, but in the next few nights, it came back.
When my Uncle Owen took his last breath, I stood next to Jimmy. I didn't know what to say, so I just hugged him. My aunt Wanda, Owen's sister, and my uncle Marvin, a retired Navy chaplain, stood weeping in the room with us.
Jimmy left to go home to Texas soon after Owen passed. He didn't offer an address or a phone number. It seemed obvious that he intended to disengage himself from family ties once again. I didn't know why. I still don't.
Jimmy called the night before he left. When I asked him for an address or a phone number, he just changed the subject. But, before he hung up, he said, "Dude, I love you. You've helped me more than you know."
It would be the last time I spoke to Jimmy. My mom told me a couple of years later that she thought he might be in prison, but that the news was sketchy.
I learned yesterday that Jimmy died six years ago, at the age of fifty. No word about the cause of death, or whether he'd left a wife or children behind. Darkness always seemed to rest on Jimmy's shoulder, and I wondered if light had left him for good.
I felt like I halfway grew up with Jimmy. He was my cousin, the same age, and my friend. We did lots of crazy, stupid stuff together. But at the end, he died a stranger, wrapped in mystery.
Encouragement.
1 day ago
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5 comments:
That's too bad. I know part of you grieves for what might have been. But you were a good cousin and a good friend to him; the rest was up to him and he chose to shut you out, for whatever reason.
This is sad and I'm sorry, Hal. I agree with what Bob said, though.
My cousin was airflighted to the hospital for the second time. He was in a freakish car crash w/ survivable injuries. A car coming the other way hit a deer which then slammed into his windshield, coming through, and exploding inside his truck. He now has a bacterial infection, which is thought to have its origins in the deer. He's been in ICU for 17 days now, three surgeries, in a drug induced coma, paralyzed so that he won't fight the breathing tube. It strikes me that as well as I love my aunt and uncle (his parents), there are times when a family become strangers, separated and isolated by our own grief.
Hal--So very sorry. You did as much as humanly possible. It's hard when people choose to withdraw from us under ordinary circumstances, but worse when we don't get a second chance to say goodbye. My husband lost a cousin (who was a childhood friend) under similar circumstances back when we were in college (lost touch as their lives took dramatically different directions). He said that the young man who'd died was a stranger, but the boy who'd been his childhood friend was still alive in his heart and mind.
The boys and I are still treated to "Gary and Tim" stories from time to time.
And at 50. How sad. Lots of my cousins are strangers too. Distance and time....
quid
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