A wonderful, stately, classy – grand dame I know — has been diagnosed with terminal, pancreatic cancer (I gather that once you have cancer of the pancreas – you are dead – just not as quickly as from a Black Mamba bite). So Giti and I went to visit her this weekend down in Leucadia where she is staying at her son’s (my buddy, Big Brian).
I’ve only been hearing about this pancreatic cancer thang for about a-year-and-a-half now – but folks I’ve been talking with are telling me that it is rapidly becoming the number one cancer killer of our species. I’m not even sure what the pancreas actually does for our bodies – but I am hoping that I can get a handle on what this VERY terminal condition is all about, soon! Because I do hate mysteries…
Hazel (the Grand Dame) was married to her husband for 58 years (call it 60 if you count their dating). Gerontological studies I have read in the past have suggested a mortality rate approaching 70% for a surviving spouse (who had been with a mate for-30-years-or-more) in the first 18 months after their mate had died (more-often-than-not, the second death occurred within 6 months of the mate’s death). These same studies suggested that spouses/mates developed a reciprocal “sonar” over time – that literally sees them resonating together – something similar to whale and dolphin communication. When one-of-the-sounding boards dies – the survivor has no feedback, and the survivor’s system consequently becomes disequiliberated – leading (in close to 7-out-of-10 cases) to a second death within 18 months. Heavy stuff…
A fascinating art teacher that I never had the pleasure of working with – I actually took over his classroom when I joined the L.A. County Juvenile Court Schools – was also dying of cancer back in the Summer of ’92. Rather than become a pin cushion for some hospital bent on collecting as much death money as they possibly could from the dying – this gentleman elected to die at home – surrounded by family and friends (I wonder if I haven’t written about him?). Anyway – each afternoon – between 3-and-5pm (surrounded by wife and family) — visitors would come to his home by the dozens to pay their respects. I felt that I witnessed a death with dignity…
So I suggested to Hazel that she might want to try something like this – but I’m not sure that she fully understood me, as she is jaundiced and bewildered by medication. It remains to be seen if Giti’s nursing ministrations will give Hazel the strength to return to S. Africa and die like the classy lady she is – joining her beloved Big Mac (Big Brian’s father) on some other plain of being.
John Donne suggested that we shouldn’t ask for whom the bell tolls, because when it tolls – it tolls for-each-of-us…I’m in that same zone regarding death these days. I have begun to realize that our human shells are indeed receivers for what is the uber consciousness of our species – and that when the shell perishes the signal disappears with it – remaining only in memory. Giti has also suggested that when one life disappears, another comes to take its place. I wait in rapt anticipation to see what wonderful being comes to replace The Grand Dame, Hazel.