Category Archives: Last things

Henry

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My brother Henry died four years ago today on April 6, 2018. Here he is with my father and mother.

My brother, kind of nerdy, with the pen in his shirt pocket, and my father, with his Indian belt buckle. I still have that buckle.

This photo was taken probably some time in the early 1990’s or even the late 1980’s. Henry’s hair had not started to turn white. I’m not sure when it was taken, but it was before health problems started making it harder for everyone to smile.

I have written before about how hard it is for me to internalize the loss of my family. When I look photos like this it feels as if they are pictures from a particularly engaging novel or movie, not something that was an actual part of my own life.

But I also feel like they are still here. Henry especially. So it’s two worlds, one where they don’t exist, and one where they do.

I have said that I think (believe? hope? maybe?) that the past actually exists, out of our reach, of course, but still there, if only we could invent a time machine. When I think of my family back there, it’s like seeing into the past, but with a dirty, vignetting telescope.

I suppose the only good thing is that I remember them they way they are in the photograph, not the way they were right before they died.

Dusty

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We had to put our cat Dusty down Wednesday evening.

Dusty showed up at our previous house sometime around 2006 with his mother and two siblings. We gave one of the siblings away, but ended up keeping two. The trio became Chloe, the mother; Rusty, the sister; and Dusty, the brother. Rusty died a few years ago from feline immunodeficiency virus.

Dusty was diagnosed with lymphoma last week. His mother Chloe had been diagnosed with the same disease a couple of months ago. She had been eating like a pig but losing weight. The vet gave her a steroid injection, and it helped tremendously. She got a second shot just a couple of weeks ago. And then we noticed Dusty was not eating well, so we took him in. Same disease, and same shot. But the shot did not work for Dusty. A couple of days ago he became lethargic and refused his food. It got worse. On Thursday it was bad enough that we were going to take him to the vet, but I was tied up taking my aunt to the dentist. It was too late to take him in that day.

We considered taking him to the emergency veterinary clinic Tuesday night, but held off. Then Wednesday he was even worse. A doctor’s appointment kept us from taking him our vet, so we took him to the emergency clinic around 7 pm. After the examined him, they told us he was in the process of dying. We already knew that. So we made the only decision we could.

Dusty was probably the most even-tempered of all our cats. He tended to mind his own business. He didn’t roam, and he almost never had disagreements with the other cats. He was a little timid around me, less so around Leah. Like most cats, he spent a lot of time napping.

Sometimes he slept on the top step.

Sometimes his choices of places to nap and napping posture were comical.

His relationship with his mother was reasonably close.

This was taken a few years ago. More recently they tended to sleep in separate houses. A few days ago Chloe started sleeping with him again. Leah thinks Chloe knew something was wrong with Dusty.

We brought his little wasted body home, but it was too late to bury him. Tomorrow afternoon, after the rain stops, I’ll put him near Zeke and Lucy.

We know that Chloe will follow before too long. She’s doing pretty well now, but lymphoma is a death sentence.

21 Years

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My father died 21 years ago on this day, March 24. He was 82.

This is a photograph that was probably taken in November 1943 in Rome, Ga, around the time my mother and father were married.

My mother, my brother and I were at the hospital when he died, or more accurately, when his body was allowed to stop working. Someone at the hospital called me around 2 or 3 in the morning and said we needed to come to the hospital right away. My mother and I drove over immediately. I had to call my brother, who was living in Chattanooga at the time.

My mother and I sat in the chairs lining the walls of the ICU, outside the room where my father was, waiting for Henry. The weather was mild, and the windows were open. A mockingbird sang at the window the entire time

When my brother arrived, we went into the room to see my father. Then we told the staff to let him go.

And that was that.

That was one of the dividing points in my life. There was the time before my father died, and the time after my father died.

Now, with my mother and brother both gone, the days when there was a whole family don’t seem quite real. We were all there in those days, playing our parts. Then it was over, and I went home alone.

I ran across the photo while I was going through some photographs that my aunt gave me several months ago. They had somehow ended up at my aunt and uncle’s house, probably after my grandmother died.

A lot of the photos are from those days more than 75 years ago. There are a few with just me as a baby or very young kid. I told Leah that once we’re gone, there will be no one on Earth who cares about those photos.

There are a lot of photographs of my parents from many years ago, some of the whole family, and some of me and my brother as kids. There are a couple of class photos of my brother in elementary school, and some of him in college. I plan to send all of the photos, except for those of just me, to my nephews. I don’t know what they will do with them.

Aunt Lorraine

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Leah’s Aunt Lorraine died on Tuesday. She was 89.

Lorraine was Leah’s mother’s sister, the last of that generation in Leah’s family. Although they lived in Winston-Salem, NC, and we didn’t get a chance to see her often, she was Leah’s favorite. The last time we saw her was at least five years ago, although Leah spoke to her often, or at least as often as she could actually get her to answer her phone.

Her health had been deteriorating for some time. She was in and out of the hospital and nursing homes. At the end, she was diagnosed with uterine cancer, untreatable at her age and in her condition.

Leah is still in the stage of thinking about calling her to tell her about something that has happened here. That passes, of course. She will miss her aunt.

I wrote about milestones in my last post. This is another milestone, but not a welcome one.

Henry’s birthday

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Today, September 2, 2020, would be my brother Henry’s 73rd birthday.

It was about two and a half months after his 70th birthday that he called me and said that something strange had happened. That was the observation in an ultrasound of spots on his liver, and his doctor’s implication that it foretold a distressing diagnosis. Eventually we learned that the diagnosis was pancreatic cancer, and it had spread to his liver and other organs.

The doctor guessed that Henry had about a good year to live. He died 216 days after his 70th birthday.

Henry will never be older than 70, and I am catching up to him. I will pass him in December, and then I will no longer have an older brother.