Goodbye My Love

Ted passed away peacefully on January 24, 2014—a scant 10 months after diagnosis of Stage IV duodenal cancer.

Our daughter, Rashida put together a beautiful video with words and music from friends and family telling Ted just what he had meant to them.  He was not well on Christmas morning but he was strong enough to watch the video.  He sat in the middle—I was on one side and Rashida was on the other.  Rashida had gone out by email and asked friends and family to share some thoughts about Ted.  She took those thoughts, wrote them onto large index cards and held them up to the camera—the background music played some of Ted’s favorite songs, Happy Feelings by Frankie Beverly and Maze, Sentimental Mood by Ellington/Coltrane, Kiss of Life by Sade, I’ll Be Loving You Always by Stevie Wonder—his favorite songs—his favorite artists—words from the people who loved him.   It was a beautiful tribute.

Ted is not an emotional person but this day—this Christmas day, he was full of emotion.  He did not cry but his breathing got heavy and I asked him if he could get through it—he said he could.  When the video was over he said “That was the greatest Christmas gift I ever received—my heart is full”.  Coming from Ted, that was quite an accolade. I am so very glad that we got to share this with him—many people don’t really get to know their impact on people before they leave this world—Ted did.

After Christmas, Ted’s health started to take a dip and we went to the doctor for another CT scan.  We got the news that the cancer had taken over most of his liver—there was nowhere to go now but hospice.  And so started the most compassionate part of this journey.  We were assigned a staff of nurses, nurses’s assistants, grief counselors and psychologists who were on call night and day.  These people were so caring—they made Ted’s last 10 days much more manageable than they’d otherwise be.

On January 14^th 2014 Ted went into hospice at home. My minister came and prayed and family and friends started making what would be their last visits.  On January 24^th in the early morning it became apparent that Ted was leaving us.  I called our son, Lateef and told him that he should come—he got to us at around 3 pm. Ted’s mother and sister were on their way traveling by train from New York. When hospice advised us that they probably would not make it, we put the phone up to his ear.  His mother and sister talked to him—I know he heard their voices—his eyelids fluttered.   During the day, we played Ted’s favorite music (Sade) and kept him comfortable with lavender lotion on his face and swabs for his mouth.  Early in the morning as I passed his bedside, I’d call his name and his eyes would pop open, though he could not speak.  As the day went on, his eyes continued to open when his name was called but became more cloudy and by early afternoon, he no longer responded to his name.  We talked to him and held his hand.  He was never alone. During this entire time, hospice was with us. 

At 10:45 pm, Ted took his last breath.  As I had promised Ted, I was holding his hand—Lateef and Rashida were at the bedside.  He left us very quietly--It was the most peaceful exit I have ever seen and I’ve seen a few.  Lateef collapsed on the floor in grief and Rashida and I joined him.  

The News

The diagnosis was a rare cancer—adenocarcinoma of the duodenum.  Where even is the duodenum?  It’s a long tube just below the stomach and above the colon—technically a part of the small intestine. Only 1-3% of the population get this type of cancer and it’s almost never found early because the symptoms are quiet and vague. When it’s found early, it’s usually by mistake—while looking for something else—usually an endoscopy will find it.   Ted’s symptom was stomach distress-acid build up.  We didn’t react to this because as long as we could remember Ted had had stomach problems.  We even kept liquid antacid in our refrigerator (don’t know why he liked it cold) and he constantly swigged from the bottle.  So by the time we realized it was more than the usual stomach upset it was way too late.  The doctor actually told us that the cancer was probably growing for 10 years.  10 years!!!  What where we doing 10 years ago?  Working hard and trying to figure out how to retire early.  Just living life.  So, what do you do when you get a diagnosis like this?  You just put one foot in front of the other and do what’s in front of you,.

So the good news was that Ted could have an operation to bypass the mass so that he could eat without distress.  The bad news?  His cancer was Stage IV and had metastasized to the liver. He had 1-2 years—with chemo, a few months more.  We were devastated but we didn’t stop there. A second opinion at Duke , phone calls to Cancer Centers of America and Sloan Kettering provided no other options.  So we began chemotherapy and a 10-month journey of doctor’s appointments, emergency room visits and chemo sessions.  We held out hope that Ted would be one of the miracles.  I’d done a lot of searching on the internet and found a forum for his type of cancer.  Most of the news was not good, but there were a few success stories—Why couldn’t Ted be one of them?  As Steve Jobs said in his commencement speech at Stanford in 2005, “Sometimes life’s going to hit you in the head with a brick – don’t lose faith.”  We did our best to keep the faith for as long as we could.

When I look back, the 10 months sped by.  When we were in the midst of it, it seemed interminable.  Ted did the heavy lifting (chemotherapy is definitely heavy lifting)—I did my best to keep him comfortable—Accompanied him to every doctor's appointment and every chemo session and made sure he was seated in front of a cancer-fighting saying on the wall in the chemo room-looked for food that he could tolerate—made soups and broths and other recipes from any cancer fighting cookbook that I and Rashida could find.  We often talked about this new life as our “new normal”.  It wasn’t what we wanted and not what we planned but we played the cards we were dealt.

 In addition to fighting the cancer, Ted dealt with anxiety and depression stemming from his diagnosis.  I promised him that from the time he was diagnosed, I would do all that I could for him and that in a clinch (which this definitely was) I was his person—I had his back.  And I did.  Since his cancer was intestinal, he continued to lose weight. He wasn’t a large person anyway so he became very thin—and with his weight went his strength.  We worked with a nutritionist to try to add calories to his diet with things like Ensure and Benecalorie but he hated the taste so I had to become really creative at hiding the supplements in his food. As time went on, he was able to eat less and less, rested a lot and talked little. 

Watching your loved one suffer is never easy but when he stopped talking, it was like I lost my best friend.  Oh, he made sure everything was in order and that I knew accounts, passwords and his wishes—all the academic stuff but it was hard to reach him emotionally--conversations were few now.  So I did what I could do. Made sure he was comfortable.  He didn’t want to see many people so I became his gatekeeper.  He didn’t want to be far from me, so I didn’t often take friends up on their offers to sit with him while I ran errands.  I have few regrets (other than that he got cancer at all).  I continued to tell him how much I loved him, give him hugs and make him comfortable until his last breath.  He often remarked that even though he did not look like “my Ted” anymore, I still loved him and gave him hugs and kisses.  My response?  “All I see is my Ted”.  And that was the truth.

 I’ve learned a few things from this experience and I’m sure there’s more learning to come.  The outside wrapper is really not that important.  I was telling Rashida that its kind of like a balloon.  The spirit (like the helium in a balloon) is what gives life and buoyancy to a person—the spirit is really what we love and revere.  The outer package is not that important.  Of course it is what we see in the beginning and since we don’t know the person, it is initially what attracts us but any long time relationship has got to delve beneath the surface and get to the real essence of the person.  Somewhere along the 40-year relationship that Ted and I shared we found the essence. So, it really didn’t matter what he looked like to me – All I saw was the person I loved—the spirit within.

Time Stood Still

And so we raised our children in California and worked hard.  We had a good life. Eventually the children grew up and went their own way.  We retired, Ted first, followed by me in 2007.  Then the real fun began.

We moved to North Carolina.  That was a good location—somewhere between the grandchildren in Atlanta and our family in South Carolina and New York . We visited family and traveled far and wide—working on our bucket list.  Ted had always wanted to travel but we never felt we had enough money to travel and raise childen so we didn’t do much traveling while we lived in California.  All that changed in North Carolina.  We traveled to Paris, England, Iceland, South Africa, Central America and many west indian islands.  Ted zip lined in Costa Rica and Jamaica and found a love of hiking and just being outdoors in general.  We were having such a great time—and then we got a reality check.

Fast forward to December, 2012.  After returing from a 3-week trip to South Africa, a cruise to Nassau and a 2-week stay in New York, we came home to see what was wrong with Ted.  His stomach was really acting up and he spent most of our time in New York resting. 

Time stood still.  Everything was happening as if in slow motion. All I heard was the monitor that was hooked to Ted beeping as his blood pressure went up.  On the outside his face was calm—on the inside he was a bundle of nerves as indicated by the rising blood pressure on the beeping monitor.  Rashida and I were staring at the doctor and not believing what we were hearing.

After being diagnosed with an ulcer a month before, Ted still didn’t feel well and was losing weight very, very quickly so we’d made an appointment with the gastroenterologist who ordered a colonoscopy and an endoscopy.  He gave us the good news first—the colonoscopy showed a couple of polyps that they removed—no problem.  The endoscopy, however  found a large narly (his words) mass, he wasn’t sure what it was—never seen anything like it before--will have to bioposy it-results will be back in a few days unless there was something to worry about, in which case it would be earlier.  It was Friday. Finally, the nurse came in and disconnected the machine.

 The doctor continued to speak but I heard what I think Snoopy must hear when humans speak  (“wha, wha, wha”)—my mind was rushing around in 500 different directions.—I could no longer process what he was saying.  Somehow we made it through the weekend.  On Monday afternoon the phone rang, caller ID said it was the doctor’s office.  It was too early for this phone call and we knew our lives would be changed forever.

Remembering Ted - Early Days

I can’t remember anymore when I actually met Ted.  He liked to tell people that I was promised to him in the womb but that was so not true. I think I knew his sister, Helen first and met Ted through her. We both grew up in the same neighborhood.  He lived on 61^st street and I lived on 64^th street.  3 blocks made no difference—all the kids congregated in the playground which was on 64^th street or “the barrels” which were play structures closer to 61^st street. 

I know that we were boyfriend and girlfriend in junior high school (now they call it middle school) and I’m sure we knew each other before that.

Ted was one of a trio of boys who hung out together.  There was Ted, Darryl and Gregory—later they were joined by another boy—Luther (called Junior).  What got your attention first was Ted’s walk.  He, Darryl and Gregory would walk down the street together.  They were fast walkers.  Ted had a loose gaited walk—arms flailing all over the place, long stride; Darryl walked on his toes with a bounce and I can’t even remember how Gregory walked but they were all really cute, and when you saw them walking it was like they were in tandem—arms, legs, exponential swagger…

Not only did Ted have a distinctive walk, he was a cool dresser.  He loved fine clothes and shoes.  One of his early jobs was in a shoe store called Feldman’s.  He talked a lot about what he learned about dealing with the public while delivering the beautiful, fine leather shoes that Feldman’s was known for. He worked hard and saved his money.  He was one of the first of our group to get a brand new car and his own apartment in the Bronx complete with the cool 70's beads that hung from the doorway.  He was absolutely too cool for school.

A date with Ted was not just a movie and pizza.  He introduced me to my first play (a play about Jack Johnson the boxer), my first modern dance show (Alvin Ailey).  We went to museums, rode bikes in Central Park (even though I was far from athletic). We did things that other young black kids were not doing.  Ted was always different and so was I—we fit together very well. 

We talked a lot about our dreams—good jobs, a home in the suburbs.  I say we talked a lot but Ted did most of the talking—I was a great listener.  As the years went on I became a better talker—he was always the idea man and I was the implementer.  He could conceive it and I could figure out how to make it happen—He was the 30,000 foot person—I was closer to the ground--the detail person.  Yup, a good match.

We sometimes (no probably many times) butted heads.  I wanted the finer life—fast. Ted wanted the finer life but slowly—save for what you want—don’t charge it.  Somehow we met in the middle after many trips but, thank God, no major falls.  It was a while before I figured out that he was an Aires (the ram) and I was a Taurus (the bull)—of course we would butt heads.  We both wanted things our way. 

Luckily we did meet in the middle and were able to navigate 40 years of marriage with some scars, of course, but no major wounds.  As the years together ticked up, people would ask us what was the secret to a long marriage.  We both figured it out that once we had decided that divorce was no longer an option, everything became easier. In the early days and years of our marriage, I would throw around the “d” word very easily.  I was struggling with the concept of partnership.  I was raised in a single-parent home and my mom made all the rules so I really had no time for making decisions by committee.  Ted was methodical.  No decision was ever made quickly.  His favorite answer to a question was either “No” or “I’ll think about it”, which usually meant “No” also.  This was in the 70’s and I sometimes felt like I was giving up who I was to be a wife—the mother thing I got very easily it was the relationship part that was difficult for me.  Ted often said being a father was the most difficult job for him—for me, in those early days, being a wife was the most difficult part.  I eventually got it figured out that there was a comfortable way to be a wife and still be “me”.  Ted was patient. Even when I continually tried to get the bank to put my name on the top of our joint checks!!!  Those were the things that made me crazy.  Of course, my name never made the top of the checks and soon enough, it made no difference to me.  In the early days it was all about who had the power.  I remember telling Ted if he just admitted that I was the boss, everything would be OK.  Well you know the answer to that!  So we stumbled along and before we knew it, we were coasting.

In the early days I loved to hear Ted talk.  He could talk for hours on so many topics. He had a head for economics, finance, geography and history and was not shy about letting you know what he knew.  In the early days I loved listening—in the middle years—not so much—in the last year when he became silent—I would have given anything to hear him drop his knowledge.  But as our son Lateef said at Ted's funeral, I think he had talked enough—there was no more to be said.