In comedy and in life good things always come in threes
On aging, dying and death
I had the pleasure of speaking at the “Before I Die Festival” held at the Loft on April 16th.
Here are my abridged remarks on the subjects of aging, dying and death. Some of the content will be familiar to you and for that I apologize. Because of time limitations some of this content was abbreviated or omitted by me at the event.
Thank you for inviting me to speak at Tucson’s very first “Before I die” festival
Before I begin permit me to move this podium a bit. And adjust the microphone. There. I like things to be just right.
Which is what I told the mortician in Sierra Vista when he discovered me in his funeral home struggling to put shoes on my father’s feet. “Would you mind holding the lid of his coffin up for me? I like things to be just right.”
Knowing the Master Sergeant had been a street orphan who was often without shoes I had to lift the lid to check— and I’ll be damned if he wasn’t wearing socks but no shoes. So I left for my brother’s nearby home, grabbed a pair of dad’s shoes and returned to force them on his uncooperative feet. His stiff little toes had set in place bent outwards rather than inwards. When the funeral home director saw me struggling to jam a shoe onto his stiff foot he said, “Let me help.” He reached over and cracked my dad’s little toe and tenderly slid the shoe onto his foot. I cracked the other toe, slid the other matching shoe on, laced them up and shut the lid.
I thanked the kind funeral home director and then remembered I had brought with me an unopened pack of Kools. I pulled the pack of Kools out, lifted the lid one last time and slid them into the pocket of his blue blazer and straightened his tie. And then I noticed the expression on his face. I began smudging the corners of his mouth in hopes of turning his death grimace into the mischievous grin we all loved. Until the funeral home director cleared his throat and explained rigor mortis to me.
I was young. What did I know? Most of us spend much of our lives insulated from death, dying and grief.
Ellen and I were strolling through Tohono Chul park when we noticed a sign in front of a fallow patch of garden. Nodding to the promise of the Spring the small sign read, “Not dead, just resting.”
Ellen suggested that I might wear such a sign around my neck the next time I headed to the hammock to remind my concerned friends and loved ones that I’m not dead. I’m just resting.
Very funny, Ellen. If you are at the age when people mistake you for a corpse when your napping it’s time for you to talk about aging, dying and death with your loved ones. And we have.
A late night talk show host once asked the actor Keanu Reeves what he thinks happens when you die. Keanu said, “The people who love you will miss you”
I was surprised by the succinct profundity of Reeves’ answer. The people who love you will miss you. Could the star of “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” be the Dali Llama? Who knew Keanu was a veritable Buddha, such a wise man?
When you die the people who love you will miss you and before you die the people who love you deserve to be a part of the conversation about your death.
A death in the family
My wife, Ellen, and her five sisters, the Steel Magnolias of East Tucson, became my dying father-in-law’s caregivers and when Don became bed-ridden we all took turns walking Jake, his beautiful regal collie.
Unfortunately, as his health declined, Ellen had no choice but to break away to attend a 2-day work-related conference in Denver. I went with her, carrying her bags and her guilt. First day of the conference she got “the call” from her sister Jean. As I raced us back to Denver International Ellen’s cellphone rang again. She relayed the bulletins aloud to me.
“He’s on morphine.”
“The hospice nurse is there.”
“His Pastor is there.”
“Put the phone up to daddy’s ear. Hello, dad? It’s Ellen.”
“He recognizes your voice” we heard a sister say.
Another said, “He raised his eyebrows! “
We heard a distant sigh of recognition.
“I love you, daddy. You mean so much to me.”
As the car rental drop-off came into view Ellen said, “I’ll miss you,” to the man who read bedtime stories to her, taught her kindness, and ping pong and took her camping and filled their home with Gershwin.
Soon as our plane landed we raced to Don’s bedside. By morning he was gone, surrounded by his family.
What became of Don’s beloved dog? Jake was adopted by sister number five, Katie. We all knew Jake was going to thrive in his new home.
Days later, Ellen’s cellphone rang. “Jake just stopped drinking and eating. Jake’s gone. We can’t believe it.” I texted Katie a quick sketch of her father standing among the clouds, joyfully greeting his beloved Jake with open arms. “Where have you been, Jake!?”
We were all prepared for the event no one is ever truly prepared for. When Don died the people who loved him respected his wishes, celebrated his life, interred his remains and distributed his estate as he wished. We loved him and we still miss him.
People rely on a spectrum of religious beliefs, mythology and rituals to help them with their grief
Some rituals can be highly unusual but we must respect the wishes of the dead even if they are the wishes of a cartoonist.
When the Pulitzer prize winning political cartoonist Doug Marlette’s casket was lowered I was told by my cartoonist pals that per Marlette’s request his fellow political cartoonists turned their backs on their friend, dropped their pants and mooned his coffin as it was lowered into the earth.
Get all the stories from the living while they are with us
Death ends our conversations abruptly. Get all the stories you can while you can from the people you love.
I set up a video camera and interviewed my dying father-in-law with his permission. I’m so glad I did. I discovered so much about the man’s remarkable life. We are but a collection of stories—and only the dust that remains.
As for my remains…
As for my remains I want to be mummified and exhibited next to “The Thing” just west of Willcox or cremated after my ego is harvested and donated to science.
Grief, an inescapable part of life, happens
My last column for The Star was about “Tu Nidito”, a safe place for children to grieve and find support. Watching the volunteers serve grieving kids was eye opening.
Here are excerpts from my piece:
The leader of tonight’s group of volunteers, Brigid, handed out a list of the kids who were coming and what afflicted their special persons, their parents, their family members: Pancreatic cancer. Inoperable. Stroke. Died. Lung cancer. Metastasized. Liver failure. Motorcycle accident. Life support. Lymphoma. Breast cancer. Bone cancer. Ovarian Cancer and on and on and on. Under a colorful mural of a storybook tree with a birds nest three volunteers sat together on one of the big sofas, studying the list, recognizing names. Behind their heads, on the mural, I noticed one small bird, forever leaving the nest, soaring into a radiant sky.
The volunteers don’t say “passed away.” Or “left us.” The child’s special person’s never coming back. There’s no ambiguity. Death is real here, where the mantra is “trust the process.”
A toy magic wand “talking stick” was passed from small hand to small hand. Every child tells us their name and everyone in the room welcomes them by name. And then the child says,“My special person is my mom.”
Everybody: “Your special person is your mom.”
“My special person has cancer.”
Everybody: “Your special person has cancer.”
“I feel sad and tired.”
Everybody: “You feel sad and tired.”
And as the wand was passed unfathomable sadnesses were shared and silliness, too, followed by awkward silences and laughter and fidgeting and story time. And the “Middles” made tissue paper flowers and took turns answering tonight’s question, “how do you show you care?” while in the next room over the “Littles” talked about “what can we do to help when someone feels sad?” while in another teens sorted out how to talk about death with their special person. Down the hall a small group of terminally ill parents talked about writing to their child in the future. One asked, “How do we tell the kids no Disneyland this year?”
Only their peers really understood what they were going through. Only their peers knew.
I wondered where the time went as I watched the children playing outside, waiting for their rides.
When everyone was ready to go, Sophia, the leader that night, asked them to stand in a circle. “Anyone have a special person to remember?”
Small hands went up. Two special persons who died were remembered with a moment of silence.
“Do we have any birthdays?” A hand went up. We sang happy birthday.
“Hold hands with the people in your family who are here tonight.”
Everyone held hands and hugged and when Sophia asked them to “clasp your hands over your hearts.” everyone did. “Hold onto the love and support you found here tonight and say, ‘I got it’ .” Everyone, said “I got it.” Including the “Little” standing by her mom who clenched her hands tight enough to make a diamond.
The volunteers regrouped to discuss whether or not that night’s prompts worked or if anyone saw any breakthroughs.“One of my ‘Middles’— who never talks— opened up to the group about her dad’s brain cancer tonight.”
When it was my turn I babbled at the volunteers that I’d never seen anything so powerful.. so emotionally touching.. and.. when I was 23 my special persons, my parents, had died a month apart from cancer and tonight at Tu Nidito I’d been blessed, honored, to return to the familiar world I’d known from the time I was 7 …to share a a sacred space with these amazing children, a safe place made holy by all of you empathetic, healing, compassionate volunteers.
I sat back, exhausted. The volunteers smiled at me. They were accustomed to children opening up.
Now is the time to plan ahead
The people who love you will miss you—or they will be very pissed off at you because you didn’t make plans and you didn’t talk to them about any of this and you didn’t have a will and your directive was unclear and all of that brings me to this next story.
I was a small kid when my dad was diagnosed with lung cancer and my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. After years of terrible illness they died a month apart when I was a young adult.
And this all happened in the Dark Ages, before hospice ever became a commonplace blessing. Between college, work and care giving I was exhausted. Finally my sister and her husband welcomed them into their home in faraway Mustang, Oklahoma. I took the Greyhound back and forth the last summer of their lives. Mom was done fighting. No more chemo, thank you. Let me go in peace. We found a compassionate rural doctor who made her as comfortable as possible.
Dad, a devout Catholic, was terrified he’d be without her in the afterlife because she was a Protestant. He couldn’t bear the thought of life without her and he could see she was leaving the world. Imagine my surprise when a Priest with a briefcase arrives at the door of their sickroom. Dad had found a Priest to convert my Protestant mother on her deathbed to Catholicism in order to give her last rites so she’d be beside him in Catholic heaven.
A heathen, I thought who’s hurt by this theater? No one. She’s nearly in a coma. Go on with the show.
The young priest came into the bedroom set his small briefcase on the nightstand and sprang it open, freeing the spring loaded altar to pop up into place, complete with candles to be lit with a bic lighter.
He kissed his vestments. He gestured at my father and I to kneel. We knelt. As he recited Latin phrases he uncapped a tiny plastic bottle of Holy Water and sprinkled some droplets on her face and then froze. Her eyelids were moving, she was blinking. The sprinkled water had awakened her out of her near coma horrifying everyone in the room. My dying mother looked up at the young Priest with horror. The Catholic priest looked back at her with horror.
She rolled her head over to see me on my knees next to her bed. I had been caught in the act of conspiring against her with her dying Catholic husband who was on his knees at the foot of her bed, distressed that his scheme to get her into Catholic Heaven had failed. Dad escorted the stammering Priest out. I looked into my mom’s eyes, watched them close and kissed her feet. She died a day later. We buried her in Oklahoma in a cemetery near my sister’s home.
A month later at dad’s funeral my brother Don mentioned dad had a dying request. “He wants you to move her here to lay next him in the Holy Hope Catholic cemetery in Tucson. He thought that might make it possible for her to get into Catholic heaven with him.”
“You mean have her dig her up? And bury her beside him? Here?”
“You mean rebury.”
So there I was on a rainy October day watching a heavy duty machine claw at my mom’s grave and then lift my mother’s casket out the wet red Oklahoma soil and set it down in the mud. I did what dad had asked me to do.
I think it’s funny that she’s not actually next to him, but in fact, on top of him for all eternity facing the sun. Their grave marker reads “Earthly mission finished. In heaven with God.”
That wasn’t true. He left his will unfinished. We’ll leave that comedy to another day.
Humor and suffering, laughter and tears
To endure suffering often times you’ve got to “find the funny”. Who shared this gem of hard earned wisdom with me ? A holocaust survivor I met years ago who was separated from her parents by Dr.Mengele at Auschwitz. Wagging her wonderful finger at me she said “Laughing at suffering is a powerful way to defy its power to overwhelm you.”
Years ago I was honored to entertain Alzheimer’s caregivers and their charges. Not wanting to offend anyone I chose to not tell a single Alzheimer’s joke. That was mistake. After I finished couples lined up to tell me their favorite Alzheimer’s jokes. One woman who had Alzheimer’s told me “The real plus is I can hide my own Easter eggs.”
I was blown away by their humor and resiliency.
I had forgotten how the gift of humor— tasteless, wrong, offensive, sick humor made it possible for me to survive caring for two cancer patients and then enduring cancer myself. Outsiders would have thought it strange to find us all laughing when my very ill father wondered aloud if there was a smoking section in the cemetery. Outsiders might have thought it strange to find us all laughing when I had to waltz mom to the bathroom towards the end when walking was difficult and she’d complain about what a terrible dancer I was. Outsiders might have thought it strange that we had found the funny day after exhausting day.
More than a decade ago I was diagnosed with cancer. Thankfully today it’s in remission. Back then at the time I feared the worst and I was hungry for information. My wife said, ”Stop googling your cancer.”
“I’m not googling my cancer!” I huffed and looked back at the computer screen. “Hey. look at this! Costco’s selling cremation urns two to a blister pack!”
“You’re not funny.”
We had discussed everything. Just in case things went south. “I want bagpipes and mariachis because.. isn’t the idea of a Wake to wake the dead?”
“You’re not funny.”
Oh, yes, I am. Laughing at your own suffering is an act of faith you will endure. Like I once heard a politician say, “I will not be defeated by futility.”
Which calls to mind something the Master Sergeant, a man who had once been a paratrooper, said to me. “When you’re born it’s like being pushed out of plane at 30,000 feet without a chute. You know how it’s going to end. The question is are you going to go carrying on and screaming all the way down to the inevitable end or are you going to appreciate the amazing view?”
Thanks, dad.
When I told Ellen I wanted my cremains eventually commingled with her cremains she was disturbed by the idea. Ick. Gross. Creepy.
So I bought the two-urns-for-the-price-of-one blister pack at Costco.
She didn’t care for my funeral playlist either.
“Bye bye Love”
“So long it’s been good to know you”
“Hit the road Jack”
“They’re coming to take me away ha ha”
“Highway to Hell”
I have a “DNR” order. Do Not Resuscitate. Followed by a Dead Now Recycle order. You may choose an “R” order. Which means you want to be kept alive even if it bankrupts your family, even if you’re nothing but a comatose human head in a jar connected to tubes and wires. This will guarantee no one will miss you when you’re dead. The last thing you want your survivors to say is, ”What a relief. Now I can go back to panhandling full time to pay these medical bills.”
We all know the Kübler-Ross 5-stages of grief.
I want to offer you my own model of the stages of grief. I call it the Keebler Elf 5-stages of grief:
Elf pity
Bargaining for just one more bite of the cookie
Anger
Depression
Acceptance that’s how the cookie crumbles
Critics who believe I’m being flippant may prefer my “Bob Ross 5-Stages of grief” model.
Denial that you’re out of yellow ochre
Acceptance
There’s only happy accidents
Bargaining
Pastel trees and friendly clouds
And last but not least: The Dave Fitzsimmons 3-Stages of grief.
Grief is too unpredictable to fit into distinct stages
Accept you will always grieve
It will get better
You never know when the grief will come
Quick story.
My friend’s older sister died. They shared a friend who was grieving his older sister’s death. He got a text from her a few weeks after the funeral. She was visiting Disney World when something triggered her grief. “I needed to sit down on a bench because memories started flooding back and I was overcome. Next thing I know Goofy and Snow White appeared out of nowhere to comfort me.”
Did a grief alert go out over walkie-talkies? “We have a grieving guest at Matterhorn. Alert Goofy and Snow.” Getting patted on the back by giant cartoon characters with three fingered hands certainly is a moment to remember.
Grief can hit anytime. Any place. The rest of your life. It gets better but it’s always there. As it should be. The people who love you will miss you when you die.
The world’s worst grief support counselor
As for supporting those who are grieving I think of an 85-year-old friend I have who is the perfect role model for what not to do. He would make a terrible grief counselor.
My friend would rather tell you how to grieve than listen to your grief. He loves the sound of his voice. Rather than asking you about your special person and rather than listening to your pain he would insist on talking on and on about all the loss he has experienced and how terrible his suffering was and how he handled it so beautifully and how he got over it like a champ, unlike you. My obnoxious friend would criticize how you are grieving with kind admonitions like “get a grip” and “enough with the self-pity. Move on already!”
Move on from this toxic jerk. A true friend will support you by shutting up, embracing your grief with you and listening. A true friend will support you by not judging how you grieve.
Communicate clearly when discussing illness, death or dying
As I noted earlier 2-years ago I got bladder cancer. Apparently I was unclear when talking about what I was facing during our family talk. My young sons told all their friends on our street their dad had something called wiener cancer.
Throughout that miserable experience I took a notepad with me and if anyone said anything remotely funny I wrote it down. And let me tell you groins, catheters, immuno-therapy and surgeries are hilarious.
Humor is distraction. Humor is perspective. Humor is a salve. You may not be in the habit of listening for humor and recording it but it happens constantly in conversation throughout your day.
You just aren’t paying attention to the funny stuff people say all day long. Make a conscious effort to pay attention to the comedy of life unfolding around you moment by moment. Even when life is at its most grim.
After 3-years of surgeries and treatments my bladder was saved and I had 90-minutes of comedy gold based on my tribulations that took me on a health conference speaking circuit.
After my bout with the cancer I produced a breast cancer fundraiser comedy show at Laffs featuring an all female lineup of comedians talking about their cancer experiences. We called the show “Titters”. Most of the attendees were survivors or folks in the middle of their struggle looking to laugh.
Laughter is the best medicine. Unless you have access to morphine.
After that I produced a story tellers night for breast cancer survivors called “Thanks for the Mammaries”.
The chef at our venue asked if he could donate the appetizers because he’d had a loved one affected by cancer. Squeeze a marshmallow between two honey grahams and slap a candy red nipple on it and you have a mammogram cracker. His fabulous desserts were popular. Our guests stuffed them into their purses like looters.
One lovely storyteller was a three time cancer survivor. When the neighbor who had supported her through her cancer got cancer herself and died our storyteller was rocked by the irony. She ended her story by quoting Ram Dass. “There comes a point in life when you realize we’re all just walking each other home.” You could hear a pin drop.
Laughing at yourself is the toughest trick when you’re down
When I turned 66 I bought a fancy bike. I was riding on Oracle at Rush Hour (Stupid move) when the next thing I knew was in an ambulance heading for the Banner ER.
I had fainted and fallen and an angel had stopped to drag me out of the road and called 911. I was weeks shy of a fatal widow maker.
With the help of my best pal, funny man Elliot Glicksman, we mocked my cardiac terror in our Old Pueblo Holiday Radio Show.
Doc, can you help me?
Yes, take off your pants, stick out your tongue, stand in front of zat window
Doc! What’s that have to do with my heart?
Nothing. I just hate the doctor across the street.
When it comes to cardiac surgery I’m like Tom Cruise
How is zat?
I prefer to do my own stents. Listen, Doc, I can’t trust you after my last prostate exam. Remember when you said, ‘Take off your pants,’ I said, ‘Where should I set them down?’ And you said—
Next to mine. Knock knock.
Who’s there?
Aorta!
Aorta who?
Aorta begin ze procedure right now.
Procedure? How long will I be in here?
If all goes well..a day maybe two. If not. 20-minutes tops.
Gentle souls, I hope all goes well for you as you make the important decisions as you age and face your mortality.
And that’s my twenty minutes. You’ve been a lovely audience. I feel like we’ve connected so well I’ll make you a promise. If you come to my funeral I’ll come to yours.
Candle lit. For a long, healthy, happy life.
Thanks Dave. Hit the coffin nail on the head!
This was really honest. Thank you for writing on this topic. I will be the-reading it for sure.