24th February, 2019
Matt Here.
February is almost gone, and it's Tanja's birthday in two days. If you're reading this, please don't even think of wishing Tanja a happy birthday on the 26th (if you'd like to show up with a bottle of wine, that's fine!) But it won't be a happy birthday for Tanja, maybe never again. She was never big on celebrating her birthday to begin with, but this year especially. As Nick's time on Earth recedes into the past, our outlook gets blacker and blacker. Our application for long-term disability, which we'd like to use to bridge the gap between the end of our short-term benefits in April and our desired return-to-work day in September, is awaiting OTIP's adjudication. If they reject our claim, then we'll appeal (and check ourselves into the psych ward if necessary.) I don't think we're in any shape to face the kids at our respective schools. I don't know if we'll be by September, but at least we wouldn't be facing the fiasco of taking over classes which aren't our own in mid-April.
We've been keeping ourselves occupied in a limited way. Tanja reads a lot of philisophical/spiritual books in an attempt to find reassurance that there's more to life that what we've been dealt. There have been books about death, dying, cancer, the afterlife, neuroscience as it pertains to these. I read Paul Kalanithi's excellent When Breath Becomes Air, and we watched the Ken Burns production of The Emperor Of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, a PBS adaptation of Siddhartha Mukherjee's definitive book.
I've been trying to play as much music as possible, on my own and with various bands. I even re-united with the Encore concert band after 20 years, for their 25th anniversary concert. It's been a real challenge to have to play to the level of this ensemble - with delicacy and dynamic control, as opposed to the face-melting fortissimo required for my dance band Tell It To Sweeny (aka TITS!). Music provides some escape from the horror of our situation.
Music was the most important thing for us to impart to our kids (partially out my personal aversion to hanging out in hockey arenas), and now it's part of how I keep Nick's spirit alive. On this note, thanks so much to all of you who have contributed to the scholarship fund we established in Nick's name. I think we're up over $2000, which means that $1000 can be awarded to lucky (but embattled) students each year for at least the next two years.
Tanja has been reading various blogs written by mothers who have lost their children to cancer, and has even met up with the mother of Shan Larson, a former student at Tanja's school who lost her breast cancer battle at 24, and whose face is emblazoned upon billboards and city busses - Breast Cancer: Not Just an Old Person's Disease. We'd like to do the same thing for Nick and testicular cancer, but we don't really have the connections to pull it off. We'd love for the hospitals to devote a small ward for youth (18-39) cancer treatment though.
One conclusion Tanja has drawn from her reading and talking to people, is that these young people who have lost their cancer battles are all remembered as being selfless and graceful even in the face of their own imminent demise. Nick certainly wasn't the only one to visit the kids down in pediatric oncology - they all seemed to this. It lends a lot of credence to the saying "only the good die young", and maybe this goodness is brought out in people by their tribulations, the perspective gained by realizing that we're all here for a very brief time, and all our illusions, vanities and arrogance have no place when we're forced to contemplate the eternal absolute.
I would like to contrast this with certain sheltered, sanctimonious individuals who have shunned us in the face of our enormous loss, unable to handle our anger (at God, at life, at the unfair hand we've been dealt.) We felt it a pretty low blow, and not exactly Christ-like, to exclude Tanja, from their child's baptism. I'd like to take the opportunity to thank this person for their boundless generosity of spirit. Doctrinaire "Big C" (comparison with cancer intentional) Catholicism has no place in this heathen's life, I'm afraid. However, I'll always feel that JC Himself is an undying exemplar of what we should all strive to become. If the church is not in one's heart, then it's an empty facade no matter how ornate, an obtacle to true grace. Sorry if I've insulted anyone's dogmatic sensibilites.
Would we rise up to handle some long-ass cancer battle with the same grace as Nick? It wouldn't come to this for us. Nick battled because victory would have meant a long life, and he had everything to live for. Losing Nick wiped out much of our purpose in life. Neither of us has the spiritual stamina at this point to contemplate enduring the crap that Nick did. What for? Perhaps this will change in time, but a cancer diagnosis at this point would be met with acceptance that perhaps this is our time to check out. I don't plan on throwing myself under a train, but I'm just saying that my own personal demise holds absolutely no terror for either of us. What could be worse than what we've been through already?
February is almost gone, and it's Tanja's birthday in two days. If you're reading this, please don't even think of wishing Tanja a happy birthday on the 26th (if you'd like to show up with a bottle of wine, that's fine!) But it won't be a happy birthday for Tanja, maybe never again. She was never big on celebrating her birthday to begin with, but this year especially. As Nick's time on Earth recedes into the past, our outlook gets blacker and blacker. Our application for long-term disability, which we'd like to use to bridge the gap between the end of our short-term benefits in April and our desired return-to-work day in September, is awaiting OTIP's adjudication. If they reject our claim, then we'll appeal (and check ourselves into the psych ward if necessary.) I don't think we're in any shape to face the kids at our respective schools. I don't know if we'll be by September, but at least we wouldn't be facing the fiasco of taking over classes which aren't our own in mid-April.
We've been keeping ourselves occupied in a limited way. Tanja reads a lot of philisophical/spiritual books in an attempt to find reassurance that there's more to life that what we've been dealt. There have been books about death, dying, cancer, the afterlife, neuroscience as it pertains to these. I read Paul Kalanithi's excellent When Breath Becomes Air, and we watched the Ken Burns production of The Emperor Of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, a PBS adaptation of Siddhartha Mukherjee's definitive book.
I've been trying to play as much music as possible, on my own and with various bands. I even re-united with the Encore concert band after 20 years, for their 25th anniversary concert. It's been a real challenge to have to play to the level of this ensemble - with delicacy and dynamic control, as opposed to the face-melting fortissimo required for my dance band Tell It To Sweeny (aka TITS!). Music provides some escape from the horror of our situation.
Music was the most important thing for us to impart to our kids (partially out my personal aversion to hanging out in hockey arenas), and now it's part of how I keep Nick's spirit alive. On this note, thanks so much to all of you who have contributed to the scholarship fund we established in Nick's name. I think we're up over $2000, which means that $1000 can be awarded to lucky (but embattled) students each year for at least the next two years.
Tanja has been reading various blogs written by mothers who have lost their children to cancer, and has even met up with the mother of Shan Larson, a former student at Tanja's school who lost her breast cancer battle at 24, and whose face is emblazoned upon billboards and city busses - Breast Cancer: Not Just an Old Person's Disease. We'd like to do the same thing for Nick and testicular cancer, but we don't really have the connections to pull it off. We'd love for the hospitals to devote a small ward for youth (18-39) cancer treatment though.
One conclusion Tanja has drawn from her reading and talking to people, is that these young people who have lost their cancer battles are all remembered as being selfless and graceful even in the face of their own imminent demise. Nick certainly wasn't the only one to visit the kids down in pediatric oncology - they all seemed to this. It lends a lot of credence to the saying "only the good die young", and maybe this goodness is brought out in people by their tribulations, the perspective gained by realizing that we're all here for a very brief time, and all our illusions, vanities and arrogance have no place when we're forced to contemplate the eternal absolute.
I would like to contrast this with certain sheltered, sanctimonious individuals who have shunned us in the face of our enormous loss, unable to handle our anger (at God, at life, at the unfair hand we've been dealt.) We felt it a pretty low blow, and not exactly Christ-like, to exclude Tanja, from their child's baptism. I'd like to take the opportunity to thank this person for their boundless generosity of spirit. Doctrinaire "Big C" (comparison with cancer intentional) Catholicism has no place in this heathen's life, I'm afraid. However, I'll always feel that JC Himself is an undying exemplar of what we should all strive to become. If the church is not in one's heart, then it's an empty facade no matter how ornate, an obtacle to true grace. Sorry if I've insulted anyone's dogmatic sensibilites.
Would we rise up to handle some long-ass cancer battle with the same grace as Nick? It wouldn't come to this for us. Nick battled because victory would have meant a long life, and he had everything to live for. Losing Nick wiped out much of our purpose in life. Neither of us has the spiritual stamina at this point to contemplate enduring the crap that Nick did. What for? Perhaps this will change in time, but a cancer diagnosis at this point would be met with acceptance that perhaps this is our time to check out. I don't plan on throwing myself under a train, but I'm just saying that my own personal demise holds absolutely no terror for either of us. What could be worse than what we've been through already?
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