Five months ago my FIL was diagnosed with stage IV cancer that started in the kidney and had spread to the liver and lungs before being detected.
Yesterday he died.
It’s been a disorienting ride.
His is a very unsettled passing - he and his sons never fully reconciled, his finances are not in order, ex-wives haven’t been contacted. His most recent girlfriend magnified the drama tenfold.
And it’s not like he didn’t know this was coming. He had opportunities to deal.
But he didn’t want it, he didn’t want to die.
His sons are bitter about the mess. They expected more from him. It’s part of their pattern.
I remember my FIL visiting us early in the marriage. He’d sit stiffly on our futon, his wide blue eyes full of want. He said little. We never knew what to buy him for Christmas, he bought himself things all the time. He made good money as an engineer and lived alone, entertaining a parade of girlfriends.
Not long afterward he met a vivacious woman named Mary and I began to learn more about him, through her; about his mother’s abuse and his depression. And he started sharing his wicked sense of humor with us. Sharp, clever, raunchy jokes that I can’t possibly include in his eulogy. And the quick aside. Like when I asked him two weeks ago what his oncologist had said, he answered “Don’t buy any green bananas.”
My FIL and I developed a great friendship, especially over the past several years. Right before my c-section I needed to have bloodwork done. Only I was pregnant with twins, I could barely walk. So he drove me to the hospital and wheeled me around (making loud tugboat noises). He was there when my babies were born, he held them and took pictures and grinned a mile wide.
He was a terrific grandfather, bringing Easter baskets to set out in the morning and going to Chuck E. Cheese with us and chiding me for letting them watch too much TV. He’d lose patience with my son sometimes. Flashes of his own past, I’d imagine.
I can’t make him out to be a saint, he didn’t do everything right. He was often selfish and inaccessible. Hypercritical.
But — he tried. He followed guru after guru until finally settling on a New Thought ministry many years ago. Science of Mind and Byron Katie and What the Bleep. Trying to fix something with the daily affirmations taped onto the bathroom mirror. I read them over & over and never could see a solution hidden in the words.
I don’t think he ever found the solution, either. I wondered if he might, I thought maybe his books and seminars had given him insight and he would have some profound revelations at the end.
But he didn’t die on an elevated plane, he just…died.
And my favorite memories of him are the ordinary, the mundane. Just having an interesting human being around with whom to share the journey.
Writing that was really cathartic, I typed and deleted a LOT more. The kids wanted me to take them to the pool, but I really needed to write. I so appreciate the opportunity to share with Dopers