I think what I admire about him is that he’s making the best of his situation. He’s not hiding away in a room, although with facial deformities that would certainly be a course many would take. No, his face doesn’t look pretty, but it’s a survivor’s face. If he has to live with it, the least I can do is look at it and learn not to flinch.
But then, I’m married to someone disabled. I learned a long time ago to keep moving forward and not get too hung up on what’s lost or what’s no longer possible.
I imagine there are some who would prefer that he hide away, but I like to think that his getting out in public and continuing involvement in life might inspire others who have been through disfigurement to try to make the best of their situations.
I’m sure that’s the problem. Of course, to draw that conclusion you have to ignore almost the entire article, because most of it is devoted to the fact that he’s still communicating and thinking even though he spoke his last words several years ago.
I got the sense that his physical condition is worse due to some of the attempted reconstructions, which made it painful for him to sit in a chair and some other things. And the cancer must have taken a great toll. But I don’t think it’s returned or advanced or anything. He’s not at death’s door.
He’s a 67-year-old man and he’s been dealing with cancer for seven years, so for many reasons you might not expect him to live that much longer. But for what it’s worth, he wrote that entry in May, and the sentence after that quote is “I don’t expect to die anytime soon.”
Well, yes, and I hope he’s correct. But he is indeed “dying by increments.” (We all are, but some of us faster than others.) And his condition is worsening. So he’s not dying soon, but saying that he’s dying (in a non-imminent fashion) perhaps isn’t too far off the mark.
I admire his lack of self-pity. For someone who loved to eat and talk, this has to be rough, but he never whines about his condition, or shows any anger or resentment about it. At least he can still watch and review movies, and he still has the internet.
It seems to me like he’s also gotten more outspoken about his politics and his atheism in the last few years. In the S&E heyday, I don’t remember him talking much about either. I guess something like this makes you stop caring how people will take things.
A lot of the old Siskel and Ebert television reviews are archived on his site, by the way, and they’re really worth watching. They were so good together, and their chemistry has never been duplicated.
I was not aware of this thread earlier. And the title makes it sound like he’s at death’s door.
Then I read his response to the Esquire article this morning, and Ebert made it sound like he’s just fine, normal except that he can’t talk (or eat or drink). I had read his blog post about not being able to eat and missing being able to share food with others back when it was written.
Now I’ve read the Esquire article, and I’m surprised by how physically incapacitated he is: he tires easily, he walks with some difficulty, he can’t sit upright for long. He can’t remember some stuff. Oh, gosh. It sounds scary. I had really thought he’d be around for years, that he would continue to see movies and to write about them, that he would travel with his wife and do all the other things he has done for years – just not be able to talk (and eat and drink). Now I don’t know.
He does sound like he’s at peace, though. He’s had lots of time in hospitals to recognize and accept his situation and to figure out how to live his life as he wants to, with the time he has left. Wow. I’m sitting here at my desk, typing away, talking to people I’ve never met face-to-face, trying to imagine typing as my only means of communicating with the world.
I sincerely hope he sticks around for a while, in as little pain as possible, and sharing his love of movies with us for as long as he can.
But as another poster also mentioned, his physical infirmities are due to the removal of bone and muscles from various parts of his body in an attempt to resconstruct his jaw.
And as he said in his blog:
“Well, we’re all dying in increments. I don’t mind people knowing what I look like, but I don’t want them thinking I’m dying. To be fair, Chris Jones never said I was. If he took a certain elegiac tone, you know what? I might have, too. And if he structured his elements into a story arc, that’s just good writing. He wasn’t precisely an eyewitness the second night after Chaz had gone off to bed and I was streaming Radio Caroline and writing late into the night. But that’s what I did. It may be, the more interviews you’ve done, the more you appreciate a good one. I knew exactly what he started with, and I could see where he ended, and he can be proud of the piece.”
I’m sure there’s always the spector of the cancer returning but as for now, he’s cancer free. This may change in a day, or a month or a year or a decade but he’s in remission now and it seems more than ghoulish that people feel the need to speculate on how much time he’s got left.
I hope this doesn’t sound too detached from Ebert’s condition, but since he’s lost weight to the point of being normal weight, he looks from the nose upward like either playwright Neil Simon or MASH* actor William Christopher.
