Seize the Day (5 page)

With those thoughts in my head, I finally went over to my daughter.

“Well, hello there,” I said.

Maya looked up at me and had this confused look. She recognized the voice, but the bald head threw her off. I couldn't quite remember seeing the expression her face wore.

“Maya,” I said.

She burst into tears. I immediately hugged her. But I wasn't sure why she was so upset.

“What's wrong?”

She composed herself and leaned back to look at me. “Dad, what happened? Did you get chemo? I thought you weren't going to do it.”

“No, honey, I'm fine,” I said. “I just came from the barbershop.”

“The barbershop? You got all your hair cut off? Why?”

“Remember I told you I was going to do some things Kevin wrote that he did not get to do? Well, getting a bald head was one of them.”

She took a deep breath and placed her hand over her heart. “Daddy, I don't know what I thought when I realized it was you, but it scared me. It's bad enough I'm scared every time I call you or you call me; I hold my breath to hear the tone of your voice. I brace myself for you to be in pain or panic.

“For some reason, seeing you with no hair made all kind of bad thoughts race through my mind. Oh, God. I need a drink.”

“A drink? I heard in this movie, ‘Never drink to feel better. Only drink to feel
even
better.' ”

I enjoyed a glass of wine from time-to-time, but gave up alcohol after the transplant. “I was just saying that,” Maya said. “I'm not drinking.”

“Come on, let's get a table—unless you want to sit here at the bar,” I said.

“OK, we can stay here,” she said.

“I'm sorry. I guess I should have warned you about the bald head. I thought the surprise would make you laugh.”

She ran her hand over my head. “It does make me laugh now. But when I first saw you… I'm sorry.”

I rubbed her back.

“It looks good on you, Daddy. You look younger. You look hip. Probably all the ladies will be all over you now.”

“They always were; ain't nothing changed,” I said, and we laughed. It felt good to laugh with my daughter, more than it had in the past. Every experience felt like it could be the last experience. It was never that way before.

“I have some more information about the holistic treatment in Atlanta,” she said. “She has a track record of success.”

“What does ‘success' mean, though?”

“It means some clients who have been told that the cancer was fatal made full recoveries,” she said. “Some started it too late or after having already had chemo, but had a much more comfortable life. We don't know if it's too late, but I don't want to wait any longer to get you down there.”

“There's no one in the whole D.C. area with holistic treatments?” I asked. I was going to go to Atlanta if need be. It was summertime and I was off from my English teaching job at Ballou High School, so time off from work was not an issue.

“I'm sure there are,” Maya said. “But I was referred to this one person.”

“OK, I'm in. I haven't been to Atlanta. Heard a lot about it. I look forward to seeing the city.”

“This isn't a vacation, Dad. This is…I don't know what to call it. But you're going to be on a serious regimen and you have to follow it.”

I hadn't seen her so serious about anything.

“Do I have to take some time off and go down there with you?”

“Maybe you should come for a few days,” I said. “We could hang out. We haven't done a trip since we went to New York around Christmas two years ago. We can catch the bus next week and—”

“The bus? Dad, you're kidding, right? Why would you get on the bus? That's not a good idea.”

“You can meet me down there then. I want to get on the bus. I thought about it. I can be among the people and absorb more. I feel like I need that. Not that interested in flying.”

“What are you going to do on a bus, Dad? Come on, now. I'll buy your plane ticket. The bus takes too long and anything can happen. You don't need to be traveling through fourteen stops that will take fourteen hours when you can be there in less than two hours. That doesn't make any sense.”

“It doesn't make any sense that I have cancer and have been told I have a few months to live when I feel just fine. So I don't pay that much attention anymore to things that do and don't make sense. I do what works best for me.”

Maya wanted to say more, but she didn't. She could tell it wouldn't do any good. I had made up my mind.

“OK. Fine. But I think you should go this weekend. I have your first session scheduled for next Monday.”

This child of mine was something. She was taking over.

“Excuse me?”

“Dad, please don't argue with me on this.” Her eyes started to tear up. And all my resistance went
poof
.

“OK, baby. Thank you for looking after me. I appreciate you.”

She sipped her water and then reached down and pulled up a Whole Foods bag. In it was Alkaline water, purported to slow disease. Then she handed me a brochure.

“Read it.”

“I will.”

“Now, Daddy. Please read it now.”

I was not in a mood to read about cancer treatments, but I could not help but please my daughter. And so, I went through it as fast as I could.

It read: “Some patients are hesitant to try alternative therapies because there is not a large body of evidence surrounding their efficacy. However, many alternative procedures–including acupuncture, Reiki and aromatherapy–have played a significant role in cancer treatment for hundreds or even thousands of years.

“Holistic therapies are palliative in nature, meaning they focus more on relieving symptoms than treating a singular tumor. They are typically used to relieve symptoms and side effects of traditional treatment as well as improve a patient's quality of life.

“Another effective treatment is coffee enemas. It is important to remember that coffee enemas work in conjunction with juicing in healing the body of cancer. Coffee enemas work exceedingly well in detoxifying the liver by the removal of body waste thereby beginning the process of reversing cancer.”

That's when I stopped reading.

“Enemas? Am I reading this right?”

“I knew you'd have something to say about that. Yes, enemas. What's wrong with those? People get them every day.”

“You don't expect me to stick something up my butt. I know you don't.”

“No, I expect Dr. Ali to stick it up your butt, Daddy. You don't have to do anything except what she says. You might not like it, but it's going to help you get that bad stuff out of your body. That's all you have to focus on. Forget about any hang-ups you have about your butt. Your butt's gonna be just fine.”

And then she laughed, prompting me to laugh. “You promised me that you would do whatever I found outside of chemo. This is it.”

Who would I have been fooling to say I was not going to do what I needed? I was not happy about it, but if it did what it said it would do—relieve me of the toxins in my body—then I had to close my eyes, grit my teeth and let it happen.

As strong as I had been feeling, the last few days had been marked with the kind of sharp, debilitating stomach pain that the doctors warned would come. They said it would be infrequent flashes of pain for a while and then more frequent and intense over the next months.

I didn't tell my dad or Maya about the shooting pains that were more than the worst stomachache. They were like piercing knife wounds that drove me to bend over hoping for relief. It also all but killed my appetite, which really concerned me because I loved to eat. And if the sight of me with a bald head alarmed Maya, what would she feel in the coming weeks if I started dropping weight at an alarming rate?

And then, sure enough, she asked at dinner: “How are you feeling, Dad?”

To prevent her from worry, I felt forced to lie. “Good. I get a little tired, but other than that, good.”

She looked at me as if she knew I was lying. Your children know you as well as you know them, and trying to act like all was fine was a tell that all was not fine.

“Dad…,” Maya said.

“You look nice, baby. Did I tell you that?”

“Nice try. Again, how are you feeling?”

It was amazing, the progression of my child. She looked to me for everything when she was young, got sassy when she became a teenager and thought she ran things when she became a young adult.

“Maya, I'm good.”

She stared at me for a second or two and let it go. Sort of.

“Well, I'm looking forward to Atlanta,” she said. “I think these treatments will help you feel even better. I will look at flights when I get home. I can't believe you want to catch the bus.”

I was too busy trying to eat something to not alarm her that I didn't even hear her. She called me out.

“Oh, I'm sorry. I was all into this food,” I said, again trying to be convincing. Didn't work.

“Usually you devour food so fast I worry about you choking. But you're taking your time. Pacing yourself. Maybe my complaining is finally paying off.”

I jumped on that. “Yes, it is. I've been reading up on healthy eating and one of the things I'm trying to practice is to have many—I think, six—small meals of fruits and vegetables a day instead of three big ones. That's what the experts say is the best way to eat.”

That led to a conversation about weight gain and away from me, which was what I wanted. When we were done, I walked Maya to her car. She held my hand, which she hadn't done in years. Then she pulled out her cell phone and we pressed our cheeks together and took a “selfie.”

“I'm sending this to Mom,” Maya said. “Once your scalp darkens to the color of your face, you'll look really great. Put some olive oil on it and stand out in the sun.”

I laughed. “You want me to fry my head? That's messed up.”

We laughed a good laugh as we walked U Street.

“I want to honor Kevin. He said he thought it would make him look cool.”

“I miss Uncle Kevin,” Maya said. “But he'd look like a big mushroom with no hair. His head was too big.”

“See, you're wrong for that. What will you be saying about me?”

“I can't even think about you not being here, Daddy. I won't think about it. And you shouldn't either.”

I wished I could let go of my prognosis. But the reminders were frequent. What I came to was that my focus had to be on life, not death.

I took that thought with me after I hugged and kissed my daughter at her car and headed to my co-worker Walter Williamson's house in Clinton, Maryland. He had texted me during dinner to come over. I didn't feel like it, but I had turned down two invitations for fight parties he held and didn't want to refuse him again.

He was a history teacher at Ballou and we became friends when I learned he loved to golf. That led to a lengthy conversation on the game and us playing several rounds together. Golf is a great revealer. You learn about a person because he usually was inclined to talk about his life over four-and-a-half hours on the golf course. You also learn about someone's character, how he held up under duress, how he bounced back from adversity and definitely his honesty.

After a dozen years playing golf with Walter, I learned that he had a great heart, but was ultra-sensitive and did not manage pressure well. All I had to do when he was about to attempt an important putt was to put into his head that it was a pressure putt, and he'd miss most of the time. But he was a good man who showed great poise when I told him I had terminal cancer.

“No matter what the docs say, cancer has been beaten,” Walter said. “You can beat this. Don't give in to it.”

It was encouraging to hear him speak with such force. I liked to be around him because he seemed flawed and was not afraid or ashamed to express his weaknesses. I also learned pretty quickly that he did not have a lot of friends.

That's why I made the long journey to Clinton to see him. When I got there, he did not answer the door, which happened most of the time. He was usually in the back or in the basement, so he'd leave the door open for me. This time, I went in and the place seemed eerily quiet. The TV, which seemed to always be stuck on ESPN, was not on. There was no music.

He was not on the patio in the back of the house and he was not in the basement. Walter did not answer when I called out his name. I figured he left and would be back soon. So I sat down in the living room and turned on the television and waited. After about five minutes, it struck me to call him.

When I did, I could hear his phone ringing in the house. I silenced the TV and quieted myself to hear where the ring was coming from. It stopped before I could locate it. So I called it again, and it led me to the garage. When I opened the door, I was knocked to my knees.

Walter hung from one of the garage door rails, strung up by a belt around his neck. A kicked-over chair was on the concrete floor. It looked like a suicide. I was mortified, scared, hurt, confused. But I couldn't take my eyes off him. I pulled myself off the floor and slowly moved closer to my friend. He was lifeless, his eyes not quite closed.

I pulled out my cell phone and called 9-1-1. The operator told me to not take him down, to not touch anything, that it could be a crime scene. I knew the only crime committed was by Walter. He ended his own life.

And that realization sent angry vibes through my body.
How could he do this? Why would he do this? Here I am, struggling to hang on to my life
…
and he ends his?