The Grim Reaper Gets a Run For His Money

I spoke to my friend Larry today.  He’s more like an uncle really, just without the genetic link.  The machine gun tempo of his speech makes cell phone conversations a challenge.  It’s like someone speaking Spanish, but in English.  Larry is 67 years old yet the enthusiasm of an eighteen year old blasts through the phone.  He is an energetic, exuberant, bombastic ball of energy.  He also happens to be fighting pancreatic cancer.

Before you read further, know that there’s some ripe language ahead.  The potentially offensive language is included because it’s authentic.  If colorful language isn’t your thing, now is a perfect time to close your browser.

He called to let me know he’d just gotten back into town.  I never knew he’d left.  “So my chemo is three weeks on and one off.  What the fuck am I gonna do, sit around?  I was in Portugal and Spain.  Incredible.  Went with my sister and brother in law.  He’s the greatest guy you’ll ever meet but the fucken’ guy has two speeds:  slow and stopped.  That works in a museum, but not on the streets.”  You have to imagine these words coming out in under four seconds.  “Saw the Dali museum outside Barcelona.  You have to see it.  Great painter, weird guy.  He didn’t even bother to put his fucken’ skeletons IN the closet.  Stories you wouldn’t believe.”  And I wasn’t going to ask.  When he gets going it’s more fun to let the stories flow than to break Larry’s stream of consciousness.

We met over fifteen years ago through work and had our share of fun together.  Larry was my client before he became my de facto uncle.  Over the years and the work done, there were many dinners and even more drinks.  His energy always amazed me.  I’d be ready for bed just as he was getting tuned up.  To most people over sixty, “swinging from the chandelier” is a figure of speech.  Beyond the crazy times, Larry was always there when things weren’t great, when I need direction in my career or just an ear.  He’d follow up daily to see how things were going.  There were also a couple years we didn’t speak.  We had a business disagreement that I took personally.  I deeply regret telling him we’d never work together again and that “going forward, you don’t know me”.  Time passed and we began speaking again.  I’m grateful for that.

Larry was diagnosed about eighteen months ago.  Ironically enough, he’d just lost 45 pounds off his 5’10” frame through diet and exercise when he found out he had cancer.  We got together in May at the annual shopping center convention in Las Vegas.  I was talking to someone when I felt a hug from behind.  I turned to see a bald pate and must have looked confused.  “Who’d you think it was, Telly fucken’ Savalas?”  Within two minutes Larry is telling stories to three guys about his travails, always laughing.  “So this chemo isn’t all bad.  I’ve lost more weight than I should, but guess what?  My dick looks huge!”  One of a kind.

None of my calls were returned in June.  I called a mutual friend and learned Larry had been in the hospital the entire month, beginning right after the convention.  It started with sepsis then he’d slipped into a coma, things looking bad enough that last rites were administered.  He bounced back and got home right after the Fourth of July.

I flew down to Orange County to visit him shortly thereafter.  I walked into Larry’s house to find two full-time nurses, Doug and Mary, and Larry in his chair watching, what else, a show about flipping real estate.  I asked him about his close call.  “Look I’m a street kid from Chicago.  I’m not going that easy.  Father Tim was a little quick on the draw with the Rites.  The Big Guy upstairs doesn’t need me yet.”  We had a great visit, Larry anxious to hear about deals I was working on.  He was thin and frail but his attention fierce as I spoke.  Just as suddenly, he ended the visit with a clap of his hands, announcing “Well, let’s pick this up another time, I gotta have Doug take me to the crapper.”  Okie doke.

Larry is inspirational in his unique and imperfect way.  He doesn’t feel sorry for himself and won’t allow anyone to pity him.  Twice divorced, he lives alone if you don’t count the parade of friends through his door.  He’s a devout catholic but curses unrepentantly, often in the course of stories and jokes I wouldn’t repeat.  I’ve approached his door over the last year with a light sense of doom, convinced he can’t keep this up forever.  I leave shaking my head and chuckling, wondering if death itself can ever pull this off.  I also leave with a sense a possibility, hope and determination about my own life.

I visited again in late August.  This time Larry answered the door himself, his nurses dismissed and wisps of hair on his head indicating improvement.  “I’m buying a Kroger anchored center in Indianapolis at a 9 cap.  A fucking 9 cap, you believe that?”  He’s exchanging jabs with the grim reaper but a 9% return on a shopping center is the lead story.  It takes a while but I steer the conversation around to how his health.  “My cancer markers are probably lower than yours.  The doc says I’ll be the guy to dive from the 10-meter board through the eye of the needle.  He doesn’t know everything though – he put me in a pine box 12 months ago.”

There’s no way to know how long this goes on.  In truth that applies to any of us.  Larry’s battle has forced me to think.  I consider more carefully how I treat others and where my emotional investments belong.  It’s also become clear that some things, previously high on my priority list, simply don’t matter at all.

We ended our last call the way we have all of them in the last year or so.

“I love you Patrick.”

“I love you too, Larry.”