~Forgive the quality of the photo–it’s only as blurry as our vision was that day after drinking our lunch somewhat….

When we walked in, most of my family was already there. Though we had driven all day, both of my sisters and my brother Sandy’s wife had arrived either the night before or earlier that day. Sara’s mother, Laura–more like a full-fledged sister than a mere sister-in-law–seemed to be in remarkably good spirits, considering what my niece was going through. I know now that she was just doing her damnedest to keep a brave face for her daughter. Laura is my brother John’s wife; she smiled sweetly for us and hugged us, hard. Laura has a lovely face and a very pretty smile to go with it. Sara’s smile was even prettier than her mom’s. All her life, people have always admired her beautiful smile, and even now I can see her in my mind’s eye with that pretty smile flashing at various times in her not-nearly-long-enough lifetime. She was sweet and pretty and really just in the prime of her life. Or so we had thought. After years of picking guys we thought of as at least a step beneath her, she was finally in a good place and with a good man to stand by her. He was right next to her in their living room, attending to her every need. How she’d hung on this long was beyond me. I was glad I made it in time to talk to her, but she was so drawn and the set of her pretty face so weak.

Sara was young and pretty, but cancer is not pretty, especially when it comes for the young. Cancer is heartless. It was taking her away from us bit by bit, and it didn’t seem to matter what her doctors did to try and stop it. Though we had driven all day and night in order to get there before the end, a part of me had been hoping that I would be too late to see her; purely selfish, of course, but it was going to be hard to watch it happen. She’d been through so much. Her body was absolutely devastated by the cancer she’d carried in her blood for nearly two years, and she refused to give up without a fight. So she hung on, and she hung on, and she hung on, despite what had to be the most painful and uncomfortable process that a human body could go through. I had made it, but none of us was looking forward to the end that was coming.

Part of the reason that I had felt it necessary to be there for this was that I had missed so much over the years. As a sometimes working actor, I had lived far away from my family for nearly twenty years, missing most of the big events that my family had gone through. I had missed the passing of my father. I came out of an audition and picked up a message that he was in the hospital, and fading fast. By the time I called back, he was gone. I had a part in a movie the next day, and everyone told me to stay: he was already gone, and he would have wanted me to work, had he known. My heart wasn’t really in it, but I did it. I barely made it into the scene, and they took my only line away; they made me a glorified extra. I didn’t care. Once I was released for the day, I went home to my wife and packed for the trip. I started for home the next day. It was a long drive, which is sometimes what one needs to process terrible events.

We bonded together to face it as a family, much as we’re doing now with Sara. Ironically, even after moving back home to Michigan in the past year, I was still in the wrong place; we had to drive down to North Carolina to get to Sara if we wanted to be with her, down to the same state in which I had been living when I found out that my dad had passed. Most all of the family went; even my mom, if you believe in such things. When the priest arrived at the house to offer the Anointing of the Sick, Sara told us that her Gram was there, even though none of us could see her. It was easy to see that the prayers offered up by the priest gave Sara and her mother some peace. They don’t do Last Rites anymore, but the sequence of prayers was very comforting for all of us.

Sometimes, when my brother John was alone in his thoughts, you could see the strain in his face. That was unusual, as my brother tends to hide his emotion behind a bad joke, an equally bad impersonation, or a slightly aggressive comment. I saw the emotion in his eyes a few times, emotion that rendered his usual ploys mute. Even the dog seemed to know what was going on, and either wanted to play or lie on the hospital bed there in the living room with Sara. Some of us sat and watched her face, while others touched her hand, her arm, her knee, or even her toes; Laura often sat kissing her gently on the face and hands, talking to her quietly. The tone was somewhat somber, as you might imagine, but the stories we told occasionally caused chuckles or even outright laughter. We were all groping our way through it in any way that we could, with mixed results.

It was much the same when my mother left us. I missed that one, too. While I was no longer in “the business,” I’d yielded to the wish of my wife to move south to Florida, rather than returning to the state of my birth, as I preferred. As a result, I got the news on the phone again–is it any wonder that I hate the telephone? My brother Sandy called me from the hospital, while we made a plane reservation for me; we were still in pretty rough shape, financially, and couldn’t afford plane tickets for my wife and my son; he was in middle school at the time. I thought I might make it in time to say good-bye, until I saw a post by my nephew on a social network on the way to the airport that was a fond remembrance at the passing of Gram, my mom. It turned out that my brother had said it was happening at that moment on the phone, but I had misunderstood and missed it. It was a hard day. We all banded together once again and sought solace in each other. My family even offered to pay for plane tickets for my son and his mom, but my wife felt that it would be a bad idea to pull Alex out of school to attend the funeral. With the way things have turned out, it bothers me even more now that she didn’t think it important enough to come to my mother’s funeral. I’m glad Sandy was there; my oldest brother is a great comfort to me, and had become the official head of our family. He helped get me through it.

His wife, Debbie, was there in North Carolina, along with two of their three children, though Sandy did not come for some reason. I can’t help but think he would have been of great comfort to John’s family. I’m sure with this virus running rampant, he was afraid of carrying infection into our midst–to be frank, I was not sure about it, either, as we had jettisoned our intent to remain masked and observe proper discipline while we were there. There were many there to help, and John’s family had the comfort of sisters, brothers, cousins, and parents-in-law. We ate together, shared remembrances, and waited for the rare moments of lucidity. It was clear that no one really knew what to do, so we just tried to stay present and open our hearts to one another. My niece opened her lovely eyes occasionally, but now they were shrouded with discomfort or fatigue; it’s hard to imagine the way she felt, though one hopes the medications made it at least a little easier for her.

It was supposed to be easier for her, now that she was in a happier place; that’s what we imagined when she moved to North Carolina with the encouragement of her best friend. She had a job she enjoyed, and she had good friends with whom to share her days. Then she met Andrew. And everything fell into place. They were clearly a good match for one another, something that been missing from Sara’s life for a while; based on the young men I had met who had dated her in the past, a strong case could be made that this kind of presence in her life had been missing since the start of her life as an adult. Andrew is a wonderful young man, and he was devoted to her, something he proved to an even greater degree when she fell sick. She was finally happy with her life, even after that moment. Sara was a fighter, confident that together, she and Andrew would beat this thing. Cancer didn’t have a chance against them.

She passed away this morning, surrounded by her parents, her brother, her husband, the mother and father of her husband, and her husband’s small family. I missed it, having returned home to Michigan after discussing it with Andrew and my brother. It upset me, but at least I had been there for a week to try to help. I worry about Sara’s brother, as he is developmentally disabled; I don’t know how aware he is of her passing, what it all means. It must be difficult to make him understand, though my brother John has probably practiced how to tell him. John certainly has become adept in managing my nephew, so he’ll figure it out. Laura is probably more shattered than anyone: after the trouble she had getting pregnant, I can’t imagine the depth of her pain. Does she somehow feel that it is a judgment by God or the universe? Lord, I hope not, but I fear that is somehow a part of her despair. How could one not at least wonder if somehow a person deserved this kind of punishment? I don’t know how a person goes on in the face of this. I worry that they feel somehow guilty, when I know they are wonderful parents. This has been so hard on them.

The hardest part is over now, perhaps, and we all must go on. We’ll continue to be there for those most in need, but Sara is no longer there to rally around. We have each other, but it’s hard in the day-to-day to know how each of us might be feeling, whether the pain is coming on again in fresh waves, and so we try to maintain contact in support. It’s not enough, but it’s all we have, especially in this time of rampaging sickness that keeps us apart one from another. Sara’s illness brought us together just as it was tearing her apart. I’d be struck more by the irony of that if I weren’t so overwhelmed by my unhappiness. At the end, I prayed only for an end to her suffering; if getting well was not possible, bringing an end to the pain and suffering was the only consideration. Ending her suffering would help begin the healing for us that was so elusive for her. All we have now is the memory of Sara’s smile, and her spirit goes on into the next world.