Learning About Death

an ever-changing journey

A boy and his dogs, a son and his father.

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AI Disclaimer

For this publication, I pledge to never use AI for the purposes of brainstorming, organizing, reorganizing, editing, cleaning up, rewording, writing, or generating anything other than what comes out of my own head and hands. Because of that, you will likely find plenty of errors and redundancies and grammatical mistakes. It may also run long because this is a first draft and I can’t self-edit for sh*t.

Now onto dinner service.

Course 1

A Word of Gratitude: Another Christmas Dinner, Hopefully

It’s been weird these last two weeks.

Right before I left for a work trip to London, my dad was admitted to the hospital after throwing up and having bad headaches. He had been having some memory lapses and other things pop up over the last month or two, but didn’t think a check-up was necessary. Turns out, it was necessary.

After a CT scan and some other tests, we found out that he has a grade IV glioblastoma, which never meant anything to me before, but now means terminal brain cancer. The kind that doesn’t let you see the next Christmas, maybe not even fireworks on the Fourth of July. I guess we’ll see which holidays it allows.

I’m still not sure how to process the information, nor do I think my family really knows. My dad is a deeply religious person and is trusting in God through it all, something I’m not sure I’d have the capacity to do.

My family and I drove up there last weekend to see him once he was home. For the most part, he looked the same, and even acted the same for periods of time, but you could tell things had changed for good and were changing for the worse. There was a tender resignation in his voice, probably more than I wanted there to be. Emotional swings and frustrations buffered by quiet, often repeating reflections on the past 70 years.

He wanted me to pray with him, so I did. I sat with him, put my hand on his head, and gave thanks while also asking for God’s will to be done, which it will be and already has been. My dad doesn’t have much hair left– none on top, anyway, and how I will look in a few short years– but I was surprised at how it felt against my fingers. I guess I haven’t touched his head in some time, probably not in the last three or four decades. An eternity from that time forward but a snapshot looking back. His hair seemed impossibly soft, like a newborn’s that has yet to experience dirt from a factory job or stress from four kids or hardness from well water or sweat from chopping wood and mowing the lawn and throwing the baseball with me in the middle of summer.

In a way, his hair felt like it was starting over. Old, gnarled roots and barren landscapes of a final winter quietly moving into spring. Maybe that’s all it is, the transition to starting over somewhere new and golden.

I can accept that, for now.

And for that, I am grateful.

Course 2

The Main: Ozark Coon Stew

Of all the books I’ve ever read, hundreds and hundreds of them, only two have made me cry. One as an adult and one as a child. As an adult, it was the “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy, during the final conversation between the father and son. As a child, it was “Where the Red Fern Grows.”

*If you haven’t read this book and you plan on reading this book, there are spoilers ahead that will 100% ruin it for you, so proceed with care*

Written 65 years ago by a man born Woodrow Wilson Rawls (killer name), the book is a semi-autobiographical work of fiction that takes place in the Ozark mountains during the Great Depression. (If you grew up when books were read in school, when free time wasn’t usurped by Chromebook games and YouTube shorts and you were forced to actually consume literature, then you may remember this book.)

It follows a 10-year-old boy, Billy, whose heart’s desire is to own two dogs to go coon hunting in the Arkansas hills around his house. He spends years saving up the money to buy these dogs, and he does, and trains them to become the best hunting dogs in the Ozarks. Old Dan and Little Ann are Billy’s pride and joy; they have all of his heart and soul and then some. The story unravels through tales of hunting in blizzards, winning competitions against pedigreed dogs and more experienced hunters, encounters with wildlife and bullies and everything in between. The boy and the dogs grow inseparable. Then one evening, they come across the devil of the hills and valleys: a full grown mountain line. A fight ensues, and this one goes to the death. In the end, Old Dan is opened wide in grisly fashion, Little Ann bloodied all over, sacrificing themselves for the life of their owner. While Billy manages to get them home alive, Old Dan dies the next day. Soon after, Little Ann gives up and lays herself to rest on Old Dan’s grave. A red fern grows between the two graves, based on a Cherokee legend that where a red fern grows, an angel has visited.

Growing up, I didn’t have much experience with death. My grandpa died when I was 8, but he had spent the last few years of his life shuffling between the VA hospital and a nursing home, so I truthfully don’t remember much about him. We weren’t that close, so while I remember it happening, and remember being somewhat sad, I don’t remember it cutting me close to the heart. Truthfully, my hermit crab crawling out of its shell and dying a naked death on an open field of fish tank pebbles was more traumatizing. Aside from that, Old Dan and Little Ann dying were my first real exposure with death in a way that felt visceral.

As a boy, I cried so hard through the last dozen pages of this book. It’s written in a way that feels like you’re in the final round of a boxing match, just a flurry of punches, a knock to the mat before you get up, some hope that you can come back, then a hard left hook before a devastating uppercut. Afterwards, I was drained. Of course, that would remain my most favorite book of my entire childhood.

Which is why I told my son to read it.

He did read it, over the last couple weeks. I would check in with him from time to time, see what he thought. He’d tell me about Old Dan and Little Ann treeing coons, and the kid who was killed by the blade of an ax after falling on it. Pretty brutal stuff for a 9-year-old. All the while, I never let on that I knew what was coming.

Yesterday, he picked it up to finish it, right before I went out on a run with our own dog, who ironically treed a squirrel in a cemetery along the way. When I came home from the run, I saw him at the kitchen table and looked at his eyes, all wet and swollen, and I knew. That he reached the 12th round, and finished the hardest book a boy could ever read.

“Did you finish it?” I asked. He just looked at me and nodded his head before bursting into tears. I sat with him and hugged him and said: “I know, it’s hard.” Because it is hard. Life is hard. It’s been hard on him, as he’s had his Boppa (grandpa) die from Covid when he was 5, then his Papa (great grandpa) die when he was 7, and now his Pop-pop (other grandpa) will likely die when he’s 10. It’s just a lot of death for a little kid.

I was super fortunate to not have to experience any of that as a kid, but it’s all stacking up now. My loved ones are dying and will keep dying until I finally go myself. I’m trying to embrace it. It is, after all, part of life.

There’s a quote from the movie Jojo Rabbit that says: “Let everything happen to you. Beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.” I told Rye that because he’s crying, because he’s feeling, it means he loved those dogs, that the author did a beautiful job of telling that story. There’s something to feeling the full spectrum of life, and I think it’s important for kids to have that exposure, so they’re not blindsided when it arrives.

Five minutes later, still through tears, a little bit less now, he said to me: “That’s the best book I ever read.”

Later that night, I went back and reread the last twenty pages of the book. I thought I was grown, that the writing was just for kids, that it wouldn’t hit me. I was wrong. I cried just the same.

It was the best book I ever read, and it still is.

*Last note: Do these types of books even exist for kids anymore? Like, is anyone writing this kind of stuff? Because it’s beautiful writing and it’s meaningful writing and it’s timeless writing, as evidenced above. It’s good for boys in the same way “Hatchet” by Gary Paulsen is good for boys. It allows them to dream big and be wild and explore the outdoors but teaches really important lessons about life. Is anyone doing this anymore? Because it’s depressing if it’s not.

Course 3

Dessert: A Repast of the Past Few Weeks

I think I need to admit that I have been going through my own transition these past few months, maybe even year, that I’m navigating my way through. As with most of you, my life operates in cycles and seasons, some that are merely a change of the wind, others that usher in whole new ecosystems. I’m in that latter one right now and I’m holding onto the gunwales, hoping this boat stays afloat. Maybe that’s a bit melodramatic, but I’m trying to navigate everything that’s happening right now. Thanks for bearing with me and being here.

Since we’ve last spoken, the snow has finally melted after a long month (just as some of you received a fresh dumping). I cannot tell you how much I long for spring afternoons and summer mornings. My heart actually hurts for them, in a way I’m not sure I remember since college, when most of my semesters were spent under the miserable, color-blocking and condensation-heavy clouds of the Ohio River Valley.

Last week, I traveled to London for work, my first time in that city and country. It was classic London weather– grey with spotty rain– but it felt like paradise compared to the tundra from which I left. The most surprising thing to me was that yes, it actually looks like London. The whole thing. The rooftops really do look straight out of Mary Poppins, all chim-chiminey-chim-chim-chimeroo with groups of pipes huddled beneath their little umbrella caps to keep the rain off, smoking cigarettes against the sky. (Which is kind of wild since the entirety of Mary Poppins was shot on a sound stage in Burbank.) We have a historic, British looking area in Baltimore called Fells Point, about a kilometer long each way; turns out the entire downtown of London looks like that place.

Anyway, I loved the cleanliness and quiet of the tube (a surprise), the aura of a Premier League game (we attended West Ham vs. Manchester United), and our final night hanging with the folks from Hylo at a proper English pub in Notting Hill (The Cow). I also made my team wait a half-hour at King’s Cross Station while I stood in line to get a photo at Platform 9 ¾. It was definitely worth it, and I’m sure they all agree.

The other thing is that my oldest son has really gotten into climbing, at least for now. I promised I’d get him a membership if he bought his own shoes, which he did with the money he made shoveling snow. So we’ve been going to the climbing gym and he’s really taken to it. Last night, he said it’s “his happy place.” Good to have some of those in life.

I also contribute to The Drop email, a weekly missive from Believe in the Run, where I round up running news and stories in a generally sarcastic (and sometimes heartfelt) manner. You can subscribe here.

I’m also the co-host of The Drop running podcast, one of the top running podcasts in the country, where we mostly talk about things other than running that thousands of people seem to find entertaining. You can listen to past and current episodes anywhere you get your podcasts.

Ingredients List

Things I’ve enjoyed or appreciated the last few weeks

“Eric Dane’s Final Message to His Daughters and the World” // Actor Eric Dane (Grey’s Anatomy) died last week at the age of 53 from ALS. Prior to his death, he sat down and did a final interview about life and meaning that was released as a 50-minute Netflix special. This is an excerpt from that, in which he gives a direct message to his daughters which is both beautiful and heartbreaking.

“T-Pain: On Top of the Covers (Live From Sun Rose)” // I had seen parts of this before, namely the incredible cover of Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs,” but I never realized it was a full set of some of the best covers you’ll ever hear. Front to back, this has to be one of the best live performances on YouTube or anywhere, really. It’s disorienting to think that the guy known for using autotune has a jaw-dropping natural vocal talent. Combine that with a great backup band and singers and top-notch audio engineering, and you get this live performance.

“FDNY Firefighter” This Past Weekend With Theo Von // Some of my favorite episodes are when Theo interviews normal, everyday people. I especially loved his episode with a NYC garbage man, but this one with an old-school firefighter who helped out during 9/11 comes close.

“‘They All Tried to Break Me’: Giséle Pelicot Shares Her Story” from The New York Times (gift link) // This is a world-class interview by Lulu Garcia-Navarro as she masterfully navigates a one-on-one with the survivor of quite possibly the most vile and notorious sexual abuse case in modern history. It’s done in a way that doesn’t dodge any of the hardest aspects about Ms. Pelicot’s story, but Garcia-Navarro takes great care in allowing her to tell it in a way that’s brave and empowering. The details are harrowing, some of which are coming to light for the first time in this interview, but it makes it even more amazing that Ms. Pelicot was able to stand up to every one of her abusers, in-court and in-person, even as their lawyers tried to break her down.

END OF MENU

Thank you for dining with me this evening, I hope the service was acceptable. Tips (whether monetary or recommendations to others) are appreciated, but not expected.