“Richard,” Missy had something up her

sleeve. I can tell when she does because of the twinkling in

her big brown eyes. She is a person full of heart and

compassion and the assistant to my Oncological Psychiatrist.

A big, capable gal who deals with life and death every

day. And so kind that when she explains the realities of

death and disease, you smile while she does.

The kind of person you feel lucky to listen to.

“Cindy at Arts in Recovery could really use your

participation in a project. Will you meet with her?”

“Well,” I was blind-sided, left totally empty-handed of

any believable excuse. “Um, I guess. What is it?”

“Oh, you’ll love it, Richard. I already signed you up.

She’ll be over here by the end of your session with Doctor

Dee today.”

“Well, damn Missy.” We’d been playing off one each

other for over three years, “I’m happy to hear I’m all signed

up for this project we don’t know anything about.”

“I just knew you would be,” she laughed her heart-felt

laugh. “Oops, better get in there. Doctor is really booked

today.”

“Just don’t sign me up for any more projects while I’m

seeing Doctor Dee, Okay?”

“Okay.”

I had just been volunteered for. But I had been in the

art gallery business for decades--known to Missy---and I

was envisioning helping people on life support with their

crayon technique and some dreary collages.

This is not the sort of Volunteer Project I could imagine

happily joining. I had cancer. Incurable cancer. Wasn’t that

enough of a contribution?

But--and it is a big but--the fact is that my shrink saves

my sanity on a monthly basis. She listens. She questions.

She helps me figure out how to live with stage four

pancreatic cancer. I determined to quit the hermit crab act

for the next hour. At least.

And try to drop dealing with the fear of death every ten

minutes. At least for the day. At least.

It scares me all the goddamn time. My ‘P.C.’ is ticking

away inside me. I’ve made it a little over three years.

My son Ryan once went with me to one of my Gloom

and Doom sessions with her and then made me laugh

magnificently at a lunch afterward by pointing out that at

least I knew what would eventually kill me.

Ry knew that the next person who assured me that

‘any of us could be killed by a bus the next day’ had a strong

chance of being thrown under a bus. By his Dad.

My son was twenty-two and we were deciding to live

together. When he learned of my ‘problem’, he simply told

me that he would be moving in to help out.

The kid was only a kid.

“I’d love to live with you,’ I said. “But, I don’t want to

become a . . .”

“It’s all gonna work out. Pops.” He grinned, tucking an

especially small paintbrush behind his ear. “Just don’t expect

any sponge baths. Nothing personal.”

.

It worked out. Ryan was attending the best and

oldest art school in the city and studying what I called ‘the

real deal’, painting. Oils, Canvas. Brushes of all sorts and

sizes were meticulously organized in clear jars in the room

set side for his easel and studies.

I had made a living as an art dealer for most of my

adult life and had loved many years of it. We sat up late into

the nights, discussing Dada and Surrealism and new art and

old art and bad art and ‘real’ art (left entirely to our

discretion) and baseball and our Giants chances for the

season. And hope.

He often fell asleep next to me as I lay sick as a very

sick dog from the chemo and the side effects and the fear.

And our home gave me the freedom to write about my

life before it ended and my talented son would design

wonderful covers for my essays and articles when he wasn’t

deep into his school assignments. It gave us a sense of

collaborative art and reasons to insult each other’s weaker

efforts. And I’d ask him his honest response to my writing

for the art project at the Cancer Center.

So we wrote and painted and drew and dined on Ryan’s

veggie meals and drank some good wine and we’d laugh and

laugh and laugh.

And every weekend, this unflaggingly cheerful and

happy and hopeful kid of mine would hoist on his backpack

and sing out ‘I love you, Dad’ and crossed the Golden Gate

bridge to stay at his mom’s in Marin and spend those

moments with his beautiful and brilliant girlfriend Rachel

that is the special reserve of the young and the bright in

love.

And we shared this life for three and a half years.

Against all odds, I stayed alive. And felt it.

.

‘An Unplanned Life’ was the apt title for the Art In

Recovery project.

“How can I get out of this writing project I got roped

into?” I shook my head at the prospect. I was under a near

constant mental fog from the chemotherapy. The lack of

self-awareness was a huge obstacle to my writing. Any

writing. A five sentence e-mail to the utility company took

nearly an hour. “How the hell can I get out of this?”

The guilt of dropping out would be even worse. The

project was a noble effort. High school students who had

lost someone to cancer volunteered to become pen-pals to

individual patients with a terminal illness.

Jesus.

“Plus, it’s kinda connected to my shrink, so I can’t just

bail.”

“Plus,” Ry was cooking one of his original vegetarian

concoctions, ”you’d have Missy to answer to.”

“The kale looks especially good tonight,” I tried.

Artistic commitments make me feel itchy.

“It’s chard, Dad.” He was chopping some garlic cloves

as the leafy greens sauteed. “You won’t quit and you know

you can’t. You said you’d do it and so you will. Because it’s

the commitment that makes an artist.”

“Those are some huge mushrooms,” I observed.

“Like when I first volunteered to work at Creativity

Explored and hated it at first.”

This was a direct hit. The previous year a center for

developmentally disabled kids invited Ryan to help create art

with their clients. A week later a commercial gallery offered

Ryan a good salary and decent hours.

“You have to stand by your commitments if you mean

to be an artist,” I told him at the time.

“You have to stand by your commitments if you mean

to be a writer, Dad. Remember when you . . .?”

“Are those pine nuts you’re using? That looks delicious.”

“It’s good for mental clarity, Dad.” He tossed the dish n

a large earthen bowl. “For writing, they say.”

“Then give me a double dose, okay Buddy?”

.

“Do you know the basic difference between your

Dad, and you and me?” Nurse Sheila asked Ryan.

I go into the Cancer Center for an infusion twice a

month. The monthly bill is over $42,000. The government

programs pay these bills and so I stay alive. What’s a life

worth?

I’m sorry. I meant to ask what is your life worth?

The infusion nurses have, had, and will see it all. They

will tell you the truth if you ask them for it. Sheila has cared

for me for over three years.

“What?” Ryan asked. I must add here that my other

loving two sons and daughter were present for me whenever

possible. But Ryan lived with me and his school knew of my

situation and would adjust his schedule so that he could

come with me.

“It’s that you and I might--occasionally--think of our

own mortality. That we will die someday. But, your Dad

thinks of it everyday. Every day. He might not admit it, but a

person can’t avoid it.”

.

How do you find your happy trail in this huge

world? My pen-pals and I finally met at a public reading of

our shared letters at the program’s end.

And while I realized I may have answered a few of their

life questions in my letters, their missives answered my

questions about the meaning of my life. They reminded me

of what it was like to be young, and find the world a

daunting place, and put a life together, and see the pieces of

the puzzle fall together.

.

One of my teen pen-pals wrote:“I frequently find

myself thinking about the fact that I am alive, Richard, and

it makes me feel privileged to be breathing this beautiful air.

The simple things are truly what make me happy.”

.

“Nail it, Pops,” Ryan and Andrew said as we pulled up

to the hall for the reading. The boys like to encourage Pops

because I’m often placed in one of the last speaker spots.

There is true concern and attention paid to the

survivors at such cancer events. There is crying by audience

and patients alike. At this evening’s event a brave young

woman--a teen--struggled to read through her tribute to her

father. We all reached out to hug her when she was able to

collect herself.

.

The menu of cancers lurking around to kill you

leaves a large group of survivors and supporters. They have

marches and auctions and dinner fundraisers and other

events necessary to raise the research dough that is simply

not to be found.

Except for pancreatic cancer. There are no marches or

events or gala dinners. Because there are no survivors.

There are many bereaved left from this insidious

disease.

But very, very few survivors.

.

And this was the part of my little talk that my boys

thought hilarious. Once I introduced myself and owned up

to be a stage four pancreatic cancer patient, the audience

would usually issue a collective gasp.

“Good God,” Andrew would joke with me, “they must

think; Shit, this guy really has cancer!”

The boys put their arms around my shoulders as I

climbed down from the dais. Quite a few of the recently

graduated girls were rather pretty, I whispered to them.

“Not the place, Dad,” Andrew said. “Really not the

place.”

“Really,” Ryan laughed quietly. “Really not the place,

Pops.”

.

We made nice with the people in attendance and

then crossed town to my flat. It was Pappy’s bedtime, but

early enough for the boys to go to a local cafe. Andrew won

a spot to sleep over after a number of solemn oaths to Ryan

that his snoring days were over. Even I became convinced

that earnest Andrew was capable of monitoring his own

snoring while fast asleep.

It was easier than simply saying that we loved being

together.

.

I woke them at a decently early morning hour to help

me swab out the place as they would be gone to see Mom

and friends across the bridge for the long Memorial

weekend.

The fellows packed up their duffles and told me they

loved me. Multiple times. It was something we did and

weren’t afraid to say in front of anyone. “I love you, Dad.”

And these strong, strapping, blossoming young men

would give Pops a kiss on the neck with a ‘See you soon’.

We had a rule about never saying ‘Good-bye’.

.

After all, we had plans. In just ten days, we were

going to spend a week in the Rockies. Just the three of us.

It had been made clear to me that if I were to build

memories with my kids it should be now.

“Really,” Mister Humphries,” now. While you can still

can. You can never tell with this stuff you have.”

So, with oldest brother Clayton off exploring Indonesia

and daughter Brooke juggling a lively daughter, husband and

business, we concocted a ‘guy’s trip’. My youngest were in

their twenties and I was not a long-term bet. So: Let’s go

play cowboy. Now. This summer now.

I spent a few years growing up in Colorado and the

Rockies were a paradise I wanted to share with the guys.

After an animated visit to a Western wear store, we

moseyed on down Mission Street.

“Jesus, Andrew,” Ryan shook his head, “with that

Stetson hat and those Tony Llama boots you look twenty

fucking feet tall.”

“Yeah,” I agreed and asked my youngest to try to

hunker down a few inches when he was standing close.

We talked constantly of our upcoming camp out/cattle

drive/cook-out at the gorgeous Black Mountain Ranch in the

heart of the Rocky Mountain Range. I felt, knew, it might be

our last summer together.

The fellows knew I planned to write about our little

adventure. ‘Happy Trails’, you know? Ryan had already

designed a terrific cover for the unwritten piece.

I waved to them the next morning from my second

floor window as they left for the weekend. They were

wearing their hats and boots to break them in prior to the

trip. It was the last time I would ever see them together.

.

It always arrives unexpectedly. A knock on the door. A

telephone call from the hospital. A sudden crash. It

happens to all of us but it should never happen to our

children.

.

“What the hell are you up to?” I asked my youngest

son. Andrew was suddenly shaking me awake. “What’s the

idea, Andrew?”

You know. The kid is twenty. A driving arrest? A

buddy in trouble? It was just past five in the morning.

What the hell was he doing standing in my bedroom? He

was supposed to be in Marin.

“Something horrible has happened, Dad.”

I saw he was crying.

“Ryan’s dead.”

At age 22. My boy. My artist. My guy Ryan .

.

Chestnut was my guy. At just under sixteen hands

the big Appaloosa carried me, cantering up a steep trail with

barely a snort. I’d reach across the pommel and give the

big boy’s neck a pat to ease him. He’d turn his head and

look at me, full-eyed, knowing we were on an unplanned

trip.

Cresting a hill, the strong big horse would gently pause,

giving the winds time to dry my tears, the views to calm me.

Our place back in San Francisco was too full of Ryan’s

art, too empty of his being. Finding a new trail would be a

long way off.

Happy trails, Ryan. Dad