Death, Be Not Proud

THE OVERLOOK

By Tom Clavin

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          Because of the response it has received from a “local” audience, I want to share the (slightly revised) column that was written and published last week in the several editions of the Express News Group. Many people have contacted me about the impact it had on them, so I thought I would share it with my “Overlook” readers. The title, by the way, is from a poem by John Donne and is also the title of a memoir by the journalist John Gunther about his son.

          One time before we thought we had lost a child. It was in January 1987 at what was then Schneider’s Children’s Hospital in Great Neck. My daughter, Katy, had been born with bilateral hip dysplasia, and because it had gone undiagnosed for two years, she had to undergo and unprecedented operation that would last over eight hours. That is a lot of time for a two-year-old to be under anesthetic – and, of course, a long and agonizing wait for her parents.

          When it was over, Nancy and I were ushered into the recovery room. Katy was hooked up to a bunch of tubes and wires and appeared especially tiny and fragile compared to the imposing metal machines. We hovered, waiting for her to wake up. The nurse, right before she had left the room, assured us that would happen any moment. Instead, the heart monitor flatlined.

          There was at first a disoriented feeling because such things happened only on medical shows and we were not home watching television. We were watching a flat line on a monitor attached to our daughter. They we glanced at each other: Was this really happening, the worst event possible for a parent?

          Suddenly, the same nurse burst into the room. After sizing up the situation, she sprang into action, rushing to the heart monitor. She struck the side of it with the flat of her hand. The machine began to beep again. “Third time this week this thing has malfunctioned,” the nurse muttered irritably.

          Years later, after having served my sentence . . .

          No, I resisted committing a felony, and even a very aggravated misdemeanor. Instead, we were distracted by Katy’s eyelids fluttering, and seconds later she was awake. We had not lost her.

          An anecdote I had occasion to tell three weeks ago, which I called “A Perfect Day.” Bear with me, there is a connection.

          In May 1999, a book co-written with Bob Bubka and titled “The Ryder Cup: Golf’s Greatest Event” was published. We were pleased by the favorable attention it received, which included an invitation to give a presentation at the Barnes and Noble on Fifth Avenue. When the morning came for me to drive in, my son, Brendan, who was 10, begged to go with me. This was not a anything-to-get-out-of-going-to-school ploy, he really desired to go. Okay, get in the car.

          What I recall about the trip to Manhattan was Brendan suddenly exclaiming, “Look, your book is on that truck.” He had noticed that we were driving behind a yellow Ryder rental truck. I can’t remember how I explained that coincidence. After parking in a nearby lot, we held hands walking to the bookshop – we were, after all, in the big, bad city from which Nancy and I had fled 15 years earlier – and it was an especially proud moment for me to witness my son’s excitement at seeing an enlarged cover poster and copies of “The Ryder Cup” on display in the Fifth Avenue window.

          Giving the presentation with Bob was a tad nerve-wracking because Brendan, who enjoyed reading, kept leaving my sight to explore another aisle of books. Finally, the last question had been asked and the last copy signed and we were free to go. Then I remembered: On this Wednesday afternoon, the Yankees were hosting the Red Sox. Let’s not let this day end yet.

          We hustled over the Grand Central Station and took the #4 to the 161st Street stop. There was the stadium, and I knew my son was seeing it with the same awe and excitement as my 10-year-old self had experienced. We found a kiosk with two tickets left and began the climb to our seats. Just as we sat and were absorbing the vastness of green grass and tens of thousands of people, Brendan’s favorite player, Tino Martinez, hit a grand slam. And the Yankees would go on to beat the archrival BoSox.

          On the drive home Brendan, exhausted, fell asleep. I listened to his easy breathing and thought about what a perfect day it had been.

          Much happened in the intervening years involving our family. Divorce, relocations, deaths of parents and friends and in my case a sister, graduations, my daughter’s marriage, emotional as well as physical journeys, a career with more highs than lows, a relationship with more love than land mines, and last December – barely, on the 31st – I became a grandfather. Yet with even all that water having flowed under the bridge, there we were back again, faced with losing a child. This time there was no cranky nurse or a side slap. For Nancy and me, the worst event happened.

          Brendan died last month, at 33. We still don’t have an official cause of death but he had been battling the dual demons of addictions and depression for the last decade. There were no more perfect days, not even close; they were only the cherished yet tauntingly painful memories. We were reduced to the best days being the ones when he was at least alive, even if it was in a hospital or behind bars. The deepening dread transformed into an inevitability. Still, defying the advice of family members and friends and Al-Anon members who had nothing more to offer but sympathy, we kept reaching down to pull Brendan out . . . even after he begged us not to.

          We realized, finally, and with a creeping and despised resignation, that the best we could do was buy time. And then even that ran out.

          Sometime during these very private weeks since receiving the call, I thought of what the author John Dos Passos had written about Thomas Jefferson, who went into seclusion after the death of his wife: “He had come to that period in his life, which seems to come to most men, when all the blank checks of youth have been cashed and a man has to face himself as an adult, the way he’s going to be until he dies.”

          There is a sort of lame duck aspect to life now. The checks have been cashed and I’m overdrawn emotionally. The solace is supposed to be that my son is at peace.

At least he is.

Tom Clavin is the bestselling author/co-author of 18 books, including his latest collaboration with Bob Drury, Blood and Treasure: Daniel Boone and the Fight for America’s First Frontier, and Lightning Down: A World War II Story of Survival. Please go to your local bookstore or to Bookshop.org, Amazon.com, BN.com, or tomclavin.com to purchase a copy.