It was May of last year 2013 when I received the news that would shatter my heart into a million pieces.  The kind of news that makes your entire universe stop.  Not only does it stop, but it is all completely changed and none of it – not one single aspect, makes any sense whatsoever.  Blindsiding news from home.  It was Stage 4 Lung Cancer.  And it had the most amazing soul in its grasp.  I have never felt that kind of crushing weight in an instant.  Just words in a text message strung together delivering life altering sadness.  No, he was not gone, but just the intense battle that this wonderful person along with his wonderful family would have to endure was enough.  It truly has been the saddest year.  He fought so hard.  Not once did he complain or give up – not once.  His faith remained unshakeable throughout the darkest of times.  I believe that he kept his brave and positive composure in order to ease the pain of those around him, because true to his nature, the comfort of his loved ones was far more important than his own.  This man was a teacher, a hero until he left us, physically, while in the arms of his eldest son July 2, 2014.

I have found it difficult at times to explain my relationship to my dear friend.  Mostly because people with their preconceived notions and boxes they prefer to put others in have made it that way.  In the beginning, he was my boyfriend’s father, and throughout that relationship he became much more.  After those few years of making beautiful memories all together (his parents were our best friends) he and I would go our separate ways, he to the west coast and I to the east.  The split however only strengthened my relationship with his parents and it would continue to grow for the next eight years.  We discovered that we truly were kindred spirits – our connection was cosmic and beyond explanation.  He was so many things to me.  He was very much like a father, and he treated me like his own.  I would tell him in those final days how much he was my teacher.  He would reply that he didn’t know about that, but I surely do.

My visits home were full of happiness and love.  We would venture into nature with our cameras, our music and wine to capture and to celebrate the beauty that surrounded and inspired us.  We had no idea of the darkness to come.  He taught me to live each day as though it were your last.  He taught me to love like there was no tomorrow – without abandon – with all of your heart.  In these memories we were indeed most alive in every sense.  His greatest lesson.

Soon after his diagnosis, I would go home to face the reality of the nightmare.  Refusing to believe that our magical world would ever see its end, I made them an inspiration board.  In all the books that I read about Cancer, the most important thing was to keep a positive state of mind.  So on the poster were pictures of all of the places that they still planned to visit and of the adventures they would have once he had recovered.  Maps of road trips cross country to Jackson Hole, photos of wine country where they would renew their vows, images of Fall – our favorite season.  In my feeble attempt to save him I thought if only by focusing on all that is still yet to come, to experience and explore, he would win.  After returning to New York, I continued to send them a daily bit of inspiration.  Miraculous photos of nature and travel and uplifting quotes were sent in hopes of healing.  Everyday for four months, throughout his chemo treatments, I sent something.  It was all I could do and it felt tiny, even though he would reply his sweet appreciation.  And when he didn’t, I knew that it was because he was suffering.  Too many people, perhaps even you my dear reader, have experienced this kind of devastation. I now empathize, so deeply and so sincerely.

Their’s was a beautiful love story.  If ever I doubted the theory of soul mates, it was he and his wife that would restore my faith.  They were two halves of a whole.  After over thirty years of marriage they were still madly in love.  Every night – every single night they would hold hands before falling asleep.  In her garage hangs the very flannel shirt he wore when he first kissed her.  Their love is what dreams are made of.  No, I’ve never witnessed such an extraordinary union.  I feel so blessed to have even been in the presence of it.  They lived together, worked together, loved together and raised five extraordinary, tremendously gifted, children together.  Together, they built an empire, and I cannot fathom her pain.  She lost her bright sun, her shining moon, and her guiding light.  She is, however, very much aware of how extremely wonderful it was to have had what most will never find – a once in a lifetime kind of head-over-heels love.

He was an exceptional human being.  He made everyone feel as though they were the most important person in the world.  I don’t think that he ever met a stranger.  Everywhere he went he affected people and left a lasting, powerful impression.  His son would say to friends who had gathered on the day of his passing, in an eloquent, straight from the heart speech, that his Dad had the kindest eyes.  He certainly did – and the warmest smile.  He was a natural born storyteller, and he enraptured audiences with his profound wisdom.  His family was his world.  He was a true man, one from which all men could learn from.  An entire town and so far beyond felt the magnitude of his character, and so, the magnitude of his loss.  A true legend.

When the news came that his last days were near I went directly back to my apartment where I’d learned that I had locked myself out.  Naturally I went to a bar, ordered a beer and a whiskey, and began to digest the sudden realness.  Lucinda Williams (my all-time favorite) was singing Car Wheels on a Gravel Road (my favorite album).  The tears were flooding down my smiling face as I traveled down memory lane.  Instinctively, I picked up a pen and started playing with the placement of my next tattoo – Luligirl, his name for me.  I would get it the next day, and the day after I would fly home to say goodbye.  I had never imagined my life without this person.  Just the way we do with the ones we love the most.  Selfishly, I always thought that he would speak at my wedding and one day hold my babies.  He was one of my biggest fans, and he always let me know how much he loved me.  I don’t think that anyone will ever know me the way that he did.  One evening I held his arm in mine and did not want to move even after he had drifted back to sleep.  I did not know how to let go.

On our way home from dinner a couple of nights later his family and I witnessed the most beautiful sunset any of us had ever seen.  Speechless in disbelief, we took pictures of the glorious sight that was taking place over an open field along our country road home.  It was beyond.  We all knew that it was for him as he let go the very next morning.  The most amazing sunset had come for the most amazing soul.

He still feels very much here.  I know now that he always will be.  I will surely miss those smiling eyes, so full of love and kindness, and those big embraces of comfort and safety, and all of the jolly laughter and enchanting stories, and hearing him call me Luligirl.  This is all very certain and very sad, but his memory and his legacy remain.  I wrote a poem to read at his funeral that I truly believe he assisted me in writing.  I think that it says everything in conclusion.

In Season

I am in the promise of each rising sun,
The blue of dawn’s first light.
I am in the Summer’s blooming jasmine,
Intoxicating the night.

I am in the pink of an October sky,
Dancing through the wind in the trees.
I am the crisp air of Autumn,
And the changing of the leaves.

From the mountains of California,
I shall watch my babies grow.
Come December in Indiana,
I am the still of a Winter’s snow.

In the honeysuckle along a country road,
I am the sweet smell of Spring.
I am all of the flowers in the world for my Jena,
My love, my everything.

So you see my friends,
Do not cry.
I am all around you,
In each season passing by.

Please my darlings,
Don’t go missing me.
I am in all of the songs that you hear,
In all of the beauty that you see.

Wherever you go,
Whatever you do,
I am holding your hand
Right there, beside you.

*  I take some credit for my dear friend becoming one of the greatest wine snobs that I know.  We all grew so much when it came to palate development over the years.  It was a lovely journey, and in the end the stuff that sang to his soul was California Cabernet.  The man loved him some big, bold, compelling Cali.  He was very well versed and we all loved to hear what he got on the nose or in the mid-palate.  Like myself, he had a romantic connection to not just what was in the bottle but the story behind it – the fruit, the vineyard, the earth, the farmer.  Boy, did we have fun really wine geek-ing out, talking over glass after poetic glass.  I chose to pop the top of something that I had been hanging on to.  Something that he had gifted  me one Christmas a long time ago.  The 2004 Hess Collection Mount Veeder – Napa Valley Mountain Cuvee is a beautiful blend of Cab, Syrah, Merlot, Malbec and Cab Franc.  After ten years, this guy has totally mellowed to a pillowy dream of deep dark fruit that dances with decadent chocolate undertones.  The caress of vanilla smoke from the All-American oak (sometimes I can’t help myself 😉 is so suitably balanced by a floral finesse of lavender and violets, which I do believe my friend would greatly appreciate.  Don’t wait, my fellow wine comrades, to open those “special” bottles – do it now, for opening those gems is occasion enough for a celebration.  Life is short – live loudly, love ferociously, and drink wine unforgivingly.  My friend would always say, “Eat your dessert first.”

I know that wherever you are, you’re drinking the good stuff.

Cheers,

Vino Bambina,

Luligirl