And so, this is it: this will need to serve as the last family photo with my big brother Ken in it as he passed away suddenly on the morning of April 16th. Two and a half years ago, Ken was diagnosed with terminal throat and lung cancer, and while he was intitially given a prognosis of perhaps less than a year, Ken went on to enjoy many months of early retirement (maybe too many as I know he was often bored), he was able to get all of his ducks in a row, reconnect with some old friends, and go on a bunch of trips around Canada and the world (many of which I was able to accompany him on). Ken was also warned that when the end came, it would not be a gradual decline: he would hit a cliff and then go. And as he was in quite a bit of pain at the very end, there's something of a blessing in a quick passing, and especially after having so much time to get ready for it. But as I said to Dave: A slow motion car crash is still a car crash and it feels like a tragedy. Rest in peace, Ken. The following is what I'll want to remember.
With stereotypical first-born energy, Ken was really good at planning where and when his next trip would be, and by the end of February (and our last trip to Nova Scotia), he suggested that at the end of April he and Laura, me and Dave, and our aunt and uncle Dianne and Billy could get together in PEI, take a couple of days to tour around Cape Breton, and then head to the lakehouse and check in on Mum and Dad. Ken needed to push this trip out a bit because he was having another course of chemotherapy, but it was making him so weak that he decided he just wanted to be done with it.
On April 1st, Ken asked me to come to his routine doctor's appointment with him, which he had never asked of me before, because he said his hands were too shaky to fill out the forms. Ken warned me that he was going to tell his oncologist that he was done with chemo, but that his doctor would probably "bully" him into continuing. We met first with a nurse — someone Ken had obviously known for a long time (he had worked at this hospital for a couple of years, after all) and with whom he had a really friendly banter — and Ken, with his barely-there-raspy-voice, gave her a defiant, "I am done with the chemo. The last time it took me six rounds to feel this shitty and I am a wreck after just two this time." She took this down on her clipboard with the rest of her notes and asked if Ken would be okay with her setting up home visits with a nurse — someone who could monitor his vitals, provide fluids or other injections, and be able to answer any of his family's questions — and more than anything, Ken just seemed confused by this pivot and waved it away with a, "Yeah. Sure."
The doctor came in not long after and, having gone over the nurse's notes, asked about Ken's pain and lack of sleep and other symptoms. And again, Ken took on a defiant tone and declared he would not be doing any more chemo. The doctor said he understood, noting that the office was setting up a home palliative nurse for him, explained that Ken would not need to come into the office any more, but that the doctor would be reading all of the home care nurse's notes and would be available at any time for a phone consult if Ken wanted one. And I don't think that went the way Ken expected. He had heard the word "palliative" before, but the oncologist had always fought back against the notion; he always claimed a few more bullets in the holster (but I suppose when you tell an oncologist you're not interested in his treatments, you no longer need an oncologist).
That was on the Wednesday and the following Saturday was Easter dinner at Zach and Kennedy's new house. And despite massive pain in his hip and groin, Ken came out to dinner with the whole family (groaning a bit when he entered the door and saw that it was a spilt-level with six steps up to where everyone was); but he made it up there, spent most of the evening sitting on the couch with his head thrown back and eyes closed, and made the herculean effort to join us all at the table and force down some food. Ken had understood his situation enough to make his family bring two vehicles, and he had Conor drive him home not long after dinner. That would be the last time that many people in the family would see Ken.
It had always been a habit for me and Dave to drop in on Ken in his garage (across the street from us) when we thought he might be up for a visit, but after Easter weekend, he was never out there any more. And if I stuck my head in the house, I would see him sleeping on the living room couch and would quietly leave again; I had no idea how much sleep Ken might have gotten the night before, and who am I to wake him? Looking at my texts, April 9th was the last time he replied to one of them — telling me to come over — and when I got there, I tried to explain that if he wasn't in the garage, I didn't want to disturb him. But Laura was also there and she said, "Just come in. Even if it makes the dogs bark, we don't care." The next day Dave and I left to go up to Sauble Beach for the weekend, and we dropped in on Ken briefly, but he really wasn't up for company. He had felt that way the last time he had chemo, and he dismissed it as the poison leaving his body (which is why he didn't want any more), and this seemed routine; it certainly didn't feel like Ken was nearing that cliff.
I made a couple more attempts to visit the following week and I was happy to be there when the home care nurse was about to make her first visit: despite Laura suggesting that the dogs were a "fact of life" of their house, I convinced her to let me take them out of there for at least the first visit; I could see how their barking was making Ken wince and having a practical way to help made me feel like I was doing something.
I went over again on the Wednesday, finding Ken on the couch once more, and he sat up to say that there was no way he'd be able to go on our trip that Saturday; insisting that Dave and I should still meet up with Billy and Dianne and have a week at the lake. As we were talking, I asked if I could get him a treat — How about a milkshake? Your special hot chocolate with an espresso shot from Tim Hortons? — and Ken waved me to silence to explain that he was going to call Hertz to get the rental car put in Dave's name (and I include that to demonstrate how, right to the end, Ken was always the big brother with the clipboard and the plan). A couple of minutes later, Ken said, "OK. The strawberry shortcake milkshake from Fast Eddies." And I jumped up: something practical I could do to help. I got the milkshake — which Ken did seem to enjoy (Laura was surprised, saying he hadn't eaten much in days) — and we sat together watching Mr Ballen YouTube videos until I had to leave for an appointment. Before I left, I asked Ken if our little brother, Kyler, knew how crappy he was feeling — Ken said, so-so — so I made sure to text Kyler and explain that Ken was now technically considered palliative and that he wasn't feeling very good. Coincidentally, our uncle Billy also texted me that day to ask about Ken — because he hadn't been replying to texts — so I got to give him the plainer picture, too.
The next morning — as I was wasting time until I thought it would be an appropriate time to head over and check on Ken before I had to leave for another appointment — Laura came and knocked on the door and said, "Ken's gone." She and her mom, a retired nurse, had been sitting in her kitchen when they heard Ken coughing/choking in the living room. They ran in and could see Ken coughing up blood. Barb went to turn him on his side and she told Laura to call 911, but before she even got through, Barb said that he was gone. The 911 operator told them to attempt CPR, and they did, but there's also a kind of blessing to having a nurse on hand who can definitively say that Ken's time had come, he went quickly, and nothing they might have attempted could have brought him back. Laura then said that Conor was home — that he had been up in his bedroom during the fracas and was really upset to know that his dead father was under a blanket in the living room and that it could take hours before the practicalities were attended to and the body removed — so I told her to send him over to me (something practical), and she left and Conor came.
I had also offered to break the news to our family, and first I called Dave (who was shaken and said he'd be home as soon as he could be) and then I called Dad (who only asked a couple of questions before quietly saying, "All right. I understand. I have to go and tell your mother.") I tried to call Kyler, he didn't answer, so I texted and then he called me back, "Ken's gone." He was, of course, very upset, and especially because he and Christine had planned to come up and see Ken on the weekend and now he felt like he had failed at something (he hadn't; Ken knew his brother loved him). I texted Kennedy and Mal, asking them to call, and broke the news to them; Kennedy was able to leave work and come to be with us; Mal promised to be home the next day. Finally, I called our uncle Billy and he was just devastated — he had intuited something was very wrong — and I asked him to call his brother Mike, which he did.
I decided to keep my appointment with the vet and Conor came along, wanting some distance from both the feeling of tragedy and the very real police car in his driveway across the street that signalled his dead father was still in the home. Mum called as we were leaving, and although she didn't have much to say besides, "I really thought I would go first," I think she needed to feel involved with what was happening so far away from them. We had the appointment, and after, Conor mentioned that he hadn't eaten anything. And when I asked what he felt like having, he said, "I keep thinking about that strawberry shortcake milkshake you got for dad. One of those would feel like I was honouring him." So, we got some Fast Eddies — which Conor definitely ate ritualistically — and made it home just before Dave and Kennedy showed up.
When the police car finally left, and Dave noted a black van pulling away as well, we headed over to check in. Ella was home by now (her uncle Matthew had texted her condolences while she was at school, and that's how Ella found out), and Barb took us through the sequence of events again, and everyone just looked dazed and shattered. Conor stood red-eyed in the living room, looking at the now empty couch, and that's probably when it all became real to him. This was a long time coming, but a slow motion car crash is still a car crash. At this time, Laura looked over at her hibiscus tree in the corner of the living room — quite a large plant that she brought home years ago after her own father had died, too young, of cancer — and noted that she had never seen so many flowers on it, and her mother smiled and said, "He was here with you, looking over Ken." I suggested that everyone looked like they could use a lay down — especially Laura — and I said that we would come back later with dinner.
Over dinner, it was discussed how Ken had always insisted that he wanted to be cremated without fuss or any kind of reception or ceremony (other than a scattering at some future point down at the lake). But we also discussed the fact that Ken said he would like a wake — or even better, a roast — and we decided to book a big table, for mostly family, at the local pub the following night to toast Ken and sing some bad karaoke in what we hoped would be the proper sendoff.
There was a viewing the following afternoon at the cremation office, and although I haven't seen too many dead bodies, I went back and forth on it and finally decided to go in and see Ken. They maybe had a bit too much makeup on him, and he never wore his hair slicked back quite like they had it, but he did look at peace. Ella stayed in with her dad the entire time (almost three hours), Conor, Kyler, and Mal chose not to have that be their last image of Ken, and when it was over, it was over: the last time Ken would be seen in the flesh by people who loved him.
It was in the hours between the viewing and the dinner that Dave and I decided that we would still fly down to Nova Scotia the following day — Mum and Dad may have chosen to spend their retirement years far away from their children and grandchildren, but I couldn't let them be totally isolated in this time of sudden grief — and it was all arranged that they would pick us up from the airport and loan us a car to stay out at the lake. And that felt like an appropriate honouring of Ken and his plans.
Kyler and Christine came back to our house after the viewing and we had some time to talk about Ken. I reminded Kyler that Ken and I had called him in the middle of the day a couple weeks earlier and insisted on meeting him for lunch. I reminded him that Ken was walking more or less easily that day, we had a bunch of laughs, and Ken ate a good portion of his fish and chips; it was probably Ken's last best day, and he decided to spend it with his siblings. I know Kyler feels like he should have spent more time visiting Ken, but nobody needs to feel that way: everything got said over the course of those two and a half years; there was love in the way we all lived our lives.
I had half-seriously reminded Dave that probably thirty years ago — the first time Ken mentioned a wake — he joked that he expected Dave to get up and sing Danny Boy. Dave more somberly replied that he had remembered that promise, and God love him, Dave had spent the day trying to nail Elvis Presley's version of the song; Dave is an average singer, but an excellent Elvis impersonator.
So, we made it to the pub — the family joined now by Dan and Rudy, Laura's best friend Beth and her husband Gord, along with close friends of Ken's, Mark and Sue (more people who thought they should have visited more often, but he really wasn't up for it in the end) — and we had our dinner with a few quiet laughs and an honourary untouched vodka and Diet Coke in the middle of the table. I was at the far end of the crowd, talking with Mark and Sue, when I suddenly realised that Kennedy and Mal were on stage, the first to have a go at the singing, and I lost it with some weird mix of delight and pride when I realised what they were going to sing: Pop Muzik by M. That song had been playing somewhere once and I told them how it had been one of our favourites when we were kids. If it came on the radio, Ken, Kyler and I would jump around our basement rec room, wildly dancing, and when it got to the part where the singer goes, "Fa la la la la la la la la, fa la la la la la la...", Ken would jump up on the arm of the couch and direct the two of us like an orchestra conductor. Such a far cry from the Tool and Korn that Ken liked in adulthood, this made for a pretty funny image, and I loved that they had remembered the story and chose to perform it. That made it a wake.
Not long after, it was time for Danny Boy, and although Dave did take the lead on it, Kennedy, Mal and I, along with Laura and her mom, Barb, sang along in the background. Dave got to explain first why we were singing it, and he nailed it, Elvis style. And it was kind of surreal and kind of cathartic; an honouring for people without a playbook.
There was more drinking and more singing and fellowship, and we could only hope that this was the sendoff Ken had wanted.
Early the next morning, Dave and I flew to Halifax and Mum and Dad were there to pick us up. Dad talked about this and that the whole way back to their house in Bridgewater, mostly nervous chatter, but as soon as we sat down in their living room, Mum said, "OK. Start talking." And I did, saying pretty much everything I've recounted here, from Laura coming to knock on the door to Danny Boy the night before. They had specific questions about Conor and Ella and Laura (they were aghast to hear how poor Ella found out while she was at school), and Dad said that he knew he should have flown up to see Ken when he wasn't replying to texts. And again I had to say that no one should feel that way: Ken was in quite a lot of pain at the end and he really wasn't up for visitors. We should all be grateful that we had so much time with Ken post-diagnosis. We should be grateful for the quick ending to his pain. I also pointed out that although Ken said he didn't want to die in the house (because he suspected the idea of it would haunt his kids), he was really not looking forward to a potentially long and drawn out death in hospice; he dreaded the idea of people coming to visit, squeezing his hand tearfully, and gazing upon him tragically; he also dreaded a loss of dignity and agency and having someone wipe his butt for him (he particularly didn't want his wife or kids to have to do this). I pointed out to Mum and Dad, and many people since, that death is coming for all of us, and in the end, Ken had had a good one; the kind he might have planned out on his clipboard.
Dave and I went out to the lake and he puttered around picking up sticks while I napped on "Ken's" couch. Dave went up for a shower and came running down to show me the dime he had found at the foot of the bed upstairs (if you know, you know: this is our favourite "sign from the other side"). We had dinner and I introduced Dave to Mr Ballen YouTube videos. The next day, we took Mum out to lunch and she said, "I've cried and cried until I can't cry any more, and I don't want to talk about this any more." And we mostly didn't talk about Ken over the next fews days unless he came up naturally. Mum needed to get some teeth pulled that following Wednesday, so Dave and I had booked flights to come home again on the Tuesday; and that was just about the right amount of time to spend down there to make sure the old folks felt included.
Ken didn't quite make it to his 60th birthday (but he did make it to his 30th wedding anniversary last fall), and that doesn't feel like enough time. Repeatedly, Ken made it known that he had no regrets: he had had a full and wonderful life, stuffed with adventures and a lucky marriage, and he knew he was leaving great kids behind to carry on for him. Death is coming for all of us, and everyone (including myself) wishes we had made more time to visit with Ken, but even feeling that lesson in our bones probably won't make us more available to one another. Several times over the past couple of years, Ken would tell me that I was "his giant", and I always shut it down: of course I would do anything, accompany him anywhere, he asked, but I always knew that I could have done more, too. Wherever Ken is now, I'm sure he sees the big picture and all of our places in it and can only feel a piteous love for imperfect humanity. In the end, we can only hope for some joy in this life and a good death at the end, and I believe that Ken got both. RIP big brother; until we meet again.
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