Penultimo Adios: A collegium on dying

A colleague in Washington State at 79 was diagnosed with a rare case of leukemia (CMML, or chronic myelomonocytic leukemia, for the curious) and was given two months to two years to battle the weak white blood cells. Norman Cousins the journalist took his imminent demise diagnosis with laughter for a decade.

We are familiar with Celine Dion’s return to Las Vegas after a year of absence to care for her husband on the last leg of throat cancer. He is specific about his wanting to spend his last days with the Canadian chanteuse. Judy “Sock it to me” Carne of Rowan-and-Martin’s Laugh-In drew the curtains down at 76, reminding me that I’ve come to the threshold of that region where many would rather forget they are heading that way, or fight its marks with the last drop of Pantene.

We came to the Death knell of typhoons not too long ago when swimming by the breach on the coral reef at Sugar Dock in Saipan. I found myself listlessly drifting to the open sea, unable to resist the ebb tide. Only the thought that I was 16 years ahead of any mi ultima adios that I had enough presence of mind to bodysurf to the reef, never mind what the dumping 4-foot waves did to our heine at the corals!

At 70, with the Sugar Dock experience, we might have been over-indulging in the subject of dying too much until our colleague from Washington sent out his penultimo adios, a collegium on the news of his leukemia.

The announcement itself was exemplary. He and his wife had made peace with the eventuality. “No one knows better than you and I how to celebrate both our being here and the completion of our journeys,” he addressed a worldwide network of colleagues.

“I am taking this rare chance to express to all of you how much you’ve meant to me over the years—as the amazing collection of individual nobodies we are that rode out like the Man of La Mancha to throw our beings into the challenge of bending history.” Well said of the collegial connection he was addressing that once called itself the “the company that cares.”
Putting up a mirror, “you all contributed your own weird and special gifts, neuroses and idiosyncrasies to the makeup of our corporate life and community, all over the world,” he declared his gratitude, with the wry humor that he’d abusively chat with some of us. “What else would you expect from me? And please—do return the favor, ” he added. 

Then the clasp of the weathered hand: “… my heartfelt gratitude for your having been and continuing to be who you are and for that remarkable webbing and mission that connects us.” I experienced a rush of early Daily Office memories as he concluded with the traditional passing of the peace, perfunctorily practiced by congregations but vividly reminiscent of 6am clasped hands going down the rows of chairs of the congregants of which we were a part. “The peace of God is yours this day,” he intoned.\

Without rites and rituals, we would not be human. While I moved away from beloved metaphors, the reality they point to remains the same. In the celebrative “being here” and the enigmatic “completion of a life’s journey,” the sense of compassion, the stance of gratitude, and the posture of profound humility abide.

This week, I moseyed over to Lino’s place. For those unfamiliar with his little piece of real estate in San Isidro, Chalan Kanoa, the shoreline is built up with hotels, high-rises, including the abandoned Emmanuel College and the deserted Koreana in the south, and the Aquarius Tower toward the Sugar Dock in the north next to Town House fronting Mt. Carmel Cathedral and the CK cemetery. The area is, indeed, built up save “Uncle Lino’s park.” 

The neighboring lot south has the sand regularly machine-raked, but there are hardly any bare footprints on the sand. In contrast, there are always folks at Uncle Lino’s place and though barks of pine trees snapped and keeled over after Soudelor, the place remains a haven for children’s gaiety, adults’ guffaws, and newcomer’s hilarity. 

The broken masts and hobie cats have their place in the lot, including a huge double-hulled catamaran hauled from Guam to be repaired and refurbished to be tested on NMI waters first before it eventually sails south to the area between Yap and Chuuk along the navigational route I dubbed the Saipan-Satawal superhighway. Among these boats, which Lino, our Man of La Kanoa, sails to Mañagaha and back, we always find time to get the fire going to barbecue fish, seashell, pork, chicken, and beef.

We threw a party for visiting guests in honor of Uncle Lino. That’s when we discovered his tummy was ill disposed; he visited the hospital earlier but CHC did not find anything wrong. Neither gloomy nor bleak, Lino understood too, not unlike my brief encounter at the coral stone breach, it was too premature to write the obit.

I dropped in on Lino the following day to check on how he was doing. He was sweeping the floor of his trailer. There clearly was one young man of 75 up and about.