home is burning

Me: [Opening apartment door, stepping into darkness, setting keys on counter, and flicking on the lights to discover Lou Gehrig’s Disease standing at the end of kitchen counter] Jesus Christ. You scared the shit out of me.

Lou Gehrig’s Disease (LGD): Sorry. But not really.

Me: What are you doing here?

LGD: I’m just picking up the last of my things.

Me: I thought you took everything.

LGD: Not everything.

Me: Well be quick about it. I want you the fuck out of my life.

LGD: I will. How have you been?

Me: How have I been? Do you really care?

LGD: Not really, but thought I’d ask.

Me: I’m doing alright. Still sort of recovering from everything you did.

LGD: Oh, get over it loser. Fuck, you act like I raped you. Move on.

Me: Well, you took a lot. My Father, for example.

LGD: Your Dad was a complete pussy. He was easier than a drunken chick standing at a bar with an empty drink.

Me: He had much more time. You stole at least 25 years from him, and from everyone else that he knew and loved.

LGD: He wouldn’t have spent that time well anyways. He would have just continued running his gay little marathons before retiring, whereupon he would have just floated around like a leaf in a pool. His formative and productive years were behind him. He really didn’t lose much.

Me: He lost time and time cannot be replaced.

LGD: Did you read that off an inspirational poster or did you upload the Cliché of the Day application on your iPhone?

Me: I don’t have an iPhone. The point is, we don’t know how he would have spent that time. But we do know that you took it from him.

LGD: I should have also taken his ass virginity.

Me: God, you’re a creep.

LGD: At least I don’t have a membership to a porn site.

Me: I told you that in confidence. And maybe if you didn’t scare my girlfriend away.

LGD: I had nothing to do with that.

Me: Whatever, you plucked my girlfriend up by the skin on her slightly hunched back and set her down upon the cock of a San Francisco yuppie, my greatest fear.

LGD: Please, she wasn’t right for you. It was amazing you kept a hot girl happy for that long. Plus, she’ll live a shallow, meaningless life.

Me: Well, I loved her, so fuck you.

 

LGD: You’ll meet someone else. If not, you do have that membership to that porn site. 

 

Me: Are you seeing anyone else?

LGD: Yeah, I’m seeing a couple thousand middle-aged men, and some women, but not many.

Me: Are you happy?

LGD: Yeah, I’m doing just fine. Sciences still can’t figure me out, and there remains to be very few organizations that help patients and families deal with me. Speaking of family, how’s you’re wrinkly, old battle-axe of a Mom doing? [Laughing] God she is such a spaz. I’ve never seen anyone cry that much. [Doing impression] Oh poor me. I don’t have a husband anymore. Boo hoo hoo. What am I going to do? You’re taking the love of my life.

Me: Well, you left her a widow still in the midst of battling your butt-fuck ugly friend cancer. She’s still recovering, like the rest of us, but you took the man responsible for taking care of her and her home. She can’t keep up. Lights are falling from the ceiling, she’s addicted to pain-pill. Her crying to laughing ratio is about 45:1. She’s like a weeping child lost at Disneyland who no one will help.

LGD: She’ll get over it.

Me: Maybe, maybe not. Who knows at this point.

LGD: At least she has…what’s the name of your squirmy little sister who still eats with her fingers and laughs emphatically at fart or rape jokes, and even more emphatically at rape jokes that incorporate farts or vice versa.

Me: Chelsea.

LGD: Yeah Chelsea.

Me: Well, Chelsea has her own problems, like affording college without the help of an income-earning Father. Plus, you left her with an insane mother, whose screaming at dogs, verbal abuse and overarching sad demeanor is more damaging than comforting.

LGD: Well, she has the rest of you cum-snorting kids. 

Me: Yeah, but we’re all so sick of caring for parents and find it important to focus on our own lives. It’s hard to balance both.

LGD: With a little effort, you can find the right equilibrium, sort of like I managed to simultaneous attack on your Dad’s upper and lower body.

Me: And his lungs.

LGD: My God. Yes. And his lungs. I’m fucking amazing.

Me: Yeah, you’re pretty versatile for a douche bag designed for sucking.

LGD: You watch your mouth. There might be some genetic links to my existence. I doubt you personally want to deal with me again.

Me: I would rather have my nuts laced with raw meat prior to being dipped into a piranha-filled tank of sharks.

LGD: Nice visual.

Me: Thanks. I’m good with sexual visuals, just like you’re good at physically destroying a human.

LGD: Wow, you’re bitter. Listen, I didn’t mean to cause this much damage. I only exist as a challenge to the human race, a challenge to solve problems and grow as a species. Think how much longer people live once the proper amount of science is dedicated to an ailment. People used to die from the small pox, simple infections, and AIDS. If I raise enough concern amongst enough people, maybe that will expedite neurological research and lead to a cure for me, which could maybe transfer over to other disorders.

Me: Yeah, that’s true. It just sucks that my Dad was a casualty of this war. Maybe I should start an organization to raise funds to help with this research called, “We Could Do Without Lou”. Anything that gives you the middle finger is a good thing.

LGD: If I ever attack you, I will only attack your middle fingers.

Me: Haha. You have sort of a twisted sense of humor, like me. Maybe we have more in common than we ever realized.

LGD: Yeah, we both make things smell like shit–me through the neurological destruction of bowel controlling muscles, and you through your earth-shattering farts.

Me: Yeah, and we both are good at helping people into wheelchairs.

LGD: We are both good at making people cry.

Me: We’re both really good with middle-aged men.

LGD: Few people really understand us.

Me: We both like Stephen Hawking.

LGD: See, maybe we’re meant for each other. Now can we just forgive and forget, move on, stop thinking about each other, knowing that we had our time with each other and it was truly magical, and get on with our lives?

Me: Fuck, I’m willing to give it a shot. I need my keys to happiness back though.

LGD: [Shuffling in pockets, pulling out a piece of paper, and handing it to me]

Me: [Grabbing paper and opening it up] I remember these. [Reading] KEYS TO HAPPINESS 1.) Find something you love doing and do it until you die, unless it’s illegal or gay. 2.) Work hard, but not with a boner. 3.) Eat well and exercise, but never at the same time. You may have two balls, but you only have one body. 4.) Love your loved ones with love and lovingness 5.) Don’t talk shit on people, unless you hate them and it makes you feel better. 6.) Love thy neighbor, unless thy neighbor is a fucking dick or Tongan. 7.) Try to root for a championship team once in your life (i.e. stop caring so much about Cal football and Utah Jazz basketball). 8.) Never set yourself up to say, “She was the one that got away,” which may require that you purchase more duct tape and stronger ropes. 9.) Anti-depressions exist for a reason: so you have an excuse for sexual dysfunction. 10.) Only cry from laugher, or if you, in the process of crying from laughter, also piss yourself in public. 11.) Construct as many silly lists as possible. 12.) Go to Las Vegas for New Year’s Eve at least once in your life so you can realize that, “We are all just a bunch of humans who have created a number of distractions while we fill time between our true passion: getting drunk and fucking each other.” 13.) Superstitions are for the weak and the religious 14.) Live life one moment at a time. Thinking about the future is a waste of time because the future does not exist and sometimes you create expectations about the future and when those expectations fall short, you are up Fucked Creek without a cigarette. 15.) Know when to stop bitching about something. 16.) Fall in love in Paris. And yes, a man can fall in love with a baguette. Just don’t write about it. 17.) Realize that that saying, “Everything happens for a reason,” is total bull shit. 18.) Don’t get raped. 19.) Show your appreciation to others in ways not related to money, like by buying them a really nice and expensive hat for Columbus Day. 20.) Pez, collect it. 21.) When your shoes start smelling like a gay bum’s dick hole, buy another pair, so long as you don’t buy them from a gay bum’s dick hole. 22.) There are good, bad and better moments in life. Knowing that the other two exist makes the current moment more bearable, assuming you are drunk. 23.) Don’t listen when people suggest that Hot Pockets are bad for you. They are just jealous that they didn’t just eat their third of the day, like you. 24.) Not every story has a point, or a stripper character. And 25.) Break your time down like this: 23% work, 32% pleasure, 12% helping others, 3% talking about what a good person you are for helping others, 20% sleep and sleep-related activities (masturbation), 5% eating, 2% repeatedly checking Facebook for notifications and friend requests, 2% bathing/wandering the aisles of Bed, Bath, and Beyond only to realize that their isn’t much beyond bed and bath, and 1% watching people almost slip on ice.        

LGD: Quite a list you have there.

Me: Yeah. I probably missed some things, but it’s fairly comprehensive.

LGD: Sure is. [Picking up a box full of pictures of my Father, diapers, and a signed copy of Mein Kampf] Well, I’m going to be off. [Walking out door] Maybe I’ll see you around.

Me: I hope not.

LGD: Take care of yourself.

Me: I will [Looking at list and noticing “20% sleep and sleep related activities (masturbation)” on list, plucking three tissues from a nearby Kleenex box, and walking to bedroom]

 

 

 

 

Chelsea: Greg told me that girls that don’t like jewelry don’t like men.

Me: Well, do you like jewelry?

Chelsea: No.

Me: Well, maybe you don’t like men.

Chelsea: I like men, I just think jewelry makes me look like a Mormon. 

As I was packing my things up to move out of home, I rested a box of condoms on my bed next to a box full of Pez dispensers. Suddenly, my Mom entered.

Me: Oh, don’t mind these condoms. I probably shouldn’t have them just laying out.

Debi: I’m just glad you’re using protection with that disgusting, small penis of yours. 

Most people would consider moving from my own apartment just off Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood to my parent’s cat-piss-stained basement in Utah a downgrade, but I consider it a significant downgrade. From palm trees to pine trees. From beaches to mountains. From seeing Robert De Niro to seeing the color commentator for the Utah Jazz, Ron Boone. From beautiful single women to beautiful married women. From sunshine year-round to snow for half the year. From assholes to Mormons. From porn shops to no porn shops.

You get the idea.

I wasn’t that happy to move, but it was circumstantial. Lou Gehrig’s was mounting a very strong attack on my Dad and my Mom was fighting cancer with the help of bags of chemotherapy. Our home was under construction to make my parent’s room and bathroom wheelchair accessible for when the disease finally crippled my Father. He was in the process of selling his newspaper businesses while he still could so things would be simpler for us when he passed. At the time, the Lou Gehrig’s disease had hit him pretty hard. He had a feeding tube surgically implanted into his stomach that he ate through, even though my Mom still habitually made him dinner, a nice gesture, but also a tormenting one.

Mom: Here’s dinner.

Dad: [Feeling his feeding tube pinch his stomach] I can’t eat that.

Mom: Oh, I forgot. Well, I made you a plate anyways.

Dad: [Thinking, “You tormenting bitch,” as he looks at a plate full of foods he considers his favorites] Thank you.

At the time, he could still walk and talk, but struggled to do both. The Lou Gehrig’s disease had gone after his diaphragm so he was having breathing trouble. His lung capacity was down to 33 percent, meaning he could only fill his lung to 33 percent of capacity, and it continued to drop lower and lower. He was using a breathing machine, the Bi-lateral positive airway pressure (BiPap), at night and during day naps. Before the disease, he never napped, but it left him with no choice. The BiPap came with a mask that made my Dad look like a hospital patient from the future and cut into his nose. It made Darth Vader sounds to emphasize what an evil disease Lou Gehrig’s is.

“Luke, I am keeping your Father alive,” it seemed to say in Darth Vader’s voice.

[Editorial note: God last line was so stupid. Was that supposed to be funny? Dan you are such a shitty person and writer.]

The whole “my parent’s are dying” mess all started when my Mother was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 1993. I remember the day. She went to the doctor’s because she hadn’t been feeling well and returned a cancer patient. My four siblings and I were all around the age of ten. We didn’t know what cancer meant. I had heard of it, but mostly in reference to the Tropic of Cancer, having been a geography buff. My little sister Chelsea couldn’t even pronounce the word.  “What is Cansore?” I remember her asking as we all broke into tears upon hearing the news. 

I, not knowing how to explain it to a three-year-old child not yet in school and barely on her two feet said, “It’s not good.” 

My Mother’s cancer wasn’t good by any means but important words came with the diagnosis, words like, “Treatable”, “OK”, “Survive”, and “In its earlier stages”.  So, looking her kids in their watery eyes she made it a point to not let cancer fuck with her being a Mom. She thus started a journey that she is still on today. She has now undergone 78 chemotherapy treatments, and the numbers are growing each year, each month. She is still our mother and she is still alive. 

Over the years I learned to deal with the fact that my Mom had cancer. I really blew it off and took for granted her will and strength to fight it. It was so common for me to be asked how my mother was doing, I instinctively would just respond, “Oh, she’s fine.  Now what’s for dinner Mrs. Book.” 

My Mom was able to seemingly fight cancer so nonchalantly because of my Father’s willingness to be a solid and healthy figure in our lives. I can only remember my Dad calling in sick for work once or twice in the 26 years I’ve known him. He was what Bob Seger was talking about in his song, “Like a Rock”.  He was always there, and, most importantly, he took the load off my mom so, when she needed to, she could focus on fighting off the cancer.

Then another bag of shit hit the fan on October 26^th, 2006 when I returned back from a pool in Palm Spring, where I was very wealthily vacationing with my girlfriend, to find six missed calls from my Mother, three from my brother, Greg, and two text messages from my little sister, Michelle, who to this date primarily communicates through text messages. I initially thought, “Oh fuck, something happened to one of our dogs.”  A thousand hypothetical scenarios ran through my head. Maybe Berkeley was hit by a car. Maybe one of the cruel Mormon neighborhood boys beat him to death and carved “Fuck the Marshall’s” into his heart. Maybe he swallowed and choked on one of the two tennis balls he usually carries in his mouth.

I called my Mom back. She answered. “Where the fuck have you been?”

“At the pool. What the fuck is up?” I responded, wanting to match her swear word for swear word, a game we secretly play.

 “It’s Dad.”

“Fuck, what happened to Bob,” I responded. I always called him Bob, mainly because I enjoy saying the word so much. Bob. See, that was very enjoyable to me.

“Dad has…”  She was crying too much to even get the words out. 

“Dad has…” She tried again. “Here talk to your Dad.”

Early in the week my Dad had been eating chicken noodle soup made by our Polish cleaning lady Stana. Stana was a great cook most of the time, but occasionally would slip up and leave a shell in her egg and potato salad, or not fully cook a piece of salmon, or leave the tail on a shrimp, etc.. This time she left a bone in the chicken noodle soup. In the process of enjoying the soup, my Dad swallowed one of Stana’s mistakes. He had been at the hospital earlier in the week where they performed some procedure to scope his throat and get rid of the bone. The major side effect of the procedure was that it left his voice depleted and scratchy.

“Hey Dan.  How was the pool?” he asked in his scratchy voice, answering the phone like it wasn’t passed to him by a frantic, crying person.

“It was fine. It’s always sunny and hot out here. Bob, what’s up?  Is it the chicken bone? The Dogs?”

“No, well. Well, I have. Well, they think I have. Well, they think I might have Lou Gehrig’s disease.

“Really?  Well that fucking sucks.” I paused for a few seconds.  “Which one is Lou Gehrig’s disease again?”

“It’s a neurological disorder where your spinal cord loses its ability to communicate with the muscles. It’s sort of a dying off of your motor neurons and can lead to paralysis.”

“But the dogs are ok?”

“What? Yes the dogs are ok. And I’m going to be okay. I can live a long, long time with this. Stephen Hawkins has had the disease for 20 years or something, so don’t worry about me.” 

“It’s Stephen Hawking dumb ass,” I said.

“Oh, sorry. Well the point is, I can live a very long time,” he said with as much confidence as a man who recently choked on a chicken bone can muster.

Everything was always going to be ok from by Father’s perspective. It was one of his flaws but talents, to make tragic events seem ok. I remember how frustrating this always was.  “Well the Jazz lost to the Bulls this year, but they’ll be good next year,” I remember him saying after Michael Jordan nailed that infamous jumper over Byron Russell to win his sixth championship. “Fuck off Dad,” I would think.

“Well Dad. This can officially be placed in the ‘shitty news’ file. Are you getting a second opinion?”

“Yeah, we’re looking into it. There are a lot of things this could be. It could be Lyme disease.”

“Fuck. Really? Lyme disease?” I had heard of that one. 

“Yeah, we’ll see. I didn’t mean to ruin your trip. You said the weather was nice?”

“Yes, it’s always sunny and hot here,” I reminded him. 

“Well, you should go back to the pool.”

“I’m not going back to the pool. Can I talk to mom? I love you.”

My mom got on the phone and just started crying, a grave contrast to my father’s reaction to the news. I told her to settled down and wait for the second opinion before we go into crisis mode. We called my girlfriend’s Mom, who was always seemingly near a computer, to tell us more. She was always our 411 when we were lost or needs a restaurant suggestion or couldn’t think of the name of a movie. I started to take the whole thing more seriously when she said things like, “lives for an average of three years,” and, “is considered terminal,” and, “may require a wheelchair after it leads to paralysis,” and, “many patients are on a respirator,” and, “Danny, your Father is going to undoubtedly die soon and leave you a lonely, single bastard child with a drinking and motivation problem.” 

“Let’s go back to the pool,” I told my girlfriend after hanging up the phone.

Second and third opinions confirmed the diagnosis.

So there it was.

Two terminally ill parents.   

Once my Dad started showing signs that the disease was working on him, my Mom started providing most of the care for him, but her fight with Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma was in round 78, so she needed to sit in the corner of the ring on that little stool, and have water splashed on her face and her cuts filled as her coach yelled that she has the heart of a champion and that she could fight through a few more rounds and beat that mother fucker they call cancer.

I was needed.

Plus, my Mom was on my ass. He has a way of controlling others through guilt. Guilt is powerful and ugly, just like Shaquille O’Neal, and is my Mom’s weapon of choice. She was implementing guilt through text messages. She was sending me three or four intense messages a day. I wanted to kick the person who taught her how in the teeth.

–We really need your help. Dad is going to die soon.

–I can’t do this.

–Come home.

–It’s not looking good out here. How’s work?

–Dad shit his pants today. We need your help.

–I’m just getting home from chemo. Your Dad is way worse. Wish you were here to help.

–I’ve been vomiting all day and your Dad can’t move his arms. Your siblings are starting to resent you. I hope you are well.

We all have those “What the fuck am I doing here?” moments. Mine came after reading a particularly intense guilt message from Mother Dear. It read: “Dan we met with the architect elevator guy and contractor today. This could really push me over the edge, but I am going to do it. I have been in bed all day trying not to throw up from twelve hours of chemo and blood transfusions. It would probably be a zoo to move home right now with all the construction, although we could really use the help.”

When I read this message I was at a bar called the Derby on Los Felix, probably five drinks into what was shaping up to be another shit-show of a night, despite it being a Wednesday. I was working at a strategic communications PR firm in downtown LA, and one of my co-works, John, was particularly good at getting me to drink during the weekdays and had a line he would use to get me out every time.

John: Let’s get fucked up tonight.

Me: It’s a Wednesday.

John: Yeah it’s a Wednesday, but we are so fucking young. We’re not going to be able to do this shit pretty soon.

Me: Yeah but…

John: Listen, I’m going to go out and be young and probably get a ton of pussy and I suggest you do the same.

Me: God damnit John, I’m in.

So, here I was, wildly drunk in everyone-has-their-head-up-their-ass LA while my Mom lies in bed, recovering from a horrible day of being injected with awful drugs to keep her from dying so she could continue being our Mother. I read the message and asked myself, “Do you want your next drink to be a gin and tonic or a vodka tonic, bad-son Dan?” As I was sipping on my newly purchased gin and tonic, I looked around the room full of young, energetic adults, chit-chatting away, listening to music, having some drinks. “Fuck, I am being so young,” I thought. 

Then I caught a glimpse of myself in a wall mirror, my fat, smiling face sweating out alcoholic, and had the moment.

“What the fuck am I doing here?”

I flew home the next weekend to assess the situation. Home was certainly different. My Dad was worse. His arms didn’t move. Watching him try to give me a hug was like watching a four-year-old child try to lift a 100-pound weight. I would do this cute act of affection where I would lift up his arms for him and place them around my shoulders for a hug.  My Mom was on edge. My older sister, Tiffany, clearly resented me and reminded me how much more she was doing for the family in comparison to me, who was getting drunk and sitting on beaches in Los Angeles, starring at beautiful pussy and wondering what amazing thing I was going to do that day (Hollywood Bowl perhaps). My gay brother had pubic lice.

The calm, soothing force that was my Dad displayed more anger than usual. While my little sister, Chelsea, was slowly buttoning up my Dad’s shirt because he couldn’t lift up his arms to do it himself, she noticed that Tiffany had removed all the pictures of her and her ex-boyfriend from her room.

Chelsea: How could she get rid of those pictures? What a whore.

Dad: Don’t talk like that. God damnit.

Chelsea: What. She shouldn’t take down those pictures and get rid of those memories. It’s bitchy.

Dad: Chelsea. What did I just say? Don’t talk like that. I want to smack you in the face.

Chelsea: You can’t move your arms.

Dad: [Looking down at shirt, clearly frustrated] How long does it take to button up a fucking shirt?

He also had little tolerance for our hyperactive golden retrievers. Anytime they would try to charge out the front door so they could freely run around the neighborhood, shitting where ever their heart/anus desired, my Dad would greet them with a swift kick to the rib cage, making great use of his still movable legs.

“These fucking dogs,” he would say. He was clearly frustrated. Everything was not normal on the home front. 

When I returned to LA, I decided that I would talk to my boss and try to take a leave of absence so I could return home to Utah to take care of my terminally ill parents, who I had started calling “Team Terminal”.

My boss, Ian, already knew about my parent’s health conditions following a voicemail my Mom, all fucked up on chemo drugs, had left him at his home at 11 p.m. The morning after my Mom’s call was strange. He called me into his office:

Ian: Close the door.

Me: [Closing door]

Ian: I received a call from your Mother at my home last night at 11 p.m.

Me: Shit.

Ian: Is everything alright?

Me: Well, she’s…well…[Deciding to launch into it] She’s insane right now. She’s going through chemotherapy and it’s messed with her head. And well, my Dad has Lou Gehrig’s disease, and it’s not looking good, so she’s stressed about that. And I have a gay brother. God woman are so emotional and insane.

Ian: Yeah, my wife is insane too. [Pausing and looking out the window at the sprawling Los Angeles area from the 39^th floor of the Aon building] Well shit, I’m sorry to hear about all this.

Me: Yeah, it’s shitty, but, you know, what can you do…

Ian: [Focusing on a helicopter flying by] Well, let me know if I can do anything to help.

Me: [Mumbling] How about a raise?

Ian: What?

Me: How about your praise.

So, a couple of weeks after my crazy Mom decided it necessary to alert my boss of the situation, I sent him this desperate email. 

—

Ian,

As you know, I spent last weekend at home with my family. Unfortunately, my Father’s condition is much worse than I had anticipated. His weight is down to 140 pounds and his breathing is down to around 33 percent (meaning he is only able to inhale and exhale 33 percent of his lung’s capacity). They have already surgically implanted a feeding tube and are going to be putting him on a breathing machine shortly, at which point he will no longer be able to talk. To top it off, my Mom is undergoing intense chemotherapy and is emotionally unstable (as you witnessed first-hand when she called you at 11 p.m.).

My family and I are in a state of panic right now and I’m not sure what to do about the whole situation. I’ve been thinking about solutions all day long and was wondering if I could talk to you about me potentially taking an unpaid leave of absence to help out at home and spend time with my family. I don’t know how long it would last or if Abernathy even allows for these, but I do know that I really enjoy working here and would love to continue working here in the future.

I know the timing for this request is awful, with Whitney transferring to New York and all, and that my temporary departure would place extra stress on everyone, but I would be willing to assist in finding some extra help and stay on until mid-to-late September to ensure we have the bases covered.

I apologize for this request. I wish I didn’t have to make it. I thank you for considering it and being such an accommodating employer. Let me know if you are available to talk in greater detail tomorrow.

Thanks,

Daniel Marshall

—

We met a couple of days later to discuss the logistics of my leave. It was to be a three-months, unpaid, but I still got health insurance (No big deal). My last day would be September 15, 2007, and I would try to return on December 15, 2007. Initially, I thought there was a good chance that I’d return. I thought I would go out there, wipe some ass, get my Dad stabilized, wipe some more ass, maybe sit in on a couple of chemotherapy sessions, get drunk alone in my basement, maybe exploit my parent’s health through my writing, and wipe some more ass. I figured that, if I didn’t return to LA, I would at least return to San Francisco to be close to my girlfriend, who wasn’t pleased about the whole he’s-moving-to-Utah-to-care-for-his-family-in-need-instead-of-moving-to-care-for-me situation very well.

While I ready for a return to the Mormon capital of the world, my Mom continued to gather additional support from friends and family. My Mom had always been a very generous woman, giving gifts and love to all her friends whenever they needed the support, whether they just had a death in the family, learned of a shitty medical diagnosis, or were just having a hard time. She was revered as one of the most caring and giving friends one could have. So when it was time for others to help her, she wasn’t shy about asking for assistance. So she sent out a letter to every person she knew:

—

Dear Family (as you know, we consider you ALL our extended family),

The last three weeks have been horrendous for our family. We arrived home from our cruise July 11^th at 3 p.m. I had a badly infected tooth and toenail. Thank God my wonderful doctor had sent me off with antibiotics. That same morning, at 10 a.m., I had my big toenail removed and all the infection dug out (which had gone to the bone), a root canal and blood transfusions.

The following Tuesday, July 17, a respiratory therapist came to test Bob’s exhalation rate. It had gone from 48 percent to 36 – an alarming drop as they worry if it goes below 50. He is already using a BiPap machine to breathe at night.

The next day, we saw Bob’s neurologist, and the news was grim. He had lost 20 more pounds in a matter of weeks; the ALS is literally eating his muscle tissue. He informed us Bob would need a feeding tube (PEG) inserted into his stomach immediately so that I could supplement his additional calories morning, noon and night. He also said Bob has less than a year to live.

We saw the neurologist again Friday, July 20. He said Bob’s life could be prolonged on a respirator, so that is what Bob has chosen to do. However, he will need care 24/7.

In addition to all of this, I need chemotherapy IMMEDIATELY so that I will be in better condition to take care of Bob 24/7. I started my chemo today, Wed.. It is “big guns” chemo with several risk factors, but at this point, I don’t have a choice. The hope is that I can complete my chemo before Bob needs a respirator. We are under a HUGE time constraint here.

To top everything else off, reconstruction of our house to make it handicap accessible begins July 30.

As you can see, we desperately need help. If you feel you can’t help in any way, we totally understand. We need help in the form of driving kids, taking Deb to/from chemotherapy and blood transfusions, sitting with Bob on those days, bringing in meals and especially taking a shift with Bob when he is on a respirator so that I can go to the grocery store or parent-teacher conferences, etc. He can’t be left alone for a second.

Our dear friends, Barb and Dan Spikes, bring dinner every Tuesday night. They have done this since Bob was diagnosed with ALS last October, and I believe there is a special place in heaven for those two kind souls.

Sweetheart Sally Loken has agreed to type and send out this letter and try to coordinate volunteer schedules – a monumental task. Of course we will need a lot more help when Bob’s respirator is in place, and that date, along with the date of his feeding tube, are yet unknown.

I have come up with a list of people, in no particular order, I thought could/would help. The list follows this letter. Please don’t feel any obligation to help out. Sally, bless her heart, has agreed to coordinate volunteers.

If we get enough volunteers, each person might only have to help out once a month or less. Please contact Sally by email, phone or mail.

And let her know the following:

-       In what capacity do you feel you can help?

-       What days are you available?

-       What times are best for you?

We are hoping Bob can hold out with going on the respirator until my chemo is complete and I feel better, but we wanted to be prepared. Thank you so much. We couldn’t do this without you.

Love,

Debi Marshall

—

My Mom isn’t much of a comedy writer, but she and I share a special bluntness that can be piercing and persuasive when used correctly. We both have loud mouths and can’t keep secrets, as evident by my open-book style. I would purposely not tell her anything about my personal life because she would use any of that information against me if necessary. I can’t tell you how many times my Mom would say something like, “Well, Dan got drunk last night,” or “When Dan was two, he crawled beneath his crib, unfastened his diaper, and ate his own shit out of it.” But in this case, she redeemed her goodwill and used her bluntness to begin mobilizing and unreal amount of support. It didn’t hurt that we live in a Mormon community where neighbors are treated like friends instead of a big city where neighbors are treated like enemies out there to fuck your wife and keep you up at night with loud music. 

Two of my best friends, Aria and Henry, were flying in to help me drive a U-Haul full of my shit back to Utah. 

I made an agenda of things to do before I left Los Angeles to return home. The list was entitled Defarting LA: Tentative Agenda. I can never resist a fart joke. Fart. 

September 13

• Call U-Haul place
• Tell them they suck
• Order U-Haul to be picked up on September 21
• Pray that they don’t fuck up your order
• Craigslist posting for furniture
• Accidentally get too drunk?

September 14

• Last day of work
• Write a company-wide letter thanking them for letting me take the leave of absence
• Remind work about dying parents more times than necessary
• Lunch with good friend John V.W.
• Holly coming into town
• Pick her ass up
• Dinner
• Wine
• Sex?

September 15

• Cal football game
• Watch it!!!
• Football!!!
• Football!!!
• Football!!!
• Drink Gatorade to sober up
• Football highlights
• Reevaluate priorities

September 16

• Begin boxing some things up
• Try getting to the beach for some California sun, whitey
• Finish reading your book
• Enjoy living in Los Angeles
• Begin feeling sad about leaving/parent’s health

September 17

• Happy Birthday, fag
• Massage!
• Hand job?
• Try not to cry after massage therapist rejects request for hand job
• Just go ahead and cry
• Tell him/her about your parents
• Listen as he/she tells you an equally sad and tragic story about growing up in Taiwan
• Realize that everyone goes through awful shit every now and again
• Make it a point to stop self-pity/self-loathing
• Be nicer to family
• Avoid birthday calls from Mom so she feels bad

September 18

• Wake up in a sweaty panic
• Relax
• Continue packing
• Holly leaves
• Tell her you love her and care about her and hope it all works out
• Maybe make an awkward marriage joke
• Lunch/dinner with roommate Gabe
• Change electricity bill to Gabe’s name
• Possibly cancel cable bill
• Cancel gym membership
• Enjoy Los Angeles nightlife?

September 19

• Lunch/dinner with Gabe
• Henry arrives at 2:30 from Burbank
• Prepare for his fat comments by eating a teriyaki burger from Carl Jr.’s
• Pick his ass up
• Let him call you fat
• Call him a half-Jap
• Drive in awkward silence for a bit
• Break the tension by saying, “So, Los Angeles, huh?”
• Continue packing
• Go out somewhere (strip club?)

September 20

• Finish packing
• Pick up Aria
• Tell U-Haul they suck after they fuck up your order and make you wait amongst judgmental, racist Mexican’s for a few hours only to be redirected to another branch
• Keg party in U-Haul?
• That’s just ridiculous

September 21

• Wake up at a decent hour
• Load U-Haul
• Tell friends about how shitty you think the U-Haul company is
• Wave good-bye to Los Angeles
• Take a deep breath
• Prepare for a worse life
• Begin driving with Henry and Aria

Over the summer, while living in San Francisco eating cheese and fucking shit up at wine bars, I received a call from my Mom. The conversation started slow and ended with me saying, “I don’t want to fucking talk to you about this.”

Debi: So have you talked to Holly?

Me: Yeah, we talked last night.

Debi: How’d it go?

Me: Fine.

Debi: You know what you should do?

Me: No.

Debi: Go buy a diamond engagement ring with a white gold ban and marry her.

Me: We’re broken up. We just talked. That’s it.

Debi: Well you both clearly love each other, so why don’t you just go and buy the ring and go over there and give it to her. Girls love that kind of romantic shit. Wrap it up in a big package, and then put it in a Pez dispenser, and then ask her if she wants a Pez and when she says ‘yes’ then pop it open and the diamond ring will pop out.

Me: What if she doesn’t want a Pez?

Debi: That’s impossible. She won’t turn down a Pez. This is your one chore for today. Are you going to do it?

Me: No. We’re not even together.

Debi: So what. You love each other. I’m always right.

Me: No you’re not.

Debi: Yes I am. Do it. Go buy the ring and the Pez and get your ass over there.

Me: Mom, I don’t want to fucking talk to you about this.

CLICK.

I hung up the phone. End of conversation. Put it in a Pez dispenser? Who the fuck does she think I am? Willy Wonka? 

There are days when my Mom has had enough. Being a widow, being short, the ware and tear of surviving cancer’s attacks all combine with everything else. Frustration builds and occasionally boils over. Instead of taking it out on her children, she has subconsciously decided to take it out on her dogs. It was my Dad’s birthday on December 3^rd, so she was having a particularly emotional day. As she walked through the kitchens, her eyes red from all the crying, I decided to throw hot water on the burn.

“The dogs shit in the basement,” I said.

“Those fucking dogs. Fuck them.” She walked over to our elder dog Berkeley. “You fucking fuck. I’m not fucking feeding you until you stop shitting in the house.”

It makes sense. You can’t shit if you don’t have anything to shit.