Two Year Anniversary of Cousin Jim's Death

Two years ago today, my cousin and friend Jim Wakefield left his journey in this world for another one. He was 28 years old.

Jim was an amazing human being. He was a social justice organizer working with new immigrant communities in Chicago. He'd lived, worked, and taught in West Africa and Korea. He was funny, brilliant, and loving. He is the kind of person that this world craves.

Like all humans he had his faults. He smoked too much, and every time I would see him I would tell him that his teeth were as ashy as my feet (which is pretty damn bad). When he taught me how to ride a back when I was seven, we were at our Grandma's house, and he neglected to tell me how to stop. Thank God the garage stepped in and showed me how to stop the hard way. His ex-girlfriend stole a t-shirt that I'd left at my cousin's parent's home when I was visiting during college. She took it to France and brought it back to me with a cigarette hole in it (damn those French! It's Freedom Fries from now on), and since I would never have known Allie...I blame Jim for her Francophone ways. But other than those foibles, my cousin was pretty damn cool (though, like most of the straight men in my family...I always wanted him to consider something other than a raggedy ass pair of jeans an and old stained white-ish t-shirt as daily wear).

Today, I am remembering the awesome human being that Jim was. From the time when we were all too damn young and Jim's older brother danced around our grandparent's hunting trailer with nothing on but some tube socks and an attitude and danced around singing, "Babies are made when the man puts the penis into the vagina," to drunken antics we shared at my cousin Dawn Michelle's wedding when Dawn asked my Mom to go commando on my Aunt Joanne's drunk and lecherous boyfriend...Jim figures prominently in some of the best times of my life.

I love you, Jim. I miss you, Jim. Say hi Grandpa for me, and save me a spot, k? I'll see you one day (but not too soon, I hope...and if you know something more than I do...keep it to yourself. Cheeky bastard!).

Risk and Death

One year ago today, I lost my cousin to leukemia. In less than three months, my little sister will be shipped back to Iraq for her fourth tour of duty. Last spring, I lost a friend and mentor, Mona Harris, to cancer. My little brother recently returned from Afghanistan, and with that war showing no signs of ending, it is almost a surety that he will also be sent back into harms way.

I am sick and tired of death and the risk of death.

At the age of 32, I should rarely have to think of death. If I do, it should come in the form of elders that have lived long and fulfilled lives, individuals that die surrounded by the people that love them knowing that they are loved.

How fucking naive is that statement.

Unfortunately, I know that because I am not white and most of the people around me are not white, they will die younger than they should. I know because I have had one family member die from cancer that now it is more likely that others will also pass along.

And then there is war.

When a country enters into a war it enters into a compact with death. It promises to the Reaper the certainty of soul collection in order to achieve some goal. Some wars are fought because they must be fought. Though the impetus for the United States to enter the Second World War had little to do with justice and everything to do with empire, entering World War II was just. Hitler was an evil man with evil ambitions that caused great and destructive harm.

No war since then that has been fought by the United States has been right or just, they have simply been the United States trying to protect or enforce a particular corporatized political ideology or protect our own selfish and self-destructive political and economic interests.

The rest of the world and the families that sacrifice their children on the altar of false patriotism be damned.

The death of my cousin and Mrs. Harris and the risk of death of my little brother and sister are connected.

We spend BILLIONS of dollars each month on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Forget Korea, forget Vietnam, forget the silent invasions of Grenada, Panama, Somalia and the first Gulf War. Just calculate the amount of money that we have spent in the last six years in Afghanistan and Iraq. Now imagine if even ten percent of that money had been spent on cancer research and treatment.

My cousin almost survived leukemia.

He had an experimental bone marrow transplant, and for months the doctors at the University of Illinois-Chicago were calling him the miracle guy. Except the cancer came back and took him down quickly.

Afterwards they examined the data and thought perhaps they had done the transplant to soon, too quickly, they hadn't given his own immune system enough time to resist the cancerous blood cells. What if they had been granted a billion dollars to do their research? One billion dollars is LESS than we spend on war in one month. YET imagine what it would mean to research labs across the country. A year ago, perhaps the researchers would have known what they WILL know five years from now. If only they had the staff, equipment, lab space, and materials to move forward. If ONLY Bush hadn't restricted stem cell research during his eight years in office. If only we cared more about preserving life than we did about preserving the bottom line of corporations and shareholder profits.

If only.

But we don't. Instead, I am sitting here nearly a year after my cousin's death. I am remembering that I couldn't afford to fly from California to Minnesota to be with my family. To this day the guilt of that sits in my stomach. I saw my Aunt in June for the first time since my cousins death. All I could think of was that I was my cousin's closest family member outside of his Mom, Dad, and two brothers. I WAS the cousin that made sure to see him when he was in the hospital. I was the cousin that his wife loved. I was the cousin that went to see him when he got back from Korea. I was his friend.

And there is a good chance that if we spent more on life than on death that he would still be alive today, and I would still get to see him at family reunions and on holidays. I would have gotten to be at his wedding, and I would, perhaps, be with him right now.

Instead I am wondering how his nephew, the son of his twin brother, will ever know how amazing his uncle was. Instead, I wonder if my Aunty Susie, a woman that treated me like one of her own children, a woman that I love and look up to, a woman that understood me when I didn't really understand myself...I wonder if she will ever be the same aunty that I have known and loved my entire life.

And all because of a stupid disease that we could cure, except that we are too busy spending our money on war. And I am too busy worrying if I am going to lose my brother and sister too soon as well.

Dignity

Dignity is a word that is, I believe, over used. From the time we are children we are told to lose with dignity, live with dignity, to not lose our dignity, and, finally, to die with dignity.

I have always had a vague notion of what that means in some contexts. If you should happen to lose a game, it means show yourself and those with whom you've played respect. Conduct yourself with honor. Bow to your opponent and understand that you can play again another day. Do not, however, throw the Monopoly board across the room when playing games on family night, when you have landed on Boardwalk and your dapper older brother has built a hotel and you find yourself broke and out of the game. Ahem. Little sister.

To live with dignity, I have come to understand, is to recognize that no matter the circumstance in which you find yourself to carry yourself in a way that you have no cause to apologize to others because you have treated the world and yourself with respect, courtesy, and humaneness.

To avoid losing ones dignity, please refer to the rules around living with dignity.

But the one that I have never truly known, or had cause to know, outside of the realm of pop culture and big screen movies, is to die with dignity. In the cinema it means falling on your sword when you have dishonored yourself or refusing to beg for mercy when you are kneeling on the chopping block and the guilloitine is racing for your neck. When I would see those scenes, usually when I was pretending I was a horribly wronged Mary Queen of Scots or a love lost samurai in Ancient Japan, I would watch the Queen/warrior die, without a sound, and a stoic righteous look on their faces.

That is Hollywood for you.

Life is a lot messier, but the dignity I have come to know in the dying is much more powerful. In the last six months I have lost two family members to cancer. One, my cousin, was taken before he reached the age of 30. The other was the mother of my sister, a family member of choice, who was cut down before she could watch her grandchildren grow up. Both my cousin, Jim, and Mrs. Harris were terrified. Both fought for their lives with tenancity and strength. Both had moments of tears, and both asked for and accepted the love and support of family and friends. But neither of them, one young and one older, wanted or accepted pity. Though neither were a burden and both were lovingly given all that those around them had to give, both acted in such a way that it was obvious that even when they needed to ask for love and support and needed to cry and feel their pain and be afraid, tried their damndest to do otherwise. They both spent more of their time worrying about the impact of their health on their families than they did thinking about themselves. And both, in the end, shut their eyes surrounded by love, devotion, and caring---that they did not beg for but were given because of who they were and how they moved through this world.

That is what it means to die with dignity. It does not mean you are unafraid. It does not mean you do not hurt or ask for love and support. It does mean that you fight like hell, keep living and until the very last moment, and do so in a way that does not demand but accepts the love around you.

In life and in death my cousin and Mrs. Harris taught me something about life, showed me the ways in which I need to look more closely at myself, and gave me the opportunity to love them in the way they deserved to loved.

It is cliche to say, but I would quite literally give anything to have Jim and Mrs. Harris back on this earth, healthy, living, and touchable. I am not God, and I can not bring them back, but I can honor them and the lessons that their living and dying have afforded me. I only hope that when it is my time to leave this world, that I leave it with the same strength, love, and dignity with which they departed. Sleep well family. Thank you.