TheBanyanTree: Another One

[Margaret R. Kramer]

9/13/98
So that is why you keep me!
To do the kitchen,
Keep you in good sex,
Then do the ceilings,
Then do the rummage sale
Then keep you happy.
But you know that I love doing those things for you.  I love you too much!
Ray

My co-worker, Mark, died this week.  He had esophageal cancer and went into
the hospital about the same time Ray made his final stand.

The cancer had spread more than the doctors thought.  They had to remove
some cancer from the sac around his heart valve.  Mark got pneumonia and the
doctors put him into a coma to help him fight the infection.  As they were
bringing him out of the coma, he had a stroke.

That's a lot for a body to recover from and he sure tried hard.  He came
back to work a few weeks ago, but he was the walking dead.  Mark was so
thin, and he couldn't eat because his esophagus was all screwed up from the
surgery.  He slept in his office because he couldn't get any sleep at night.
Finally, he gave up and decided to take a 30 day leave.

Mark came to our company picnic, but he was dead already.  His jeans were
from the earlier days and they kept sliding off of his nonexistent butt  His
belt was too big, with a good foot of leather hanging from the belt buckle.
He sat and talked to everyone.  He knew, I think, he wasn't going to see any
of us again.

He went to the doctor two weeks ago and they found the cancer had come back
with a vengeance and took over his abdomen.  It nestled against his stomach
and proceeded to kill him.

Ray was always concerned about anyone who had cancer.  He was a survivor of
laryngeal and lung cancer.  He knew about radiation and chemo treatments.
He knew about losing weight and being a shell and wondering if a life was
going to be long or being to be short.

In spite of his extreme pain, he worried about Mark with me, as I told him
about Mark's slow recovery from surgery.  Now both men are dead.

I told Ray to show Mark the ropes wherever they are.  I imagine newcomers
need help just like we do, and Ray was always the first one to offer help.

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at comcast.net
margaret.kramer at polarispublications.com
www.polarispublications.com

People do not die for us immediately, but remain bathed in a sort of aura of
life which bears no relation to true immortality but through which they
continue to occupy our thoughts in the same way as when they were alive.  It
is as though they were traveling abroad.  ~Marcel Proust
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