For the Record

A few weeks ago, my parents, Pat, and I attended a Service of Remembrance at the Fox Chase Cancer Center.  The Cancer Center hosts this gathering every six months or so. It is hosted by several members of the care team as well as their bereavement services.   Each family was invited to bring a memento of their loved one, and to light a candle in their memory.  The candles and mementos were placed at the front of the room for the duration of the ceremony.  

My parents brought along Dan’s “Don’t Tread on Me” flag and one of the prayer cards from the funeral.  I took the "What Would you Do?" sign from my office. Most people seemed to stick with traditional items, like photos or sports memorabilia.  But one family brought a large pillow shaped like a monkey, and the placed him in a prominent place.  I looked at that monkey a lot during the service. I was going to take a picture of the memory table for the website, but decided not to, because I felt that some attendees would see that as an invasion of a private moment.  I wish that I had said hello to the “monkey family” though.  The printed program listed the names of all of the patients who had passed away in the six month period- all 425 of them. This was heartbreaking to see.  I hope that St. Anthony is working hard on inspiring that cure!

We were also invited to share some thoughts for a binder of “Precious Memories” of our loved ones. How the heck do you fit 29 years' worth of memories onto a 4" by 6" space? How would I describe my brother for whoever opened up that binder? I had to resort to using Publisher to get everything on there that I wanted, but here is what I came up with:

 

 

The text follows:

I cried tears of joy for the first time when my parents brought Dan home from the hospital. As we grew up, those happy tears were sometimes replaced by tears of frustration! Dan was bright, inquisitive, knew how to tease, and seemed to be better than me at so many things. If anyone had told me that the little brother that shaved my cat or squirted dates with Super Soakers would grow to be one of my closest friends, I’d have laughed. But that’s what happened. We used to stand on the edge of family parties, shaking our heads at the antics of our relatives and “getting it” in a way that no one else would understand. And then he would run into the group and do a somersault. That was Dan.

Dan loved celebrating life’s simchas. He threatened to dress up as Mr. Peanut when Ben and I got married and insisted that there be French dressing for the salads at the reception. He was particularly excited when we announced that he would be an uncle. He rubbed my stomach and whispered to the baby in a Mr. Smithers voice, and offered to have a tailgate party at the hospital. (Complications prevented that from happening.) Thanks to Dan, Facebook knew that I’d had a baby boy before I did. He drove to DE with my family at 1:00 AM to see his nephew for the first time and promptly gave him a nickname. He teased me for being an engineer, and couldn’t resist making fun of SEPTA around me, especially when we rode the bumper cars in Hershey Park.

One thing that I want people to remember about Dan is that he was a fighter. No matter how many times life threw him a punch, he refused to stay down. He had few reservations, and always did what he thought was right. He was quick with a joke and never shy to express his opinion. He surrounded himself with fun whenever he could. He may have been afraid to take risks– but that never stopped him. He was able to cross “skydiving” off of his bucket list a few days before he was diagnosed with cancer for the second time. He won his fight with cancer.

We owe it to Dan to follow his example. He was only given a short life, but he made sure that it was a full one. I am not ready to jump out of a plane– but I am going to try to jump into life with both feet. And I am going to celebrate his life by doing so.