Disclosure: Michael lost his battle with cancer in February 2019, but he had asked me to tell his story–our story–and so I am. You can read more about why I’m doing so here. When I originally started this blog, I wrote about events and feelings in the moment, because everything was happening so fast, and everything was chaos. Now that Michael is gone, and I’ve had the time to slow down and look back, all future posts will tell Michael’s story in a more chronologically correct order…or mostly so, no guarantees. They’ll also include some insights and commentary forged from hard-earned hindsight.
Most nights for the duration of Michael’s illness we would sit in bed and binge watch all the shows we’d never seen, or re-watch the shows we liked. Neither of us had ever watched a single episode of “Shameless”. As soon as we started watching it, we were hooked.
If you have never seen “Shameless”, first of all, you’re missing out. Second, it’s the story of an extraordinarily dysfunctional, impoverished family who live on the south side of Chicago (not to be confused with the original version of the show, which is British). The dad, Frank Gallagher, is a substance-abusing grifter who essentially abandoned his six kids, leaving his eldest, a daughter named Fiona, to raise her five siblings. Frank comes in and out of his kids’ lives. Less frequently, their absentee, hot mess of a mother, Monica, shows up. Frank and Monica are estranged, but still love each other. The six kids run the gamut in terms of ages and their own, personal issues. It sounds pretty bleak, and it is, but it’s also a funny, tender, salty, nuanced, loving, shocking, sad, multi-layered show, and every single character in the ensemble cast has their own story arc. Nearly every episode will have you whipsawing between laughter, oh-my-God-I-can’t-believe-they-just-did-that, and near tears (if not actual tears). And nearly every episode features a superb soundtrack.
Michael and I would do as most people do when binge-watching a show and tell ourselves, okay, just one more episode, which always turned into, like, three more. I knew we were done for the night, though, when Michael would fall asleep midway through the show. If I wasn’t tired, though, I’d watch the whole thing ’til the end.
One night in August, maybe a month or so after Michael’s diagnosis, we were watching an episode of “Shameless” titled “Just Like the Pilgrims Intended”. Michael fell asleep halfway through, but I kept watching. I never wanted to wake Michael up when he fell asleep, because he was in so much pain that any sleep he got at all was a blessing.
I won’t give away the ending to the particular episode we were watching, except to say that one of the characters gets the rug completely ripped out from under him, and it’s gut-wrenching, but not unusual, because that’s how the show rolls. What got me was the song that was playing as the final scene of that episode played out. It’s a song called “Get on the Road” by a group called Tired Pony. I’d never heard the song before, but I was moved instantly and deeply, as though the music had injected itself into my very bloodstream. As the song played, I looked over at Michael, asleep, peaceful. And then a thought popped into my head: “He’s not going to make it.” I knew it, I felt it, just as quickly and deeply as I’d felt that song.
“He’s not going to make it.”
The words in my head were clear as a bell, undeniable. It was as if someone had spoken them aloud. Tears streamed down my cheeks. I choked back sobs so as not to wake Michael.
Through a veil of tears, I took a picture of Michael, because I wanted to remember him like that, in that moment. Peaceful. Vulnerable. Handsome. Alive.
After Michael died, I put together one of those Shutterfly albums with pictures of him, in which I included this photo. I come back to this one a lot, trace the contours of his face on the album’s page, just as I used to do in real life, in those tenderest of moments when he was still alive.
I downloaded that Tired Pony song that night. As much as I love the song, as gorgeous as it is, I don’t listen to it much, because I will always associate it with that clear-as-a-bell, prescient thought that sprang to mind: “He’s not going to make it.” That and the fact that all I want to do is get on the road and ride to Michael, but I can’t, because he’s not here anymore.
Hope for the Best, Prepare for the Worst: Cancer and What Came Next 