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Norm: I hope I might have the courage to read you this letter before it is too late, though it is far easier to write a blog for the whole world to see than it is to speak directly to the one person for whom it is intended. But to do so is to admit to myself and to tell you that I know that you are dying…which we both of course know. But avoidance is one of the silly games we humans play.
I wanted to let you know how much you have meant to me these past 52 years, and how integral a part of my life you are.
I remember the August night in 1958, two months out of college, when I first saw you at the Haig, a bar near Chicago’s Lawson YMCA. We didn’t speak in the bar, and you left before I did, but when I walked out, you were standing there waiting for me. We moved in together less than a month later.
I remember how we built our couch from plywood—we painted it a high-gloss black, and used a foam pad, for which we had a cover made. I remember visiting thrift shops to buy tables and a dresser…the dresser I still use today. And I remember the 3-foot harlequin lamp we both loved when we saw it in a shop window, but could not afford it, and how, serendipitously, we found exactly the same lamp in a thrift store, its base shattered, and how we bought it and remolded the base. I had it, too, until I moved from Wisconsin to return to Chicago. I remember the small faun’s head I bought you one Christmas, which you still have.
I remember the party we had to which I invited everyone with whom I worked at Duraclean International, and how I broke my toe while we were all dancing the hora, and how we ran out of liquor and Phil Ward drank the juice from a jar of olives.
I remember how my parents adored you, and the time shortly after we got together when we all went to Maxwell Street and, as you and Dad were walking ahead of Mom and me, I realized “Hey, I think I love this guy.” I remember our trips to the cottage on Lake Koshkonong with our friends, and how we helped Dad build an apartment for us above the garage. I remember water-skiing, and ski trips, and the time, coming back to Chicago from the lake in my then-new red Ford Sprint convertible, you spent most of the trip rummaging through a huge bag of potato chips looking for the perfect chip.
I remember evenings of cards and games with friends. And the one thing I remember most is that we never, in our six years together, had a really serious argument.
Of course I also remember that it was not all idyllic. Your job took you on frequent business trips, often several weeks at a time, during which we both, being young, were promiscuous, which inevitably contributed to our parting of the ways. I remember your never wanting us to take vacations together on the basis that we were together all the time, and that I could never understand that.
And after we broke up...it was me who broke it off because my promiscuity got out of hand…I spent, literally, the next ten years kicking myself around the block for having hurt you, because I know it did, deeply. We had little contact over the next 25 years or so, seeing one another occasionally, exchanging Christmas cards, but it was awkward for both of us.
Yet you remained close to my parents, and were there for my dad’s funeral, but were away somewhere when Mom died and I couldn’t reach you.
And then when I decided, after nearly 40 years, to return to Chicago, I naturally moved in with you until I could get my own place, and our friendship, minus the romance, resumed.
You have been one of the largest stones in the foundation of my life, and I love you in a way impossible to put into words. You are my family and it is important for you to know that. But I fear I will not be able to bring myself to say so directly to you, because to do so would be to release you, and I simply cannot do that. You’re part of who I am, and will always be.
I will try to let you know. I promise.
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My friend Norm died at 12:35 a.m. Thursday, February 18. Despite explicit instructions to notify me immediately, I did not learn of it until I showed up to visit him at 2:30 in the afternoon. When I went to sign in on the visitor’s register and the receptionist could not find his name, I pretty much knew what had happened. When she went to check with a supervisor, who came out to tell me he had “passed away” (good LORD, how I detest that term!!!) I demanded to know why I had not been notified. She called the nursing supervisor, who was of course all apologies, saying “We called his brother” (in Wisconsin). That’s all well and good, lady, but you did not call me despite my having seen them write a note and my phone number as his Power of Attorney on the face of his chart.
I later called his brother, who apologized for not having called me himself, but said he was sure they had called me. He had indeed been called at 2 a.m. and asked “what do you want us to do with the body?” He told them that I had Norm’s P.O.A. and had made all the arrangements in advance, and told them to call me. He gave them my phone number once again. They did not call. Their explanation was that the Power of Attorney had ended at the moment of his death and I therefore had no legal right to do anything at all…which apparently included being notified of his death.
At any rate, it was all eventually resolved, and I walked the one block to Norm’s condo to begin the after-death detail work.
Norm has lived in his condo for 40 years, and though he is/was now dead, there are 40 years of his life within those walls: photos of friends and family, high school yearbooks, certificates of acknowledgment for service to his church, bowling trophies, drawers of paid bills and receipts and records. Paintings, artwork, little stuffed animals, countless “things” collected over the years, closets full of clothes, a broken plant stand he’d never gotten around to repairing, a collection of antique irons—the kind you heated on the stove—at least three coffee makers, a wok…and on and on and on. And all of them meant something to him. But to whom else, really?
His diploma from a school of horticulture and flower design, carefully framed, pages of detailed notes on his investment accounts, lists of his medications and which ones were to be taken at which time...but here I go again, off on another recitation of things which were all part of Norm.
But though all of them were Norm, most of them are now utterly meaningless to anyone else, whose lives are also and already filled with things.
So I select those things which I assume his brother would want—family photos, his parents’ framed wedding announcement, an ornate, gilded wooden cross—and set them aside. When I returned home Thursday, I carried with me the small Faun’s head I had given him for Christmas so very many years ago. His roommate, Eric, a wonderful and caring young man who had moved in to help Norm when he was no longer able to care for himself properly, told me Norm had said it was one of his favorite things, and that made me both happy and infinitely sad.
So Friday I went to the lawyer to begin the legal processes necessary to implement my having been appointed as the executor of the will. Then will continue the sorting out of things, the calling of an antiques appraiser to try to dispose of some works of art, furniture, etc. Then, when those are gone, the calling of an estate buyer to come in for what remains. Then the listing of the condo for sale, the decision of whether to replace all the carpets, scratched doors, torn wallpaper destroyed by Norm’s beloved Jack Russell terrier-from-hell, Jezebel, who lived up to her name, or to sell it as is. And given today’s housing market, even with a magnificent 35th-floor unobstructed view of Lake Michigan and the Loop, it may take a while.
But it will be over, eventually. And when I leave the condo for the last time, it will be empty, and whoever lives there next will have no idea of who Norm was. They won’t know, or care.
But I will.
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This blog is from Dorien's ebook of blogs, Short Circuits, available from UntreedReads.com and Amazon.com; it's also available as an audio book from Amazon/Audible.com. You can find information about Dorien's books at his web site: www.doriengrey.com:
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