As a prelude, he would appreciate but not enjoy, that I am doing this – although I suspect he knew I would because I loved him.
The word “good” casts a very wide net. Saying a man is a “good fella” could mean anything from him consistently being gracious to mankind, opening doors for women, visiting the sick in the hospital, etc… or the ability to take out someone from 100 yards with a clean shot.
Ernest John Cubbon was not merely a “good fella,” he was exceptional. He was my friend, and he was my stepfather. Was. The operative word. He passed away near the end of June, June 20th to be exact, and we had his memorial service July 15th. It’s been a difficult loss to process and frankly, I have been volunteering to travel for work just to get away from the grief.
Some people simply die. Ernie, to me, passed away. Is there a difference? I believe there is, for “passed away” means he’s gone somewhere else and still lives on in our collective hearts and souls of those who loved him. He, in the words of my niece Hayley, is his own cosmos and will determine who can join him there. I was merely one of hundreds who loved him so he has a lot of decisions to make on that account.
He lived a long, very full, life. He was 94 when he took his exit. On the face of it, it’s easy to say “whoa – 94, good run” and that would be it. But it’s not. Those who loved him and were close to him knew he was 94, knew his health was declining (physically and mentally), and knew he was closer to the end than the beginning. But, you know, THE book(s) had Moses lived for 120 years, so why not? There’s a lot of ‘why not’ but let’s boil it down to him suffering from the cruel, crawling specter of Alzheimer’s. It was hard to watch, and I know during those lucid moments with him the past year or so it was far harder on him.
The shock of his passing was the speed of it all. Too quickly for some of us, but for him it was a relief and as the days separate his date of death from us moving forward, it was a relief for us too.
He didn’t prolong his life and lived out his final days as he wished. At 94 Ernie never used a walker. He may have, on occasion, needed one but he refused to use it. My mother thought it might be a good idea for my sister and I to buy him one as a present this past Christmas. That’s called a short-term thought not fully fleshed out. We knew it was her concern of him falling leading to this thought, and knew he was not going to accept any sort of “gift” from my mother. We collectively, and politely, passed on the gift idea.
On Thursday, June 15th he fell. He got back up – by himself as he refused help from my mother – then fell again. This time he hit his head on a wall. Off to the hospital. A head colliding into anything means a scan and the scan found a lump, a ball about the size of a spinning quarter (the ball was not spinning, he was not possessed). Being that he also was suffering from Leukemia, had the snaky vine of Alzheimer’s as well as Dementia and that my mother and he talked extensively about quality of life AND the doctors said it would not be a good idea to go in and take a biopsy, it was collectively decided he’d go into hospice.
Hospice is interesting. Hospice is a recommended route, at least in Colorado, where the professionals in the building decide the patient has no more than 6 months left to live. Granted, patients do “graduate” from hospice, clear that six-month threshold like Edwin Moses (the other Moses), and repeatedly go in and out of hospice. It happens. Ernie happened to be very fit when he was young and could still get those feet shuffling where he could motor, even at 94. It caused a few problems for he’d just turn and decide to go for a walk without telling anyone, and this had happened more frequently, so my mother had to have emergency personnel on speed dial so to speak (for the record, he was an only child and has a long-time wanderer – that never left him).
My sister and I, along with our mother, went to see him Saturday the 22nd while he was still in the hospital. He was not responsive; we had a few questions which were answered to the best of the nurse’s and social worker’s collective abilities. We left to take our mother home. She had to prepare for hospice care at the house as he was to arrive the next day.
I had a work trip to go on to Bend, Oregon and left Sunday morning. I figured the 4 days I’d be gone would be ok, plus I could occupy my time shooting images of nearly a hundred RVs (I work for Camping World and shoot a ton of photos) and take a hike or two. Sunday, I hiked Tumalo State Park for a few miles to clear my head. Felt better. Monday, I got some texts from my sister re how things were going. She had wisely decided to stay with our mother for Ernie’s transition to hospice. The texts, much like at the house, were as confusing on my end as the scene was on her end. None of us had been through this, but we all knew one thing. Ernie was not willing to live like this.
Tuesday morning, I was trolling the RV lot, trying to find various models I needed to shoot. The back lot was packed with used RVs so tight if they were sardines in a tin can they would have felt stifled. And there it was – a bobcat slipping between travel trailers and truck campers in the bright daylight. Odd… or not. Indigenous peoples, take the Hopi for instance, feel having a bobcat cross your path is not a good thing as they are considered selfish, greedy and disregard social rules. Perhaps. Perhaps I was meant to furtively see it. I got maybe 10 seconds of it and that was it. Seemed to disappear into the ether without a sound. Around 2PM I got the call from my mother – “Ernie has gone to heaven” is the way she put it and frankly the way I expected her to put it.
It’s easy for me to reach back and tell myself I should have canceled the work trip, especially after seeing the bobcat (frankly, it has plagued me a bit). But we as a family are doers. We like to take on hard tasks and succeed. We’ve never backed away from something we thought would be too hard… because we haven’t found anything we were willing to take on too hard. We’re very active people, physically and mentally, and we suffer from being easily bored. As such, we chameleon from one activity to another. Climb a 14er? Sure, why not. Want to do another? Not really. Just did one. Ride a bike up to Estes Park? Sure, why not, said my sister. Want to do it again? Why? Already did it. For the most part that’s what we do. Conquer and move on. Sometimes when we are in a hospital, we get bored, so we change the dry erase board a tad. Nothing critical but it’s not a surprise to any of us if a nurse comes in, casually looks at the board to see the doctor on call’s name is now “Frankenstein.”
But Ernie would expect that from us. Those who ‘do’ simply do. The next article will be the ‘do’ and what Ernie did.
Fancy Boys Club 