Why do I have to do it?
“He has fought long and hard. He needs permission to let go.”
That is what my brother’s friends said. People that I had never met. Some had been witness to his battle at close range, offering their guest room close to the cancer treatments.
I had only seen him writhing in pain once on the bathroom floor when he had visited me several years before.
When cancer comes to call, it might leave for a while and provide hope before it comes knocking again. The roller coaster of emotions is quite a ride. You can’t get off. You can’t run and hide.
Shortly after the arrival of his second cancer diagnosis, I was driving on a dreary, foggy day. The weather matched my mood. A realization washed over me that he wasn’t going to make it this time. Was that a gift to help me prepare?
If a similar challenge finds you, try to accept it. Helpers often have a way of showing up along the way.
Fast forward over a quarter of a century. I am bringing a work of creativity forward that I think deserves to live on. In fact, when he compiled Laugh Lines, Victor was mainly keeping other people’s work alive. It has the standard copyright, but many of the quotes are in the public domain; some biblical ones are thousands of years old. He believed in the book enough to gather quotes, ponder their meanings and, in my opinion, compile them in an order that made them stronger than if they were standing alone. He also added some of his own quotes. I think the process helped him. He sold some copies but he also enjoyed sharing them with medical facilities for waiting rooms, etc.
I wanted to commemorate the anniversary of what would have been Vic’s 70th birthday—the so-called three-score-and-twenty life span mentioned in the Holy Bible. I decided to reconfigure the pages of his original booklet, which had one quote per page. The new version fits standard copier paper and I have printed numerous copies to share with friends and family. I also shared it digitally, dividing it into two PDFs that were within the limits for most email addresses. Advance the calendar again and I have a new website, so now I can share the download from it. I am grateful, once again, for my new friends at Book Publishing Pulse for helping with the technical stuff.
As one friend from high school recently recalled, “He gave the best hugs!” I’m glad that other people still remember, too.
