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| Kareen on left and James in the middle |
It’s been a strange week. I’m fighting that old beast
depression, and this past week it grabbed me by the neck like a pit bull. There’s
a lady who passed away last week in Huntsville, and although I did not know her
well, we’d spent a little time together while James Carroll was undergoing his
chemo treatments. Kareen Burns hosted a show at Hunters Bay Radio called K On The Bay and, I believe, she was the
longest running show host on HBR. Her interviews were always insightful
and interesting. I spent a little time with her on the several occasions when
she’d come to visit James at the hospital, and I know she was a good friend and
a great comfort to him. A two-time cancer survivor herself, Kareen helped James
cope with his anxiety and fear. I can’t say I bonded with her, because most of
our contact was when she came to see James. Having faced death more than once,
she was well-equipped to help James on his journey. I felt
her strength and determination.
Last Friday afternoon, HBR aired a pre-recorded MyTunes show featuring Kareen. This is a
show wherein the featured guest plays and hour of his or her favorite tunes. Kareen
pre-recorded this show three weeks ago, and she called her show Kareen’s Death Music. In the show, wherein host Jacob Kriger
interviewed her between songs, Kareen discussed, with baffling philosophical detachment,
her mortality, and her ongoing 15+ year battle with cancer. At the time of the
recording she had not officially learned that her cancer had returned, but I
think she knew. The songs she picked were beautiful, and I was moved by her
hopeful outlook on life. It was about the time of that MyTunes recording that I learned she was not well. Within three
weeks she was gone. Hearing her guest host that show was haunting. One of my
many regrets is not getting to know her better.
When James passed away, his death really hit me hard. I’d never experienced grief like that, and it was a sucker punch. I was
with him when he received the diagnosis, and I was around him for much of the last
months of his life, and although I did not know him for long, we were close at
the end. I felt profoundly sad when he died. James was a month younger than I, he
was a creative; he was a drinker, and a smoker. I suppose that I was subconsciously thinking,
there but for a roll of the dice go I. Were it not for some alignment of the
stars, some cosmic arm that pulled the switch and diverted me to a safer track,
I suspect things could have gone very differently for me.
Saturday, I spent some of the day building flower
boxes for our garden shed. Flowers are everywhere on our property, because they
remind me of my mom. As I put together these boxes, sitting on the front porch,
feeding the mosquitoes and feeling strangely ashamed and ungrateful for the blessings
I have known, I couldn’t stop thinking about these two relative strangers. I
thought of all the others who have touched my life and are now gone. As James ran
out of time, there was a chaotic effort on his part to bring order to the end
of his life. I got caught in that chaos, and in the no man’s land of another
soul’s confrontation with his or her imminent death. Hearing Kareen on the
radio last Friday, brought that all back. I look around at my beautiful, disorganized life,
which surrounds me like the cloud of dust that surrounds Pigpen in the Charlie
Brown comic, and I start asking questions that have no answers. I did not know
Kareen well, nor did I know James all that well for that matter, but we became close
near his end. The one thing I sensed from all I’ve heard about Kareen, was that
she gave more than she received, and that she was driven to help others. I hope
I’m worthy of being remembered that way when I go. I’ve learned a great deal from
the heroes and strangers who have touched my life. What to make of their loss
is something with which I will struggle as long as I live.
-Written by
Jamie Oppenheimer c 2017 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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