In March, 2015 when I heard the news that my high school wrestling coach had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, I did not hesitate to travel to see him. I called our team captain, David, and tried to get him to drive the few hours and see Coach Mauldin. He said, “I can’t. I don’t want to remember him that way.”

 

While I respected David’s privilege, I tried more than once to persuade him; all failed. He attended the funeral, but did not see our coach in the hospital before he died. Mary Ann, my wife, reminded me that many people would agree with David and not go see a dear friend or even relative who was at death’s door.

Ten months later I received an email from David asking me to call him. Scared of some dire news, I called him immediately. What he had to share was bad, but like all situations, an offering of good and a chance for service was also present. David had received a call from the wife of one of our high school teammates, Randy.

 

He and David had been best friends in high school, and their friendship had lasted into their seven decades of life. Randy was dying of cancer after a long fight, and he wanted David to come see him. David asked me, “Are you glad you saw Coach before he died-you know, the way he was?”

Death is so simple, but made so complicated. We complicate it by such phrases as, “He passed” or “He met his maker” or “He went to be with the Lord” or “We lost him.” Such language, it seems to me, attempts to deny the one fact all living things share-death. As Terry Tempest Williams writes concerning her mother’s cancer, “And by denying her cancer, even her death, I deny her life. Denial stops us from listening.” The act of dying entails much, and it is often ugly or sudden or messy or cruel and always sad for some of the living.

 

But the dying of a body need not define a life well lived and a life that was gladly shared with a good friend. Randy’s wish that David come to him was, I believe, the reason he needed to go. Yes, David feared the unknown of seeing his good friend dying, but Randy had his fears, too. Norman Cousins, who survived two critical illnesses, writes: “Death is not the enemy, living in constant fear of it is.” Our fear, like our denial, keeps us from hearing.

Now, I admit to never having gone through the death of but one loved relative, Connor, a brother-in-law who died suddenly. However, I have had some dear friends die, and I have experienced that emptiness when the world, as I know it, has a void. Like my brother-in-law, my friend Jim died suddenly while getting his boat ready for his annual two weeks on Lake George. No “good-bye” there. Clare, my Canadian friend, died from a fall down a flight of steep and long stairs, but I had watched him for five summers battle cancer with poise and courage. Again, no “good-bye”. Willie, my college roommate, and I shared many hours as he faced the return of his cancer after a twenty-five year absence. I remember him asking me to give him a cigarette as he lay on his bed. I commented to him that he was dying of cancer, and he said, “But not of lung cancer. Give me the smoke.”

 

As I sat rubbing the feet of Hooper, my fellow teacher and coach, who would soon be dead, he looked at me and said, “It’s okay. I’ve had a good life.” All were in their mid-fifties or early sixties, much too young to die such a death or any death. Yet, I am not suggesting that I had or have any special sense or awareness of what each of them was experiencing, but I am suggesting that I had an opportunity and an obligation. The opportunity to share some time with a dear friend presented itself, and I would have been remiss in not taking advantage of it, just as if he were going to live for years. The obligation was that they each asked me to come, and I had to honor their need, not mine, and listen. And, I miss the lost opportunity to share some last time with Connor, Jim, and Clare.

As I tried to gather words for David, I thought back to those years in the 1960s, and of David and Randy and their friendship. I then called to tell David how those last hours with Coach Mauldin were a blessing for me because I was given the chance to minister to him: to listen as he talked of our shared times, to watch him sleep the anxious sleep of an acutely ill person, and to hear his mumbling while he slept.

 

Once he mentioned how his two-day beard irritated, and I had the pleasure of shaving him as he sat on the side of his bed. I told David that, yes, part of my memory of Coach was of those hours in the hospital, but there were other memories of wrestling matches, bus trips for matches, the party three years ago where eighty or so of his wrestlers came to honor him, and of his visits to our home in the Valley. I told David that yes, I remember Coach as he was in the hospital, but for me that shared time is only a part of my memory of him, and it does not define his life or our relationship.

I reminded David that our dying teammate, and his best friend, was more than the body losing its battle with cancer. I asked him to remember the wrestling matches, the double dates they shared, the school year book, and their shared love for pizza. I asked him to try and view Randy’s wish as an honor for him to be wanted at such a time. David tearfully said, “But, I don’t want to remember him like that.”

Time passed before I heard from David. He called me as he was waiting for a flight home to tell me that he had visited his old friend. He told me how the Randy dying of advanced cancer was not the Randy of their youth, but there were glimmers of the young Randy. He told me that Randy wanted me to call him, which I did. His flight was boarding, and he told me that he would call me in a few days. That was four days ago, and this morning, January 25, he emailed me that “We lost Randy early this morning.”

Later I will call David and tell him that I did talk with Randy. I will tell him that Randy told me how much he enjoyed seeing him. David paid an emotional price in visiting Randy because he was fearful of what he would see and possibly do wrong, but he overcame those fears and performed an act of grace. Whatever the cost to him, it was priceless for his old friend.

 

Roger Barbee lives in Mooresville. Contact him at rogerbarbee@gmail.com