Caryn

Los Angeles, California

My cousin, Caryn, will miss my birthday this year. After over three years fighting a glioblastoma brain tumor, she passed away earlier this month.

Caryn was my little cousin. Her sister, Lauren, was two years older than me; Caryn was six-months younger. While we hadn't seen each other much over the last decades, she and Lauren, and their parents, were a very important part of my growing up. I have so very many memories of Caryn, especially during our teenaged years. We spent seven weeks together in an apartment in Waikiki while our moms were attending summer session at the University of Hawaii. She was my first roommate, after we moved into an apartment together when we were eighteen. Before that, we spent time in Santa Cruz together, then drove with a few of my friends (one had been a roommate, also in Waikiki, for most of the summer after I graduated from high school) back to Reno, where my cousin was in her last semester of high school. Several months later, two of my friends/Waikiki roommates were killed in a car accident when their VW bug went off the road during high winds in Pacheco Pass, including Larry, who was our driver from Santa Cruz to Reno. Caryn came down to LA for the funerals. Larry's funeral was on Monday. Ray's was on Tuesday. Wednesday was my 18th birthday.

Our life as 18-year old roommates didn't pan out as planned. Caryn eventually returned to Reno, and I eventually returned to college. But, while we only saw each other occasionally (at her sister, Lauren's, memorial service just months before my dad passed away suddenly. And why do these things always have to come in clumps?), we were always in contact with long phone conversations over the decades. After her diagnosis and surgery, we began to talk a lot more. This had become difficult for Caryn over this past year, as she struggled with word retrieval. And, I know that we hear this all the time, but she really did fight a valient battle against the disease. Her strength was exemplary: Never complaining; never dwelling on it, and even addressing it with dark humor, which I appreciated.

At the Sukkot celebration that I wrote about in the post Ten Days That Didn't Shake the World, someone at the table said: No one gets out of here alive. I always think that this is attributable to Jim Morrison, but, frankly, I'm not doing any origin research on this. In response to that comment, Steven, who is my friend Lisa's husband, replied that it was true. Something is going to get us.

Just a month before Sandra was diagnosed with lung cancer, we were sitting (as we often did) at the Bora Bora Bar at the Kona Village Resort. We had met there. Not just at the Kona Village, but actually at the Bora Bora Bar. That was about ten or twelve years earlier. This time, in 2010, Sandra remarked that at her age she was starting to wonder what was going to get her. She was telling me that they had been attending a lot of funerals. They were in their 70s, and, that happens. Sandra was joking about wondering what was going to take her out, but, I know that she was also serious. She had a wicked sense of humor and could often be darkly funny. But, I understand that you do start to think about your own demise as you see mortality closing in around you. I've had a lot of death in my life over the past few years. And now I have friends struggling with serious illnesses. I'm pretty healthy, unless you consider my recurring, situational anxiety and depression. My mom, who lived to the age of 94, once remarked that we were healthy as horses. We're just nuts! She also had fought anxiety and depression throughout her life, and my dad had experienced anxiety as well, while in the service during World War II (I was genetically doomed). I also have a sibling who caught the brass ring in the nuts department: OCD; hypochondriasis, in addition to being a certifiable control freak. But enough about family...

...Except for Caryn. She had a distinctive voice, which I can still hear, as did Sandra. It's interesting that we hear their voices so clearly in our heads after they are gone. I still hear my mom and my dad. I hear Tom and Sandra. And I hear Doug.

I recently acquired the BlueRay disc of one of my favorite films: Truly, Madly, Deeply. In it, the main character, who is a translator, hears her late lover's voice speaking to her in Spanish. But he didn't speak Spanish, until... In TMD, there is an afterlife where you can take language courses. Or, you can choose to come back to your lover's apartment, bring some friends with you, and watch some classic videos. It's a funny, touching, and heartfelt expression of what we are capable of when our pain, or our other's pain, becomes unbearable. And pain of loss often feels that way. I do fear that the more loss you experience, the more you become used to it. And that's not good.

Joel came over last night, and we listened to music that I had enjoyed with my cousin. It was a rock and roll extravaganza of Spirit, and Quicksilver Messenger Service with a lot of Buffalo Springfield and Jefferson Airplane. Through the music, and with Joel, I allowed myself to feel the pain and the loss of Caryn, while celebrating what we had shared in our lives. She was a unique and independent woman. She was my closest family. She was another woman in my life who I felt unconditionally loved the people in her life, including me. Which is is a skill. A talent. And a God-given gift.

I will miss her, too, forever.