I’ve had a blessed year. Fantastic times with family and friends, interesting travel, and rewarding writing and publishing. But I’ve lived long enough to know that luck has a way of shifting, and the Fates sometimes morph into Furies.

For a few weeks my father had been experiencing discomfort and reflux while eating solid food. We were thinking GERD or an aggravation of an old hiatal hernia or some other chronic condition. His PCP prescribed a trial of omeprazole to see if it would help. It didn’t.

We checked him in to the hospital on Monday Oct. 19 for evaluation where a CT scan revealed the worst. His lungs showed a large mass and multiple nodules. An endoscopy revealed another mass in his esophagus. Another growth in an adrenal gland.

Long story short, he appears stricken with metastatic cancer, likely originating from his lung though that is TBD. We don’t know the site of origin, yet. We don’t know a damned thing about his long-term prognosis or treatment or much of anything else right now, but it doesn’t look good. This morning we see his oncologist, who will be assembling the clinical picture from the scans and a biopsy.

Devastating.

I wept in his arms when I saw him sitting helplessly on a bed in the ED, clutching a piece of paper with a dreaded list of metastatic sites.

I knew a day like this would come, when I was finally and fully confronted with his mortality. Dad is 82, he turns 83 in January, and his health has been slipping for a few years. I assumed his kidneys would fail or his heart would give out. None of us were prepared for a cancer diagnosis.
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But I suppose this is his body finally throwing in the towel after years of steady decline. Time is undefeated.

Just a terrible, sad day and a long and draining week… and one of many to come depending on the clinical picture.

Dad appears accepting of his fate. Most of his old friends are gone. His life had narrowed to the TV and his living room and occasional visits and phone calls and trips to the bar at the local Chinese restaurant.

But he’s my Dad, and I’m heartbroken. We all are.

I suspect there will be weeks where I’m unable to write this newsletter—but maybe not. Writing is cathartic and a needed release so maybe I’ll continue to soldier on. But my focus will be caring for my Dad, whom I’ll be caring for until whatever end.

On the brighter side Dad is still with us and I will celebrate him while he lives. One of my favorite actors, Bruce Campbell, recently revealed he’s been diagnosed with an incurable form of cancer. Ash, the shotgun wielding anti-hero, he of cutting one-liners that bite more fiercely than his chainsaw hand, is facing a grim and terrible struggle of his own.

I’m struck by the fact that we extol the dead but rarely pause to celebrate the living.

So today I celebrate you, Bruce Campbell/Ash.

And I celebrate you, Dad, today and forever.

An overdue reunion

Now for some brighter news.

This past weekend I got to hang out with three old high school friends, two of whom I hadn’t seen in over 30 years. The exploits of Pete, Mike and Jim are detailed in the first few chapters of Growing Up Metal, and the book brought us improbably back together over dinner.

As I noted in a prior newsletter Pete caught wind of the book, picked it up and loved it, and shared the news with Mike and Jim who likewise bought a copy. As it turns out all three live locally and we coordinated a trip to the Old Court Irish Pub in Lowell for a long overdue reunion. 3+ hours of reminiscing and catching up on our lives and heavy metal banter passed by very quickly, almost like the last 30 years hadn’t occurred.

It was a fantastic, much needed distraction.

Odds and ends

• Current listening: Rainbow in the Dark: The Autobiography of Ronnie James Dio. I just finished the audiobook of this highly recommended albeit incomplete autobiography of one of my heavy metal heroes, the late great Ronnie James Dio. Rainbow in the Dark ends in 1986 at the height of the Sacred Heart tour, just after virtuoso guitarist Vivian Campbell either quit the band or was fired (either might be true depending on who you believe, per the book Campbell wanted a raise and a percentage of profits he says he was promised, and sent a demanding letter via his lawyer which didn’t sit well with Dio or his wife Wendy). It covers Dio’s years growing up, discovering his love for music, early days with Elf, wild days on the road, his big breakthrough with Rainbow, writing and recording Heaven and Hell and Mob Rules, and finally his great gamble on a solo career that paid off in spades with Holy Diver. If you have Spotify Premium you can listen for free.​
• Current reading: Masters of Horror, Alden Norton. This (except for one “meh” Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley story) has been excellent, better than Horror Hunters. It’s a slim anthology of heavy hitters, nine stories from the likes of Bram Stoker, A. Merritt, Robert W. Chambers, Henry Kuttner and Ray Bradbury. I’ve read a few of these stories before but their impact is not lessened upon re-read; “The Yellow Sign” by Chambers is a stone-cold classic. Merritt’s entry, “The Women of the Wood,” casts a fantastic spell, a man who wanders into a darker version of Lothlórien that has lasted until the 20^th century. “Dracula’s Guest” was apparently the first chapter of Stoker's famous novel but he cut it after his publisher asked him to reduce the page count. Wild, because it’s a fantastic prelude. If you enjoy Dracula (who doesn’t?) this is absolutely worth seeking out. A perfect read for the haunting season.

I hope you enjoy Halloween. Here’s a jack-o-lantern I carved while hanging out at Dad’s with my family on Sunday, watching over him. This guy now gleams on my porch, lighting the darkness as he awaits the trick-or-treaters and the coming of Samhain, my favorite time of year.​

Army of Darkness or Evil Dead 2? Send Brian your favorite Ash.