Art was essentially my step dad and grandpa to my kids. Together for 17 years he and my mother never married but that didn’t diminish their relationship. They were certainly a team that worked well together.
He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in May of 2017 and passed away peacefully on Friday, June 29th. He fought hard and felt quite good for most of his illness so that was a blessing. The last week he suffered a seizure and couldn’t speak but we all still were able to talk to him and say our goodbyes and I can’t tell you how comforting and peaceful this has made his passing from this world. He slept most of that last week but did open his eyes some. At one point he rubbed my moms cheek for almost 20 minutes and then when he took that final breath he actually looked directly into his daughters eyes. I’m so glad that she was with him when that happened.
I realized that every death in my life so far of someone close has been quick, traumatic and unexpected until this experience with Art. When I was 16 I lost my 18 year old step brother Michael to a motorcycle accident. When I was 22 one of my best friends, Angela, was murdered by her ex boyfriend, my grandpa Kaster got sick with pneumonia while vacationing in Florida and died quickly, my other grandma Cherry fell and hit her head and died due to complications to that, then my husband died by suicide and of course nothing prepares you for that. When you lose someone without getting to tell them how much they meant to you it haunts you. Those last conversations and the last time you saw them constantly play through your head and oftentimes immense guilt at things left unsaid, or said, or plans never followed through on. After the deaths of my brother, best friend and Brian I just remember days of being in a fog and just not being able to comprehend what just happened. They were all so young and here one day and gone the next. My grandparents were older and it wasn’t quite the same unbearable pain as the others since I guess it’s a little more expected to have accidents and illnesses when you’re elderly.
As much as I wanted to remember Art like the last time we saw him when he came to Hayden’s basketball game a few weeks ago we did go see him while he was in hospice and I’m really glad that we did. I was tentative and almost didn’t go because I thought I might get super emotional seeing him in that state or that it would scare the kids but we decided to go the day after he entered hospice. We are able to touch him, kiss him, talk to him and pray with him. I told him he was such an important part of our lives and that he would never be forgotten. He was at my wedding in Jamaica, he was at the birth of both my kids, he was at all our family events their entire lives. He has just always been there and it will honestly be really odd to have my mom at these events now alone, without him. As I was sitting at his bedside I was praying silently for him and his afterlife and peace and guardian angels to help him and then I looked out the window and there was a red cardinal in the tree right outside his window. To me it was a sign and gave me amazing peace. I sure wish I had gotten time to say goodbye to Brian like that. There is a song by Pink called Beam me Up that I could have written. It talks about just being able to have one more minute with someone and it’s so beautiful. Art was such a sweet, gentle man with a calming presence and will be very, very missed. We are spiritual beings having a human experience. There is so much more to us than our physical bodies. Our souls are amazing and so much unknown. In Art’s honor go tell someone that you love them.