Many of you have reached out to me privately out of concern that my family might have been impacted by Hurricane Milton. Thank you so much for thinking of me. We did lose power for 18 hours after the storm but nothing was damaged and no one was harmed. The reason I haven't been writing blog posts is that we lost Bernie's dad suddenly to cancer on October 1st, less than 13 months after his mother passed away last September. We have been upended by an emotional storm of stress, anxiety and grief before Milton was even on the radar and will be dealing with its aftermath for a long time. My husband asked me to write his dad's obituary for the Naples Daily News and you can read about his amazing life online here.
Fred's rare and aggressive "locally advanced" squamous colon cancer was only diagnosed this past March, within weeks of our moving to Florida. He underwent major surgery in May to remove a football-sized tumor along with a large chunk of his colon, his entire gallbladder and a third of his liver. The surgeon thought he had gotten all the cancer with clear margins. After months of rehab and recovery, Fred was feeling better and was looking forward to taking a trip with my sister-in-law in mid-September when everything suddenly went downhill. A new tumor had developed and grown to the size of a golf ball on what remained of his liver, obstructing his bile duct and causing acute liver failure. Scans done at the hospital revealed more new cancer that had spread all throughout the soft tissue in his abdomen. Fred spent another two miserable weeks in the hospital in September (during which Bernie had Covid and couldn't even visit his dad) and then after his discharge we endured agonizing follow up appointments with his surgeon and oncologist where the news was bleak: they were very sorry, surgery and chemo and everything else were out of the question now that he was in advanced liver failure, and things were "going to move quickly from here," as one doctor put it. The oncologist recommended hospice and told us that any out of town relations who wanted to say their goodbyes should not wait until Thanksgiving; they should come now. And then, just a week after leaving the hospital, he was gone.
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| My Father-In-Law Fred with the Halo Quilt I Made for His Wife, February 2024 |
My husband and his sister are in shock. They were used to talking to their dad nearly every day, and I think they are feeling unmoored by the loss of both parents (in addition to losing a cousin under tragic circumstances) within the space of a single year. Only six months ago, Fred was a force to be reckoned with, larger than life, with a booming bass voice recanting family histories, forcefully expounding his political views, and interrogating his grandchildren about their education and career goals. None of us anticipated that cancer would take him so swiftly despite his fighting with every ounce of willpower and all the resources of modern medicine.
Fred spent the past five years caring for my mother-in-law Marlies throughout her heartbreaking dementia and other debilitating health issues. Most of his hobbies and all of his traveling was suspended during that time that he was tethered to the house and always at her side, knowing that his presence was comforting. He was devastated when she finally passed in September of '23.
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| My Mother-In-Law Marlies with My Halo Quilt in August, 2023 |
So that Halo quilt that I made for Marlies in August of 2023, my most recent personal quilt finish, has already been left behind and inherited by another family member twice: First Fred inherited it from Marlies, and now the quilt has come back home to me, inherited by my husband. I loved that quilt when I finished it, but now that it's back in my house I have mixed feelings about it. I washed it and it looks brand new even though it was used daily -- neither of them owned the quilt long enough for there to be any visible wear whatsoever. This quilt was NOT SUPPOSED TO COME BACK TO ME YET.
