After more than 50 years of column writing, this is my last.
This summer I was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of prostate cancer. Although I had gone regularly to my urologist, (or rather, urologists since they kept retiring, moving or getting fired) by the time the cancer was found, it had already spread to my bones. The doctors say it's not curable but, with treatment, they can slow it down or stop it for some time - maybe five years or even more. In spite of the treatment, which entails getting shots in the belly, I'm actually feeling fine.
So why have I decided to throw in the towel on column writing? Well, I have another problem. About two years ago, I noticed that I was losing words. At first it was just some proper nouns, which didn't seem too alarming since I was always bad at remembering people's names. Just a senior moment now and then. But then I started forgetting other things - the names of stores we frequented regularly, the dates of important events, how to do things I had done all my life.
Finally, I went to my doctor and told him of my concerns. He changed my meds, but that didn't help. So he sent me to a neurologist who ordered a brain scan. The scanning came back negative - no brain tumors or obvious injuries. So the neurologist sent me to a neurological psychologist for more testing. Those tests showed that I had MCI, short for Mild Cognitive Impairment. A follow-up test last month showed that the MCI had progressed. I don't really call that progress. I already knew it was getting worse because my columns were getting harder and harder to write. My wife Sharon (an author herself) is helping me write this one.
What will be the ultimate outcome? Nobody knows for sure. But I think of a conversation I had with an older friend of ours who had advanced dementia. It went something like this.
Friend: What's that cat's name?
Me: Annie, but we usually just call her "that stupid cat."
Friend, laughing: You're funny.
A few minutes later
Friend: What's that cat's name?
Me: Annie, but we usually just call her "that stupid cat."
Friend, laughing: You're funny.
And so on, through several repetitions. If I get to that point, at least you can tell me the same joke repeatedly and I'll enjoy it each time.
Now, enough about me. Let's talk about you, my readers.
Once, when I was talking to a group of high school journalism students, a boy asked me, "How much do you get paid?"
I replied by telling him this story.
A while back, a young widow with two children sent me an email saying that her husband had died recently and she was struggling to stay afloat.
"Some mornings," she said, "the only thing that gets me out of bed is the thought that your column is waiting for me out there on that doorstep."
That, I told the boy, is what I get paid.
You, my readers, have repaid me for my efforts in many ways: through your kind comments to me and to my editors and through your actions that show you consider me, someone you may never have met, a friend.
One of my readers, an older gentleman from Tacoma, wrote to ask me a favor - as one does of a friend. His granddaughter, Sammie, was planning to enroll in the college near our house and he wondered if Sharon and I would keep an eye on her until she got used to being away from home. I was touched. This man I knew not at all was entrusting his precious granddaughter to my care. What could be a higher compliment? We complied willingly.
Then, four years later, I was asked to stand in as surrogate grandfather once again. Sammie's mother wrote to say that her father was too ill to attend Sammie's graduation, so would I do so in his stead?
Sharon and I attended and met the rest of the family - a wonderful group of people. Sammie's grandfather died soon after that. Maybe, when I go wherever I'm going (if I go anywhere at all), he'll be there to greet me - an old friend I never met.
It's a warm relationship, the one between a writer and his readers. These people I wouldn't recognize on the street read me in bed, they read me in the bathtub or at the breakfast table. They send me chocolate-chip cookies and zucchini and Idaho potatoes and an occasional mash note. One of those notes I took the writer up on - and eventually married her. Now, I could not go on without her. She's my everything.
These strangers write to me and tell me their troubles. They scold me about my grammar. They tell me they're proud of me - or sometimes ashamed. And, lately, they worry about me.
I'm going to miss all that.
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Hall is editor emeritus of the Tribune's Opinion page. His email address is wilberth@cableone.net.
