My friend John died last April. He was 68, but his body and spirit were so much older. He had congestive heart failure and diabetes. He walked with a cane and was always out of breath. His anxiety issues made his temper short and his world smaller, as he refused to go to new places or meet new people.
I found the last particularly disturbing. I knew him since he was 25 years old. Back then he was fearless. Often the only Black man in the crowd back in the 1980s. He didn't care. He believed -- correctly -- he had every right to be in any room he entered. He was bored with new clubs and restaurants before I knew they existed.
Yet once he lost his mobility, he felt fragile and stopped doing things. I don't think I knew he had a temper until about 2022, and then he started displaying it frequently.
With all that was going on, he should have been seeing specialists regularly. Yet he wouldn't go. He had Medicare and Medicare Advantage, so it really wasn't a financial issue. He was scared. He seemed to believe that if no one in a white coat told him he was ill, he wasn't.
He was ill. He was unhappy, and he was in discomfort that likely could have been alleviated with something other than gummies and booze. And he didn't even have a primary care physician.
I am angry at him for dying at 68 because I don't believe it had to happen. I miss him every day. I am struggling to imbue his passing with meaning. And this is where I landed:
He was an example for all his friends who, like him, live alone.
Like John, I have no spouse who sees me day in/day out. No one to tell me if my color is a little off or my mood a little edgier than usual. When I get sick, I have no one to cook for me or get me meds from the drug store. In fact, like John, I don't even have a car. I have to be able to walk to get what I need to exist -- or failing that, a shit ton of money so I can have everything delivered.
So I had a bone density test. Between Medicare and Medicare Supplement coverage, it was free. It was painless. And guess what: I do not have osteoporosis. I have suffered some bone loss, but my PCP says it can be slowed with an incremental calcium/Vitamin D supplement. Which I got for $11.99 at Walgreen's. My doctor hopes my readings will be exactly where they are now when I retake the test in 2026. This is important because I need my mobility. Again, no spouse, no wheels. My legs are my #1 mode of transportation and my link to the world.
Last month I took a 24-hour urine test. I just got the results and was happy to talk to my PA-C because he told me my results were "better than fine." He wants me to drink more water, recommends a splash of lemon juice with every glass, and unless I experience another kidney stone, he doesn't think we need talk again until next summer. Again, when I had a kidney stone attack in 2022, I had to decide alone if I should go to the hospital, and if it warranted a call to an ambulance or just a rideshare. These are hard choices to make alone when you're in pain. I'm going to avoid facing them, if I can.
Next month I'm having a mammogram. I have no reason to believe I have breast cancer. But the screening is free and there is no reason not to have it. None.
I work at the card shop next week. Even though I don't feel like it. It's not the money -- though I like the money. It's the sense of purpose and structure it imposes on my life. Losing my career, then John and then Henry within a two-year span has been life changing. I can go too far into my own head. Too content to watch reruns, read and cuddle my cats. All pleasant diversions, but not social. John showed me the danger of letting my world get smaller.
Then there's my Tuesday routine. First I go to yoga, which I remain very bad at. Then I see my shrink. Both are important. Yoga helps with my mobility and it's teaching me something new. Like my job at the card shop, doing what's new and different helps keep me sharp and engaged. My shrink is my check-in. She keeps me doing what's healthy for my body and spirit.
John did none of the above. John is not only dead, he died in pain. I am here to make sure the pain wasn't for nothing.
When I scolded him for his lifestyle, he'd quote the song, "Cabaret."
I used to have a girlfriend known as Elsie with whom I shared four sordid rooms in Chelsea/She wasn't what you'd call a blushing flower, as a matter of fact she rented by the hour/The day she died the neighbors came to snicker, "Well, that's what comes from too much pills and liquor"/But when I saw her laid out like a queen, she was the happiest corpse I'd ever seen/I think of Elsie to this very day. I remember how she'd turn to me and say/"What good is sitting alone in your room? Come, hear the music play/Life is a cabaret, old chum, come to the cabaret"/And as for me, I made my mind up back in Chelsea, when I go, I'm going like Elsie.
When I said goodbye to John at the hospital, he was not happy. He was skeletal and so weak he was unable to hold a cup and bring it to his lips. His feet were swollen and, had he lived, they would have been amputated. He did not "go like Elsie."
But he also didn't die that way for nothing. I watched. I learned. I do better in his memory. Just as he once taught me how to party till dawn and truly experience my youth, he taught me how not to age.
Thank you, Buddy.
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