Point of personal privilege

If you read the comments here, you've seen the name of Brian Fies more than once. He's even been a featured artist a time or two.

He's one of my best-friends-I've-never-met, and I kind of knew I'd known him for a long time, but the 10th anniversary of his landmark graphic memoir, "Mom's Cancer," made me realize the friendship is now more than in double-digit years.

So I rise to a point of personal privilege today in order to hijack my own blog and say that, if you haven't got a copy of my friend's book, you should get one now.

Because life sucks and you never know when you'll need it.

There are many reasons I love this book, and the fact that my name is in the acknowledgements is the least of them, though I can't be completely objective about a project whose development I was part of. You can read about all that over at Brian's blog.

What I particularly love about this book is that it doesn't indulge in the cheerleading and hoo-rah of so many works about cancer. Okay, I know I'm not in the mainstream on this, and I know that, for some reason, women are more prone to wanting and needing and providing each other with constant reassurance than are men.

But, in Brian's book, the fight against cancer isn't heroic or noble and it doesn't make anybody a better person for having waged it.

It's mean and it's ugly and it hurts, and sometimes people don't come through and sometimes you just want the whole thing to stop and then you feel guilty and then you feel guilty because you still feel that way anyway.

And then sometimes everyone is heroic, because that's true, too.

It can even be funny, at the right moment, because that's also true.

Here's why I love this book:

When I was a junior in college, there was a freshman girl whom I really liked. Mik was brilliant and acerbic, a short, dark Italian with a droll way of talking that wouldn't be fashionable for decades and brown Bambi eyes that belied her wicked wit and her utter contempt for bullshit.

I really wanted to do a thing with her, but she always kept me at arm's length in the Iron Grip of Eternal Friendship. And so there we were, friends.

I dropped out a few weeks into my senior year and went off to Colorado to write and re-coup, but I came home to my parents' house for Christmas and I hadn't been there long when a card arrived from Mik and her roommates, wishing me a Merry Christmas with the sort of off-the-cuff, cheerful greetings you'd expect from buddies who were college sophomores.

And then, at the bottom, it said, "I miss you like hell - Mik."

As it happened, she only lived an hour from my folks, so I called and she was home for vacation. I went over and we had pizza and walked around the public square in Watertown.

Turned out she had noted my penchant for brief, intense relationships and had, wisely, put some conscious effort into avoiding becoming one of them.

"I'll be back next fall," I reminded her.

"Lot of good that will do me," she replied. "The way you talk about that girl in Colorado, you'll be married."

And, indeed, I was back in the fall, married to that girl from Colorado.

And they met and they liked each other, but there you go anyway. Life's like that.

A decade and a half later, I was once more single, but, when I tracked her down, it turned out that now Mik was married to a very nice guy who had also been one of our college friends.

And then, finally, in 2000-and-something, Mik and I reconnected over the Internet and we were both single, and, while we were old enough to pussyfoot cautiously around the possibilities, there was still something flowing under it all.

However, whatever might have been got derailed a few months later, with the news that the brain tumors she thought she had beaten were back, and this time, they weren't going away.

We were 2,000 miles apart and there wasn't much I could do, but I sent her a copy of Brian's book.

She didn't respond for quite awhile, and I wondered if it had hit the wrong note.

But then she emailed me and said that she absolutely loved it, but that she could only read a few pages at a time, because it was funny and painful, and funny and true, and it tapped into her fury and her fear and her wicked sense of humor and that utter contempt for bullshit that still lay at her core.

And then she died.

Which I found out because her brother sent a group email to her entire address book, letting us all know that she was gone, and that she had ordered that there be no obit and no funeral. 'Cause that was Mik. 

But he also sent me a separate email, thanking me for being her friend at a hard time for her, and, specifically, for giving her Brian's book, which had made a great difference to all of them, not just to her, but especially to her, and so that much more to all of them.

I have said many times how little I care for plaques and honors and awards.

And I've quoted Dylan, who remarked that "applause is kind of bullshit."

Which it is.

Except when it isn't.

 

 

 

Comments

[Dave from Phila]

Mike, your timing was impeccable. Yesterday morning I received an e-mail that someone I grew up with and who has been in my musical life for 30+ years was diagnosed with metastatic spinal cancer. I ordered the book. Thank you.

[Brian Fies]

Mike, there's nothing I can say but "thanks."

[Mary in Ohio]

Just got off the phone with a friend I've had since high school (50+ years) who is still being chemoed for a brain tumor they found in Nov. 2012. She is "hanging in there - good days and bad days." So I will keep this column on file, but I can't order the book just yet. I just can't. But thanks to you and to Brian Fies.

[Bob]

Mike, that was a very touching story about Mik. Thank you for sharing.

[Mike Peterson]

I love the book, but I wish it would quit being so relevant. But, by the way, it's still a good read even if nobody you know happens to be in the midst of the fight.

Meanwhile, I'm hoping none of my friends become astronauts or arch villains, because I like enjoying Brian's other stuff on a purely hypothetical level.