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Bob Marrow could not talk about his son’s death for 25 years.
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AUTHOR’S NOTE: Earlier this month (June 2014) The Good Men Project posted two of my stories, one about my marriage and divorce from Gretchen (“I’m Gretchen”) and one about my marriage and divorce from Anne (“Being Married to Someone Who Hates You”). Gretchen was my son’s mother. She left us (Alex and me) in 1983 to marry an Italian lawyer and lived in Italy. Alex and Gretchen both died of cancer, Alex in 1988 and Gretchen in 2006. She returned to Rye, NY during Alex’s cancer treatments. Anne was Gretchen’s friend. I met Anne when she visited Gretchen at my home during Alex’s illness, shortly before he died. This is my story about Alex.
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I couldn’t talk about this for more than 25 years following Alex’s death.
When Alex was three years old (in 1978) he memorized the Star Spangled Banner from watching a TV station sign-on early in the mornings, before Gretchen and I got up. He knew the sounds but didn’t understand all the words — he thought “bursting in air” was “fursting in air”.
When Alex was eight years old Gretchen left us and married an Italian. She moved to Rome. Alex flew TWA to Rome three times a year and became one of the youngest frequent fliers.
When Alex was nine years old (1984) he used one of the first computers, his Commodore 64 with Prodigy online service, to make airline and hotel reservations for a trip to Washington, D.C. where I was arguing a case before the U.S. Court of Appeals. After the oral argument he said, “I don’t think they agreed with you, Daddy.” Right, again.
When Alex was eleven years old (1986) he co-founded and edited a school newspaper for the fifth grade at the Rye Country Day School. That summer he had the lead role in a summer camp production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Mikado” memorizing his part in the complex libretto flawlessly. When Alex was twelve years old (1987) he went to a different summer camp, my mistake. On visiting day I found him unable to breathe naturally. He couldn’t walk up a slight hill. The camp nurse said he had a bad cold. His counselor said he kept the other kids up at night with constant coughing. I took him to the East Stroudsburg Hospital where the admitting nurse found that he had a collapsed lung, just using her stethoscope. The ER doctor said he should be admitted. Against Medical Advice we left the hospital, I took him back to camp, packed his things and took him home. His pediatrician thought he had pneumonia until fluid extracted from his lungs showed cancer cells present. The CT-scan disclosed a massive tumor in his chest (mediastinum).
Alex had two open chest operations and numerous chemotherapies. Some things worked at first, but when everything stopped working we took him to unconventional treatment centers. As he deteriorated we had a hospital bed set up in the living room. When he couldn’t eat we had a feeding tube inserted. When he couldn’t stand the pain we administered morphine through a drip line in his vein. When the cancer metastasized and entered his bones we refused to allow radiation and stopped all treatment. Enough was enough. He died before reaching thirteen (in 1988).
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After he died I established The Alex Marrow Children’s Fund, which was approved as a charity by the IRS. During many hospitalizations, admissions and outpatient chemotherapy sessions, we learned what should have been obvious; how humiliating medical procedures are for very sick children. They lose everything. They are in pain. They are tired all the time. They are bored. They are dependent — they are injected, medicated, examined, anesthetized, cut open, sewn shut, on-and-on. Once a doctor took a bone marrow sample from Alex’s thigh by forcing a gigantic needle into his bone without general anesthesia. Alex had an Apple-2C computer by the time he got sick, and we got permission for him to use it in the hospital. The computer gave him some comfort, relief from boredom, a slight sense of control and independence. I used that knowledge to define the mission of The Alex Marrow Children’s Fund; to buy computers and electronic devices for hospitalized children with serious diseases, whose parents couldn’t afford such things. We concentrated on the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore (CHAM) where the population is largely under privileged.
Alex loved to read. Isaac Asimov was his favorite. A friend had Asimov write a letter to Alex while he was sick. I don’t remember what the letter said or what happened to it. He loved cats and was enthralled with the Broadway show. He memorized every word of every song and would accompany our cassette tape of the music. He got me to take him to the show twice. The first time I couldn’t understand what they were singing — it was all sung like an opera. Then I read the poems by T. S. Eliot in Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats and loved the show. My favorite line is about the Jellicle Cat who is on the wrong side of every door. Before Alex got sick my mother took him to the local animal shelter and they adopted a calico cat, Cali, who lived with me long after Alex left us.
Cali was a kitten and developed a loving relationship with Alex and with Max, our dog, a gentle half golden retriever half something else. Cali was an outdoor cat, so I broke a pane out of a basement window which I covered with a rag so that she could go out and in at will. The door from the basement to the ground floor was left open so Cali could come into the house where her water and food bowls were kept. Cali and Max slept together. Some mornings I would find them curled-up asleep together. Sometimes during Alex’s illness Cali would curl up on the covers of Alex’s bed near his feet. Cali used to hunt at night and bring home animals usually dead, sometimes in pieces. I thought they were gifts, so I didn’t try to stop her (not that I could). When Max died the gifts from Cali suddenly stopped and I realized that they were not for me or for Alex.
Alex was a graceful runner. He took long loping strides with speed and balance, but he didn’t like sports much. I thought having a son would mean having a kid to play catch with, but when I asked Alex, “Do you want to have a catch?” he would usually say, “Do you?” or, “Not really.” He would rather read or be on the computer. Alex wrote computer code for his first computer, the Commodore 64 from Radio Shack. It was so ancient it ran on cassette tapes.
Like most kids, Alex loved Halloween. I thought his most appropriate costume was one he and his mother made themselves. It was a computer made of large cardboard boxes covered with aluminum foil with Alex inside.
He had a great deal of compassion for people who were victims of misfortune; especially other children who were poor, hungry, sick or homeless. It made me wonder where compassion comes from.
As he grew older Alex became normally shy but when he was three or four he would just talk to people. He was good looking and spoke clearly, so it didn’t seem to offend people when he approached them in restaurants and started conversations. He was my mother’s favorite. When Gretchen left us I had a full time nanny, but my mother helped almost every day. She left her bridge games early (there was usually a fifth to take over for her) to be at my house in the afternoons until I got home from my office. Considering that he was a nerdy bookworm, Alex had lots of friends and was not picked on at school (“bullied” in today’s parlance). There was something quietly mature about him that seemed to impress the other kids. I tried to catch this quality about him when I chose the inscription for his grave stone, “He Caste a Bright but Gentle Light.”
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I apparently appeared calm and dignified at Alex’s funeral, at least that’s what I was told by Anne who said that’s what made me attractive to her. Anne was Gretchen’s good friend. I met her when she visited Gretchen at my home during Alex’s last days. Anne and I started dating a few weeks after Alex died and were married within three months. Anne was beautiful, had a doctorate in history from the University of Michigan, was an excellent athlete, could create fine works of art in needlepoint, was a tasteful garden designer, could perform woodwork and home repairs as well as the finest contractors, was witty, funny, amusing and a great asset as a companion. I loved her until I learned of her affair with her piano teacher. We were divorced five years after we met.
For the first ten years after Alex died I visited his grave every weekend, sometimes completing the 25 mile round trip by bicycle. I used the bike I bought for Alex in 1987 while he was in treatment. I still ride it. The visits tapered off but I still go there often and bend or kneel or sit down near Alex and my parents who are buried beside him. It’s comforting that he’s near them, with them. I probably didn’t seem very dignified a few weeks after Alex died when the enormity of this void in my life crashed in on me. I sat on the grass and screeched in pain and anger. It didn’t help. Nothing does. Grief that starts as pain and anger becomes a softly throbbing emptiness. It is a monument to my love for my son, a monument that is not permanent because it will die with me — but as long as I live my grief lives in me, as Alex lives in me. In a sense he alive and will not die until I die, until we die together.
— photo: DMichael Burns / flickr
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