The Wormlips Scrapbook

When I got back from my backpacking trip on Thursday, an e-mail from Steve Nuñez awaited in my in-box. The subject was Down But Not Out.

I had the great misfortune of being thrown from my bike this past weekend resulting in a mild concussion (ALWAYS wear your helmet while riding, Kids!!!), a severely bruised shoulder, and a broken rib. Really, I’m fine for the most part, but not much can be done about the broken rib but to minimize my activity and try and manage the pain as best as possible while it mends by itself (I must admit, that’s a tough one).

Anyway, I’m home for the next couple of daze and may be able to do some work here (i.e. scheduling, travel arrangements, book orders, receive and respond to emails, etc.) Please don’t hesitate to call or email me if there’s anything I can assist you with.

Poor Steve. What a drag, I thought. I’ll call him tomorrow.

Tomorrow (Friday) he was in the ER with a ruptured spleen. That afternoon he was recovering from surgery in Room 337, expecting to be back on his feet in six weeks. Saturday morning when I called, he was in the ICU. His kidneys and liver had shut down. Saturday near midnight Bari phoned to say he wasn’t expected to make it through the night. He died early this morning.

It is cliché to say that Steve was one of the kindest people I’ve ever known, but it’s true. His genuine sweetness and gentleness never ceased to impress me. Every time I saw him he always wrapped me in a bear hug. His standard phone greeting was a cheerful, Hello, Ginna-There. It’s Stevie-Here. During some work conversations he could be so linear and methodical I’d start to get impatient, but I always kept my feelings under wraps, because he was too well-intentioned to have to deal with my crankiness. I loved him for smuggling me M&Ms and Milano cookies during meetings. I saw him act stressed a few times, but never grumpy.

I still don’t get how someone can be so completely alive one moment and so irretrievably dead the next, and I am heartbroken that we have lost him.

Rest well, Steve. We will miss you more than you could ever have imagined.

The instant-messages that fly between Lulu and me are always scintillating and, as you can see, sometimes even touching:

Yo-Nenny — I keep telling you: if you want me to write about you too, you have to come over so I have something to say. Okay?

Honestly: daughters!

I spoke with one of my doctors today. Not my new foot guy from England or my old foot guy whom I miss. Not the eccentric surgeon who became an MD at 21 in India. Nor my GP whom I’d follow to the ends of the earth and in fact do follow all the way to Folsom. No, this is another of my legions. When I log onto my HMO’s web site, the dropdown menu of my docs practically hits the floor.

Don’t worry: I won’t rattle on about what body part is doing what (though “rattle” is descriptive of my general comportment). Suffice it to say that something’s been up for the past six months, maybe an allergy, that makes eating painful. And there are unidentified neurological goings-on that have my medical battalion baffled.

So on the phone today, Doc 847 asked a number of questions, probing for the tiniest clue. Suddenly his nose twitched (probably) as he scented a warm trail. Something about temporal lobes.

Have you been experiencing a heightened religiosity lately? he asked.

Huunh? I replied delicately. Me?

Or are you writing more than usual?

Uh, well, actually…

I ask you, gentle reader of my imagination: Do those four blog entries last night count?

No, really. That’s creepy. How did he know about all this writing? Suddenly I don’t feel like writing any more. Goodnight.

Speaking of which, I dreamed last night about my dead friend Kathy. I saw her in a rich but subdued garden: exotic, dark plants without blossoms or color. It was her garden, she told me, and she’d planted it in the year since she died. Now she spends all her time tending it and redesigning it. She’s doesn’t miss radio at all, she said, and the gardening keeps her from missing us too much. She’s used to being alone anyway. Unlike my most of my dreams about dead people, I got to touch and hug her before she faded.

This weekend Shirley showed me a batch of pictures of Christopher Henry at the hospital. At first glance they’re like any birth photos. A tired mother post-partum. Family and friends gathered around. Everyone taking a turn holding the newborn — aunts and cousins, uncles from Ireland, best friends of the parents … and that classic four-generation shot: great-grandfather, grandfather, father and baby boy.

And on every face, raw despair.

Shirley said I could put up this family picture. Christopher Henry was beautiful: lips like Shirley’s, snout like Scott’s, perfect little hands. No one knows what went wrong. It still seems impossible.