Rest in Peace, Ben
2024-07-18
Ben,
I still think about that little road trip we took last March. I scheduled some time to come visit you in P-Town; you were moving back to NYC, so I was more than happy to load my car up with your stuff and drive us both back down. On the drive back, you showed me your favorite spots on the Cape, and then we laughed at how weird the vibe was going through Rhode Island during the off-season, before ending up in New London and getting orange chicken mofongos for dinner at this weird fusion restaurant under a spaghetti highway overpass. The next day, we took a whole series of car ferries over the sound and Shelter Island to get to the tippy-tip of Montauk, before slowly winding our way back through the extremely cursed military ruins at Camp Hero, the smaller-than-expected Dia Bridgehampton, and a really stupid Big Duck, finally dissociating our way through the suburban hell that is Long Island all the way back to the city.
It was such an odd and transitional time in both of our lives, but thinking back now, it all seemed so carefree. We both liked going to weird quirky places, so that's exactly what we did for two days. It was simple, and it was fun. It's odd to think about how the glioblastoma was already there at that point, growing in your brain, on the verge of presenting itself. Who could have known what was to come?
I remember when it all started just a few months later, when the glioblastoma started affecting you physically, in June. You'd mentioned something offhand about how your right arm was feeling weak. A few days later, you came to my birthday party and dipped out after a few hours because you were really tired.
You told me after the initial diagnosis about how it was "only" a stroke, how it really sucked but how you could still recover with a lot of occupational therapy and determination. You bitched at me about how terrible the hospital was as we slowly walked around Central Park; your mom was sending you anxious texts and you reassured her that you were doing just fine.
But everything wasn't just fine, was it? Things kept on getting worse. A month and a half later, I read the news that you had brain cancer. I looked up the word "glioblastoma" and read about the prognosis: how about half of people only survived a year, how the five-year survival rate was under five percent. It was early afternoon and I had been debugging some really stupid error at my desk at the office, and suddenly, I wondered what the fuck I was doing. Life was so fragile, so what was I doing wasting my time on something so insignificant? I packed up right then and there and dipped out of work for the rest of the day. In that moment, nothing was more unappealing than working.
There's a spot on the grass, on the pier at the western end of 23rd Street, that I've returned to over the years when I just need a place to contemplate something. I found my way back there, and plopped down in my usual spot, looking south over the Hudson. For a while, I just sat there in disbelief. What was one supposed to do when they knew that one of their close friends was probably going to be dead in a year or two? I remember having these cliche thoughts like "Why do bad things happen to good people?" and "Life isn't fair", at starting to scoff at myself for having them before catching myself and just letting the thoughts flow.
I was pretty messed up the rest of the week. It was a strange grief that I felt, a sort of premature mourning. You were still around, but things were almost certainly just going to get worse. I hoped that you'd be one of the five percent of people that survived longer than five years. I understood how unlikely this was on a purely rational level, but I hoped anyway, because I'm a person and that's what people do.
You moved back to your hometown, Philly, for treatment, and in December I took my first trip down to visit you. Your condition had been a pretty big roller coaster, but you had just moved into your new place, and despite it all, you were in good spirits. You were speaking more slowly, but you were still your usual sassy self, and I was really happy to see that. We got lunch and pastries and talked a lot about our friendship and belted out Christmas songs in the car, which you loved despite the fact that you were Jewish. You told me that even though it sucks to have brain cancer, you were feeling happy and thought it was cool how humans can recalibrate and find joy even though your life circumstances had changed so dramatically; I thought this was really powerful.
I'm really glad I took that second trip down in March when Cindy flew out to visit you. We didn't do much besides watch The Traitors and take a short trip out to eat really good Cambodian food, but I was thankful to get to spend some more time with you.
I have to admit that I felt a little guilty when I was texting you this past spring. Your condition was worsening, and I got married. I knew that I shouldn't have felt guilty about just living my life, but I felt it anyway. I think it all still seemed unfair. Why should the rest of us get to just live our lives while you deal with brain cancer? I know that the brutal truth of it is that that's just how life goes: sometimes shitty things just happen, and there's no rhyme or reason to it. All we can really do is make the most of what we have.
And that's exactly what you did, isn't it? You made the most of what you had until the very end. You found a living arrangement that worked for you, you made a lot of art, and you found the energy to see your friends even when you weren't feeling well. I don't think a lot of people could have stayed both optimistic and realistic like you did, and I really admire you for it.
When you didn't respond to my text on Saturday morning, I had a sinking feeling that your candle was extremely close to burning out, if it hadn't already. As I later found out, Saturday was the day you passed away. If I have to be totally honest, I wasn't surprised; I'd known that you weren't doing very well, and I remembered what the prognosis for a glioblastoma was. Like I said, since the day that I found out, I was feeling a kind of anticipatory sorrow about your situation. But still, it really fucking sucked to find out that the end actually happened, and I'm really fucking sad that you're gone. It's surreal and it sucks.
What would you want us to do in this situation, Ben? If I had to guess, I'd say that you wouldn't want us to mourn you for too long. Whenever I was sad about something and mentioned it to you, you would remind me of what was good in my life, and tell me to, well, get over it. It was always so to-the-point that I couldn't help but chuckle. Even just imagining you saying it now makes me feel a little better.
So maybe I won't mourn you for too long. But I can remember you, and I can be grateful for what you added to my life while you were in it. Thank you for all the long walks and hikes we took, for all the visits to weird quirky places, for all the evenings spent just hanging out and talking. Thank you for always being willing to go get Impossible Whoppers from Burger King when we were both vegetarian and the vegetarian option for lunch at work sucked ass, and for being an extremely competent coworker that I always knew I could depend on to do things right. Thank you for housing me in P-Town whenever I came to visit, and for sharing the magic of the place with me. Thank you for your art. Thank you for just being yourself in your snarky flamboyant way until the very end, and for showing me what it means to keep your spirits up in spite of truly unfavorable odds. You may be gone, but I can remember you, and I can smile. You made a big impact on me, and I will always appreciate you for it.
Rest in peace, Ben.
Love,
David