An Astounding Amount of Pure Suck

Used to be when I was growing up January to February was such a great time of life. Holidays had just ended (and so had round 7 bajillion of Christmas between McLean/Tochelli clans), hockey was in full swing (in high school this would mean the lead up to the sectional tournament....not in high school it meant I was still getting my butt handed to me on a silver platter every weekend and traveling to Buffalo from Rochester to do so), but more importantly it was the ramp up to my birthday.

My birthday growing up was always perfect. Falling on the 17th of February almost always (with the exception of my junior or senior year) placed it dead in the middle of the President's Holiday week. My perpetual birthday gift was to get a week off of school. That's pretty sweet as a kid. Though, I did count that one year spent in school as a really great one too. I always felt jealous people got their lockers decorated and had to walk around with balloons. The one year I got to, I did it with pride and was glad to embarrass myself all day long.

Once I got to college, this ramp up was a little more stunted. The spring semester in the theater department in Fredonia was always so crammed full of work. School work was back loaded in the department, and the big musical was always in the spring semester. So after finding myself on vacation for all of high school, I'm now finding myself working really hard on my birthday. But I was with friends, and I was having a good time. So I still got to enjoy the lead up and my birthday.

After graduation, I took a job in retail. I started that job in October, and by November I became a manager. So when my birthday rolled around, I got to request my birthday off. This ended up being one of the worst birthdays ever. I spent the day with my girlfriend at the time and we spent the entire time together running errands for her (including buying a car...seriously) and by the time 9pm rolled around I finally said "Hey can we do something I want to do on my birthday?" and we finally went somewhere to get something to eat. She then passed out with barely so much as a kiss goodnight. I'm pretty certain we broke up less than 2 weeks later.

I won't complain about my birthdays spent at Fairport Hots. Despite having to work 6pm-5am two birthdays in a row, people are very generous with their tips when they are drunk and you are stuck working on your birthday. I made $150 one night because the rest of the crew gifted me the tip jar so we didn't have to split it up. I heart my crew!

Finally, we roll around to my first birthday in New York. My sister Erin is pregnant at the time, and she's due to pop on the 9th of February. I, being the snot that I am, told her she better give birth January 31st, or hold it in until March 1st. With the large family I have I was the only person in the entire extended family (with maybe cousin Katie as the exception) who did not have to share my birthday month with anyone. We're talking 20-25 some odd birthdays. I wasn't ready to give up my month. I swore if she went into labor on or around the 17th, I would drive to Syracuse and just like...hold the babies head in until it became the 18th so I would at least not have to share the day. I then proceeded to tell everyone this joke until someone pointed out I'd be putting my hands into my sister's crotch. I never really mentioned it again. Ella was born on the 22nd. And she's a beautiful miracle.

But more recently, this traditionally exciting and happy ramp up to my birthday has become something else all together. Last year, I had to leave The Acting Company tour to return home to attend to a family emergency. My father was in the hospital, and I needed to get home. And I'm grateful TAC let me abandon 3 venues to be with my family. In the midst of this trip home, my birthday came and passed with very little fanfare. It seemed so muted and unimportant. And in comparison, it was.

I had higher hopes this year. Not only is the ramp up to my birthday my last one as a bachelor, I was actually going to be spending it with Anna which I haven't been able to do since we became a couple. We had a great holiday season, and got so many great gifts for our new life together. Soon after returning home, we had a Wagner family get together to celebrate our engagement. I finally got to meet 3/4's of the southern part of the family I had not yet met (one cousin and his wife had plans they couldn't rearrange). When I say I have found the German version of the McLean clan, I'm not joking. I see shades of my family all over the Wagner clan. The family dynamic is so similar it's almost scary, but very comforting and welcoming all at the same time. Specifically, Anna's cousin Alex reminds me of my cousin Ryan and the energy they bring to each collective family is remarkable.

That was the 20th. Less than 1 month later, everything is different. And ultimately, I will never be the same from a pair of people who are now gone who only tangentially and briefly intersected their lives with mine.

Eight days after the engagement party, I had been cuddling Anna to sleep as I am like to do. I fell asleep and took a quick nap (also as I am like to do). When I woke up to begin my normal night owl routine, I hopped onto facebook and saw on either my mother's or my sister Erin's status that a teacher from my high school had died in a car crash in Kenya. Beyond the fact that Jim Nowak was a social studies, and Eastern religions teacher at Fairport he also deeply influenced Erin and shaped her personality. He was a warm light walking through the school (occasionally dressed in some traditional Tibetan wraps and garb). Beyond even that, he dated my mother briefly after Erin graduated and had moved to Syracuse. During their short time together, Jim joined my mother in Fredonia for a production I was working on, which we had decided we know what show it was but I can't remember it right now. Before the show, we went out to dinner in town and I remember that despite trying to put off what I was doing as nothing important (I was the ASM for the show and I really didn't do all that much except sit backstage and read), he saw past that and remarked how special it was I was pursuing my dreams. And it was great that I was able to still find the passion despite the major set back of being dropped out of the Acting program a mere 5 months previously.

As I sat on the couch and read the brief news article over and over again, these memories flooded back to me and I cried for an hour. I cried not only for the loss of Jim, but for the way he selflessly lived his life. He was in Kenya doing what he loved to do. He was helping people. Building schools and health clinics in under privileged areas of the world. I cried because of the inspired life he had led and the profound impact he had made in my family. I cried because despite what seemed like such a small encounter in a dimly lit restaurant 8 years ago in Fredonia, it was an encounter I would never forget.

For the next week, I felt myself on edge. Little things that shouldn't make me get choked up were. But I finally got it back under control. Anna and I had a wonderful Super Bowl Sunday. We got our wedding bands, updated our registries and had homemade pizza for dinner.

The next day, Anna got a call from her mother saying Alex was in the hospital. I don't remember when we learned that bacteria had gotten through a hole in his sinus cavity and gone into his brain, or when we learned of the two abscesses one of which burst and had to be drained. I know it wasn't until Friday evening that I learned Alex lived his whole life with cystic fibrosis, and that he had an identical twin brother, Evan, who died when Alex was 9 months old.

I also know that around 3am on Saturday the 12th of February Alex passed away, just two days after turning 31.

Since then, life has been a blur of time standing still, and everything mashing together. It has been 96 hours of pain, heart break, outpouring of grief, tears,  and love. I generally don't pray, but I do pray that I never have to hear the absolute heart breaking sobs for a young man too soon gone ever again. I don't want to have to hear a family matriarch begging for her to be taken instead because she's ready and wants to go and leave him be. I never want to hear Anna cry like that ever again. Ever.

We spent Sunday at Anna's parent's house scanning pictures and just trying to cope. Monday, Anna went to work to set herself up for substitutes for Tuesday and Wednesday. We then spent our fifth night in a row crying ourselves to sleep.

Tuesday was the wake and spent with family. Anna and I met Alex's parents, Lynn and Lloyd, in the parking lot along with Celeste, Gary, Anna's parents and her brothers. Lynn apologized so hard that she was sorry this is how I was being introduced to the family, which is the furthest thing from the truth. I think I told her something to the effect of "stop that" or something as seemingly ungraceful...though I don't know that there is a graceful thing to truly say when you are hugging the mother who has had this happen to her twice now. I have very frequently found myself tongue tied these past few days, which is why I'm writing this now. It's helping, and I don't have to worry about choking on the words, or sobbing over them. 

I was introduced to the final cousin, Ian, who was unable to make it to our engagement party. The entire Wagner family apologized to me in the same manner Lynn did, each time I was finding the actual words I wanted to say originally to Lynn, and eventually was able to say them to one of the aunt's at some point in the last 48 hours "I'm honored you let me be here."

Alex wasn't someone I knew well. But I've heard so many great stories and pieced a few things together here and there. Alex had the biggest heart. He loved everybody, and he especially loved Anna. He was convinced when they were growing up that he and Anna were going to get married. They did everything together, and Anna was called by Lynn and Lloyd the triplet. He was an accomplished musician playing the clarinet, and sax which should be impossible to do as well as he did with C.F. The Wagner cousins all grew up playing Life and somehow Alex always ended up getting stuck with no job and a double decker car full of children.

Like everyone else in my soon to be family, he loves food. There's a picture some where on facebook with him about to ravage a pizza that is so big, the box swallowed up a 3x3 Ikea coffee table. He was shameless with a karaoke microphone. He was a master photo bomber. And apparently, he looked an awful lot like Beeker from the Muppets.

But those are all specific examples of what I could tell on my own. See, Alex wore his entire personality on his sleeve. He was warm, open and caring from the moment you met him. His smile and laugh were infectious. You could tell he lived his life to the fullest, and that was before we had done more than shake hands. You could tell what type of person he was by the way everyone reacted to him, and I could tell exactly what he was like when I came to the realization he was my cousin Ryan. I knew where he fit into the family, and why people acted exactly the same way they do with Ryan.

I am not usually an overtly emotional person. I will get choked up, but its rare that I cry. Maybe it's being on edge from Jim's passing that had opened this introspective part of me. Monday night after Anna had gone to bed, I sat up as I always do on the computer and looking at the plethora of fond memories from coworkers, college friends, and family posted on his facebook page. While I was looking at all these comments recalling memories from years and years ago, I realized how long I knew Alex in person.

11 hours.

Less than half a day. We met at Oktoberfest last October for dinner, and once again at the Engagement party.

I tried over and over again these past two days to find a way to say this to anyone in the family. And specifically I wanted to say this to Lynn and Lloyd. But every time I even thought the words forming together into a coherent thought I knew if I tried to say it I would not be able to do it. So I'm here writing this long blog because I needed to say this and now I can without fear of being unable to complete the thought:

I knew Alex for 11 hours. But in those 11 hours he's changed me forever. To my new family: I know everyone is hurting now, but I hope once the pain subsides you feel blessed to have 31 years of memories and love from Alex to warm your hearts forever. I had 11 short hours and I am honored to have known him.

So that's been the lead up to my 29th birthday. And as the title implies, it has indeed been an astounding amount of pure suck. It's now past midnight, so it's my birthday. You'll have to excuse me if I don't jump up and down for joy like I used to when I got my birthday off as part of President's Day vacation, or if I'm excited because I'm gonna get $150 in tips tonight while working. It's very similar and subdued, much like last year. It's an after thought compared to the enormity of this past week, and honestly doesn't feel all that important anymore. I've never been so unaware my birthday was coming until I looked at the program for Alex's mass today and realized it was the 16th.

If you haven't bought me a gift, not to worry because I have an idea. If you have bought me a gift, I have a wonderful add on to it. The people in your life that you love, tell them you love them. Give them a hug. Give them a kiss. Tell them you love them.

That's the best birthday gift you can give me.

                                                                             Alex

                                                                               Jim