RIP: Danny Lieberman
Oct. 20th, 2012 04:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gerisullivanEast coast fan Danny Lieberman died Friday night. (Many thanks, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
filkerdave, for the image link from Renovation.)
In September 2011, Danny was diagnosed with AML, acute myeloid leukemia. He had a bone marrow transplant in May. Last Sunday night, word privately went out that the transplant had become ineffective. He was moving to hospice this past week, most likely Thursday.
The email I saw mentioned the hospice was "in the Bronx for cancer patients" and that an address and other details would go out once he was there. But all I needed were those quoted words to know he was going to Calvary. It's the only place of its kind in the country, and it's where I spent so much time with Susan Palermo last year. I still can't leavebenyalow's place for the drive home without wanting to go straight, up the hill, and on in that direction instead of turning left onto I-87 North, as I'd previously done for years and years, as I've done ever since my last visit with Susan in November 2011.
Back to this past week. I immediately sent email off to Catelynn offering to help, then talked with both Mark Richards and Danny on Monday evening (the New York Mark Richards, not the Minneapolis one). Catelynn had already reminded Danny I knew my way around Calvary. Yes, my providing some caregiving support and patient advocacy sounded good to him. He wanted me to wait until he was at Calvary to come down; we discussed that it would likely be Sunday given his expected schedule and mine. Yep. Good.
During our conversation Monday evening, I asked Danny if sushi was now okay. It had been on the restricted list following the bone marrow transplant, along with many other things that would be a threat to his utterly compromised...well, non-existent...immune system. "I don't see why not," Danny responded, his voice suddenly becoming more animated. He didn't have much appetite right then, but the prospect of sushi sure sounded like a good one. We talked about the importance of, as my Dad always called it, "the joy of the day." And we laughed. I'm holding tightly to the memory of that shared laughter right now; I can still hear and feel it resonating in my hind brain, in my heart.
Danny called Wednesday afternoon; he'd moved to Calvary a day sooner than expected. While I needed to be in Massachusetts on Friday afternoon, I could hypothetically run down to Calvary for 24 hours or so right then. I offered -- the tone of Danny's voice told me it had been a rough transition. There wasn't any wifi in the room; he'd have to use his mobile hotspot to get to the net. The room was small, with no fridge, and he couldn't bring one in. He'd had lunch; the food was okay, and he'd had a nap after they'd done their initial assessment, but overall, it just plain sounded hard.
Danny told me not to come down until Sunday, that he had a Wednesday evening commitment. We talked a bit more, not for long. No surprise.
On Thursday, Ed Pino, a friend of Danny's from high school IIUC, posted the news that Danny was in hospice on Danny's Facebook account. I'm not on Facebook, but by the time I saw it posted to another list, 150 people had responded to the Facebook post. I hope Danny saw or heard at least some of the love and support pouring his way from there.
I'm still in those early, shocky hours of grief. For the first time...or at least the first time I can remember right now, I'm hit hard by the super-selfish reality that I didn't get what I needed, that time at Calvary, being present, bringing him some sushi, or just anything of comfort. Helping. We had it set up. I knew his time was likely short. I'm glad for his sake that he's no longer suffering in any way. I'm glad he was as competent as he was earlier in the week as he worked with a lawyer putting his affairs in order. It sounds like that all got dealt with. But me? I needed to help. I know rationally that I did help, in smaller ways than I anticipated, but important ways nonetheless. The bottom line is that I'm hard-wired for being there, plans were in place to be there, and now there's no there to be.
Grief sucks.
Yeah, like none of us possibly knew that, right?
It's not that Danny and I were so very close or anything. Like so many fannish friends, we ran into each other at conventions, at Joe & Edie's parties, at Clearwater music festival, last year at Mt. Sinai Hospital, when Susan Palermo was a patient there. We had a shared cheerfulness. I don't know that we ever had a meal at a restaurant together before this past July after I gave him a ride and accompanied him on one of his weekly hospital appointments following the bone marrow transplant.
But he was here, just a few hours away. The hospice he was in was one I most likely know better than anyone else he's known for a decade and more. The great advantage and disadvantage of fandom is that we have friends and loved ones around the world. I can't be in Seattle, visiting Stu Shiffman during his long recovery from a stroke, a recovery filled with ups and downs, more even than most such long medical rollercoaster rides. I couldn't be at Jim Young's side during those hard, hard days post-surgery when he wasn't waking up. There are so many people I can't be there for. Danny was someone I could. Right up until he was gone before I got there.
Whine, whine, agony, whine. This is sometimes just plain how it goes. There are still blessings all around. Danny wasn't alone. People close to him were there. People close to me were a comfort tonight, as was one of those fannish friends I'm just starting to get to know. Ann Marie Rudolph visited Danny last July, about a week after I took him to that appointment. She told me how pleased Danny had been, how much he appreciated it. I made things easier for him that day, and we had the joy of each other's company in ways that neither of us ever would have wanted or anticipated a year earlier. Danny, being Danny, was fine with me coming along with him to all aspects of the appointment. While I would have been happy to sit in a lobby or waiting area somewhere, me, being me, was happy to follow along, being introduced to and meeting every single member of his medical team along the way, up to and including his doctor.
She was from Winnipeg. She didn't remember the name of that grocery store in Minneapolis, but I knew to ask, "Byerly's?" Yes, indeed.
Other patients in the waiting room and in the lab were clearly frequent flyers just like Danny was. But Danny, being Danny, was the one all of the staff knew by name, had heard how the blood draw got screwed up the week before, stopped to see how he was doing or just to say hi when they passed him in the hall.
He wore one of his biking caps that day, and an artistic, biking-oriented T-shirt a friend of his had made. I commented on his apparel, how he was wearing an important part of his identity, reminding his caregivers that there was more to him than Danny Lieberman, patient. Yep, it was a deliberate choice on his part, done both to remind them, and to help remind himself. It was his comfort armor.
During the various waiting times (before the labs and after, until seeing his doctor), we looked at pictures on my laptop, we talked, we sat together companionably. When I fretted over how long it was taking for the valet to bring my car up when we left at a busy time, encouraging Danny to sit down at the beginning of the wait and again later, he did as good a job advocating for himself with me as he had with his medical team. He was a big boy; he'd sit down when he needed or wanted to. Then he clearly appreciated it when I replied, "gotcha" and let it go.
After we finally escaped from New York Presbyterian, we stopped for a late lunch/early dinner at the noodle shop next to the Apple store on the Upper West Side. Danny chose the restaurant with care, picking one he knew to be spacious and unlikely to be crowded that time of day, all with an eye to minimizing his exposure risk in his immuno-suppressed state.
That was early July. I haven't been back down to New York since. A year ago at the beginning of October, I visited Danny when he was first hospitalized following diagnosis after his return from Renovation. I didn't name him in my LJ report at the time. I'd first seen the bad news about his on his Google+ account, but for most of the time he spent fighting the leukemia, to the best of my knowledge, he didn't talk about it via social media. (There may have been some on FB, but if there was any before Thursday, I don't think there was much.)
There's more to talk about, of course. Snippets of Danny memories. The G Line NYC Subway T-shirt he gave me at the party Joe & Edie hosted welcoming me to New York. The things we never talked about. I learned more about Danny's personal life in its last 5 days than in the previous 15+ years combined. Nothing beyond the basics, just the basics we'd never gotten 'round to talking about before. Funny how it can take someone dying to realize how little and yet how much we know about them. There are plenty of people in my life, people in and out of fandom where offering caregiving help at Calvary or in any similar circumstance would most likely leave them wondering what color the sky was on my planet, or where I'd simply know better than to attempt anything more than a brief visit or two. While my boundaries in this arena are clearly different from most, they do exist. I can't even articulate why Danny fell within them, but he did. It was somehow so important that I be there for him at Calvary that my initial grief leaves me hyper-aware of just how much it hurts that I wasn't. The anger at plans left unfinished, unfulfilled, all mixed in with my relief that he's no longer burdened with a body that could no longer bike all over the 5 boroughs or even live in his own apartment. He no longer has to experience the disappointments of not making it to his 35th high school reunion (just a few weeks ago), or to the upcoming Smofcon, as was his goal back in July.
Then there are the thoughts about how and when people chose to communicate with friends and loved ones about serious illness. Our public selves, our private selves, and the various forms of burdens that go with each. Thinking through my own sensibilities on that, leaving myself open to reconsideration and changes as time continues to fly by.
It's all still fragmented, it's all (of course) still grief. I hope I've downloaded enough of it from my brain, heart, and fingertips to sleep oh, so soundly, and then take the morrow as it comes.
filkerdave, for the image link from Renovation.)In September 2011, Danny was diagnosed with AML, acute myeloid leukemia. He had a bone marrow transplant in May. Last Sunday night, word privately went out that the transplant had become ineffective. He was moving to hospice this past week, most likely Thursday.
The email I saw mentioned the hospice was "in the Bronx for cancer patients" and that an address and other details would go out once he was there. But all I needed were those quoted words to know he was going to Calvary. It's the only place of its kind in the country, and it's where I spent so much time with Susan Palermo last year. I still can't leave
benyalow's place for the drive home without wanting to go straight, up the hill, and on in that direction instead of turning left onto I-87 North, as I'd previously done for years and years, as I've done ever since my last visit with Susan in November 2011.Back to this past week. I immediately sent email off to Catelynn offering to help, then talked with both Mark Richards and Danny on Monday evening (the New York Mark Richards, not the Minneapolis one). Catelynn had already reminded Danny I knew my way around Calvary. Yes, my providing some caregiving support and patient advocacy sounded good to him. He wanted me to wait until he was at Calvary to come down; we discussed that it would likely be Sunday given his expected schedule and mine. Yep. Good.
During our conversation Monday evening, I asked Danny if sushi was now okay. It had been on the restricted list following the bone marrow transplant, along with many other things that would be a threat to his utterly compromised...well, non-existent...immune system. "I don't see why not," Danny responded, his voice suddenly becoming more animated. He didn't have much appetite right then, but the prospect of sushi sure sounded like a good one. We talked about the importance of, as my Dad always called it, "the joy of the day." And we laughed. I'm holding tightly to the memory of that shared laughter right now; I can still hear and feel it resonating in my hind brain, in my heart.
Danny called Wednesday afternoon; he'd moved to Calvary a day sooner than expected. While I needed to be in Massachusetts on Friday afternoon, I could hypothetically run down to Calvary for 24 hours or so right then. I offered -- the tone of Danny's voice told me it had been a rough transition. There wasn't any wifi in the room; he'd have to use his mobile hotspot to get to the net. The room was small, with no fridge, and he couldn't bring one in. He'd had lunch; the food was okay, and he'd had a nap after they'd done their initial assessment, but overall, it just plain sounded hard.
Danny told me not to come down until Sunday, that he had a Wednesday evening commitment. We talked a bit more, not for long. No surprise.
On Thursday, Ed Pino, a friend of Danny's from high school IIUC, posted the news that Danny was in hospice on Danny's Facebook account. I'm not on Facebook, but by the time I saw it posted to another list, 150 people had responded to the Facebook post. I hope Danny saw or heard at least some of the love and support pouring his way from there.
I'm still in those early, shocky hours of grief. For the first time...or at least the first time I can remember right now, I'm hit hard by the super-selfish reality that I didn't get what I needed, that time at Calvary, being present, bringing him some sushi, or just anything of comfort. Helping. We had it set up. I knew his time was likely short. I'm glad for his sake that he's no longer suffering in any way. I'm glad he was as competent as he was earlier in the week as he worked with a lawyer putting his affairs in order. It sounds like that all got dealt with. But me? I needed to help. I know rationally that I did help, in smaller ways than I anticipated, but important ways nonetheless. The bottom line is that I'm hard-wired for being there, plans were in place to be there, and now there's no there to be.
Grief sucks.
Yeah, like none of us possibly knew that, right?
It's not that Danny and I were so very close or anything. Like so many fannish friends, we ran into each other at conventions, at Joe & Edie's parties, at Clearwater music festival, last year at Mt. Sinai Hospital, when Susan Palermo was a patient there. We had a shared cheerfulness. I don't know that we ever had a meal at a restaurant together before this past July after I gave him a ride and accompanied him on one of his weekly hospital appointments following the bone marrow transplant.
But he was here, just a few hours away. The hospice he was in was one I most likely know better than anyone else he's known for a decade and more. The great advantage and disadvantage of fandom is that we have friends and loved ones around the world. I can't be in Seattle, visiting Stu Shiffman during his long recovery from a stroke, a recovery filled with ups and downs, more even than most such long medical rollercoaster rides. I couldn't be at Jim Young's side during those hard, hard days post-surgery when he wasn't waking up. There are so many people I can't be there for. Danny was someone I could. Right up until he was gone before I got there.
Whine, whine, agony, whine. This is sometimes just plain how it goes. There are still blessings all around. Danny wasn't alone. People close to him were there. People close to me were a comfort tonight, as was one of those fannish friends I'm just starting to get to know. Ann Marie Rudolph visited Danny last July, about a week after I took him to that appointment. She told me how pleased Danny had been, how much he appreciated it. I made things easier for him that day, and we had the joy of each other's company in ways that neither of us ever would have wanted or anticipated a year earlier. Danny, being Danny, was fine with me coming along with him to all aspects of the appointment. While I would have been happy to sit in a lobby or waiting area somewhere, me, being me, was happy to follow along, being introduced to and meeting every single member of his medical team along the way, up to and including his doctor.
She was from Winnipeg. She didn't remember the name of that grocery store in Minneapolis, but I knew to ask, "Byerly's?" Yes, indeed.
Other patients in the waiting room and in the lab were clearly frequent flyers just like Danny was. But Danny, being Danny, was the one all of the staff knew by name, had heard how the blood draw got screwed up the week before, stopped to see how he was doing or just to say hi when they passed him in the hall.
He wore one of his biking caps that day, and an artistic, biking-oriented T-shirt a friend of his had made. I commented on his apparel, how he was wearing an important part of his identity, reminding his caregivers that there was more to him than Danny Lieberman, patient. Yep, it was a deliberate choice on his part, done both to remind them, and to help remind himself. It was his comfort armor.
During the various waiting times (before the labs and after, until seeing his doctor), we looked at pictures on my laptop, we talked, we sat together companionably. When I fretted over how long it was taking for the valet to bring my car up when we left at a busy time, encouraging Danny to sit down at the beginning of the wait and again later, he did as good a job advocating for himself with me as he had with his medical team. He was a big boy; he'd sit down when he needed or wanted to. Then he clearly appreciated it when I replied, "gotcha" and let it go.
After we finally escaped from New York Presbyterian, we stopped for a late lunch/early dinner at the noodle shop next to the Apple store on the Upper West Side. Danny chose the restaurant with care, picking one he knew to be spacious and unlikely to be crowded that time of day, all with an eye to minimizing his exposure risk in his immuno-suppressed state.
That was early July. I haven't been back down to New York since. A year ago at the beginning of October, I visited Danny when he was first hospitalized following diagnosis after his return from Renovation. I didn't name him in my LJ report at the time. I'd first seen the bad news about his on his Google+ account, but for most of the time he spent fighting the leukemia, to the best of my knowledge, he didn't talk about it via social media. (There may have been some on FB, but if there was any before Thursday, I don't think there was much.)
There's more to talk about, of course. Snippets of Danny memories. The G Line NYC Subway T-shirt he gave me at the party Joe & Edie hosted welcoming me to New York. The things we never talked about. I learned more about Danny's personal life in its last 5 days than in the previous 15+ years combined. Nothing beyond the basics, just the basics we'd never gotten 'round to talking about before. Funny how it can take someone dying to realize how little and yet how much we know about them. There are plenty of people in my life, people in and out of fandom where offering caregiving help at Calvary or in any similar circumstance would most likely leave them wondering what color the sky was on my planet, or where I'd simply know better than to attempt anything more than a brief visit or two. While my boundaries in this arena are clearly different from most, they do exist. I can't even articulate why Danny fell within them, but he did. It was somehow so important that I be there for him at Calvary that my initial grief leaves me hyper-aware of just how much it hurts that I wasn't. The anger at plans left unfinished, unfulfilled, all mixed in with my relief that he's no longer burdened with a body that could no longer bike all over the 5 boroughs or even live in his own apartment. He no longer has to experience the disappointments of not making it to his 35th high school reunion (just a few weeks ago), or to the upcoming Smofcon, as was his goal back in July.
Then there are the thoughts about how and when people chose to communicate with friends and loved ones about serious illness. Our public selves, our private selves, and the various forms of burdens that go with each. Thinking through my own sensibilities on that, leaving myself open to reconsideration and changes as time continues to fly by.
It's all still fragmented, it's all (of course) still grief. I hope I've downloaded enough of it from my brain, heart, and fingertips to sleep oh, so soundly, and then take the morrow as it comes.
