The day after my evening of exposure therapy with Claire, the extroverted girl from the Hamptons, I found out my aunt was dying.

Or at least, that she was probably going to die.

Back in 2019, my aunt Rebecca, a non-smoker, was diagnosed with stage-four lung cancer.

The cancer had spread (again)—this time to her brain, and she’d underwent surgery a few days earlier.

Then she had a stroke.

My father and I promptly booked flights to Los Angeles to see Rebecca, knowing it would probably be our last visit with her.

She was in and out of consciousness by the time we arrived in LA and receiving hospice care at home.

When my dad and I sat beside her bed, she reached out, grabbed both of our hands and said, “I love you.”

Her voice was faint but resolute.

Later, as I sat alone with Rebecca and held her hand, I told her about my book and that she had a role in the book. She couldn’t really speak, but I think she heard me. I’ll always regret not telling her about the book sooner. I so badly wanted to but just couldn’t figure out how.

My aunt Rebecca was always one of my biggest fans and advocates. It was heartbreaking to watch her die.

I may write more about this experience later, but I’m still processing my aunt’s death and not ready to discuss it in detail just yet.

In chapter 33 of my book, I paid tribute to my aunt Rebecca and her husband, Michael. You can read that tribute, if you’re interested (excerpt forthcoming).

First, here’s a little context about the chapter and the events that preceded it.

• I was on a cross-country RV trip with my dad and two dogs, Dresden and Pugsley.
• My aunt had just been diagnosed with stage-four cancer a month earlier
• We’d changed our travel plans in order to see her.

And that should be all the context you need.

 

Chapter 33

SoCal Christmas

On our way to Los Angeles, my father and I stopped by the Santa Barbara Cemetery. We hadn’t visited my grandmother’s grave since her burial. She laid beside her husband, my grandfather, Robert Ross Horton I. It was strange seeing my name on a grave. I thought about both of them for a few minutes, looking down at their headstones. Then we exited off memory lane and merged onto Highway 101, with Dresden in the backseat and Pugsley on my lap.

Rebecca and her husband Michael have lived in the same house, on the westside of Los Angeles, for over twenty-five years. They remodeled it in the late 2000s, adding a full second story to the floor plan. I always liked visiting them as a kid. They were just genuinely kind, positive, and fun people.

Unlike most of my relatives and me, Rebecca’s never really had any discernible flaws. She’s an outstanding mother, friend, wife, and citizen. After my grandmother’s stroke, Rebecca was her primary advocate. She traveled back and forth between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara to see my grandmother on a weekly basis.

I’d be lying if I said Rebecca and I have been super close over the years. But that’s on me, not her. I just haven’t been happy for most of my life. And when you’re unhappy, it compromises your ability to maintain healthy relationships.

Rebecca is an accomplished child psychologist. Her husband Michael works as a criminal attorney. I’ve never met a couple that complemented each other more beautifully than those two. They laugh often, cherish their time together, never fight (except when they’re navigating the nightmarishly congested Los Angeles highway system), and support each other.

I observed many dysfunctional relationships growing up. Rebecca and Michael were my beacon of hope, who set the standard for what was possible in a committed partnership. My paternal grandparents had a loving marriage too, but it was a 1950s-style marriage, meaning my grandma did 99 percent of the housework and the two of them weren’t necessarily “partners.”

Rebecca and Michael have two kids, Brandon and Maggie, who are both in their twenties.

Our SoCal Christmas got off to an inauspicious start. In the living room, my cousin Brandon abruptly approached and then greeted Dresden. Dresden doesn’t like it when people approach him. You have to wait for him to greet (and inspect) you. He barked threateningly and charged at my cousin, just as a warning. Brandon collapsed onto the nearby couch.

“Sorry,” I said to Brandon. “He’s on a bunch of medications and a little ornery as a result.”

“It’s okay,” Brandon said. I put Dresden out in the truck.

My aunt Tracie arrived about ten minutes later, accompanied by her daughter Kelly and girlfriend, Ruth. Tracie and I didn’t speak for about five years, starting in 2011. A dispute over a turkey pot at Thanksgiving led to our estrangement (that’s a story I have to save for another book).

Tracie’s changed a lot over the last decade, and I’ve enjoyed my last few visits with her. She mellowed in her fifties when she became a lesbian (and that was a wise lifestyle modification on her part). Tracie’s a psychiatrist by trade and perhaps the smartest person in our family.

Her daughter Kelly was applying to medical schools at the time; she was later accepted to the University of North Carolina’s med school. Kelly’s also a lesbian. So in the near future, we’ll have two lesbian doctors in the Horton family.

We hadn’t had a family Christmas with so many attendees in twenty years. The conversations began slowly, as nobody wanted to play a domineering role. Rebecca spoke briefly about her treatments. She wasn’t on chemo (yet). Her oncologist had prescribed an experimental medication that had reduced the size of her tumors. Rebecca didn’t feel like discussing her health extensively, so we moved along to the next topic.

Everyone expressed their concerns for my uncle Michael, who had suffered a heart attack in the spring of 2019. He was only in his early sixties, rarely drank, exercised regularly, and led a healthy lifestyle. My father and I surmised that all the years of stress from his criminal law practice caused, or at least partially caused, his heart attack.

“I’m doing just fine,” Michael insisted. “Rebecca’s the one we’re all worried about now.” He sat on the wood floor near their lit fireplace, leaning up against the wall. As a trial lawyer, Michael developed a strong and engaging speaking voice. On this night, he spoke in a monotone, and it looked as if he’d lost ten to fifteen pounds since the last time I’d seen him (he was always thin, too).

Over the next hour, my dad and I unveiled our travel and future plans. Each of my cousins, Tracie, and her girlfriend all reviewed their latest career and life updates. Rebecca and Michael said they wanted to sell their house eventually and move out of the Los Angeles area.

“The homelessness is just out of control,” Michael said. That comment surprised me. My aunt and uncle have impeccable liberal credentials and were major contributors to both Obama campaigns.

“Where do you think you guys want to move?” I asked.

Rebecca leapt at the question. “Michael and his next wife will probably move to Arizona,” she said.

“Don’t even joke about that,” Michael said. After her stage-four cancer diagnosis, my aunt developed a dark and slightly morbid sense of humor.

She looked great, at least five and perhaps closer to ten years younger than her age (sixty-one). Rebecca sounded good too. But she coughed intermittently in a coarse and unsettling way.

And as I reflect on our 2019 family Christmas today, what I remember most about it is my uncle—the helpless and dejected expressions on his face. Every time Rebecca coughed, Michael seemed to feel the pain as much as or more than she did. If it had been an option, I’m certain Michael would’ve wanted Rebecca’s doctors to place her cancer into his body. I’d never witnessed that level of empathy or devotion from a person.

During our meal in the kitchen, Rebecca noted how quickly fortunes can change among families. “We had many good and conflict-free years,” she said. “We always felt like we were overdue for some great hardship.”

“This was a little more than we expected,” my uncle added.

“Sorry it’s been such a brutal year,” my dad said.

After dinner my aunt Tracie and her companions drove back to their house in Thousand Oaks. The rest of us moved into the TV room and watched Knives Out, a murder-mystery film that I found boring but tolerable. We later reconvened for a nightcap before retiring to our respective sleeping quarters.

The next morning my father, Rebecca, and I had coffee together outside on the patio. Rebecca focused on the two of us throughout the casual chat, asking more questions about our trip and personal lives. She reminded me of her mother, my grandmother, who worried more about other people than herself in the wake of her cancer diagnosis.

When my cousin Brandon came downstairs for breakfast, after we’d moved into the kitchen, Dresden charged at him (again).

Brandon fell backwards again, hoping to avoid a dog bite or mauling. In addition to being mildly racist and anti-children, Dresden’s sexist and doesn’t care for men either (and I can’t say I blame him). I restrained and verbally scolded Dresden, then put him back out in the truck.

My dad and I stayed at Rebecca and Michael’s house until about noon.

As we gathered our belongings in the living room and prepared to leave, Michael said, “We want to see lots of pictures.”

“Will do,” I told him. I reached out to shake his hand.

“No, not this time,” Michael said, opening his arms for a hug.

When my father and Rebecca said their goodbyes, they were both emotional.

“I’m thinking about you all the time,” my dad said, with tears in his eyes.

“We’ll be in touch,” Rebecca assured him.

Although she was optimistic about her prognosis, Rebecca’s cancer was aggressive, and she wasn’t sure if she’d ever see us again. My dad and I were both glad we got to visit Rebecca but felt horrible for her, Michael, and their family.

Next: Therapy Journal 10 – “Saying Goodbye to Shannon”

Previous: Therapy Journal 8 – “Five Breakthrough Moments”

Go to the Beginning: Journal 1 – “Broke, Miserable, and Alone”