My little brother, Nick, passed away March 29, 2005 at about 5pm right in front of my eyes. He'd been suffering from metastisized testicular cancer. The cancer that had migrated to his lungs is what I believe finally ended his life. It was quite a difficult passing not justfor Nick but for all of us who remain because Nick was much loved. He was an intelligent, funny, and open minded guy. He was all of 37 years old when he died. My point in re-telling all the dark time is to make it clear to other people that cancer doesn't just strike people who smoke, drink too much, are obese, old, or live in places known fortheir toxicity like Love Canal or Bhopal, India. This all happened in scenic, verdant, wholesome Portland, OR, to a young man who like to play video games and basketball, hike, and was quite fit. I am just hoping this wakes everyone up and they get involved in making sure their water and food sources are safe. Actually look at the new Food Pyramid. Work and vote to make your environment safe. Be aware of early cancer detection techniques. Don't ignore pain. Doctors do their best but have extremely limited knowledge and success rates as far as cures go. If you are ever unlucky enough to ever read what bleomycin does, you'll know what I mean. Also, if you think doctors have some emotional capacity left for compassion,forget it. That's all of my soapbox "Fight" speech for Nick.
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This is a picture of Nick and Buddy after Nick had underwent chemo andchemo with stem cell transplant. He's a pretty skinny and hairlessfellow here, but that was pretty normal for him. He didn't want me taking pictures of him, but I couldn't help getting him in the frame. I think he knew. |
| This is Nick when he was a fat little hairless baby. Our older brother Mike was a boy scout and had just gotten back from a big adventure in the woods. |
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This is Nick and my little sister, Jenny. She's combing his hair. They were both natural blonds when they were young. |
| Nick had a extra great Christmas one year long ago. I am pretty certain this is the only monkey named George Nick liked. He didn't care much for the one in the White House. |
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Our family has always been big on camping. We spent two weeks every summer on the road in our mobile tent trailer. Nick kept up the tradition with gusto aided by his many friends. He was also really great at taking photos of nature and close up photography. I will always think of him when hiking.
Below are some other silly family pictures. The first is a picture of Nick and Mike, my dude brothers. It was a good idea to separate these two when playing a game of Cranium unless you like complete Cranium humiliation.
The second is of me and Nick at our last Christmas together when I had this silly idea to have everyone dress up like Star Trek or any kind of SciFi characters. Being a very gracious and patient person, Nick put up with my idea. He always had a terrific sense of humor. He was able to keep this even when he was sick. I have to re-tell the story of knitting and Star Trek. So since Nick was very sick the last 19 months of his life, he watched a ton of movies and TV shows that he had missed because he was pretty sick from the cancer and extremely sick from the chemotherapy. Star Trek Voyager was a show that he and my mom watched a lot and it went on nearly forever. Saddly bedridden for the last two month of his life, he was looked after a lot by mom. And mom passed the time quite often by knitting. She wanted me to find a free online hat pattern for Jenny but while looking, I came upon this pattern of Mr. Spock from the original series. I asked Nick, who wasn't well enough to have much of a conversation whether or not he wanted mom to knit him a Spock. Well, Nick even ill couldn't resist a joke and said one word: "T-Pal". If you don't watch Enterprise and get the joke, here's a picture of T'Pol in all her hotness.
The last picture is Dad, Mike, Jenny, and Nick in their von Daily Family aprons that our Dad sewed out of our old curtains that hung in the front room of our house for 30 years. Maybe it gives a small insight into where his occasional zaniness came from.
This is just a rough draft of my small tribute to the best little brother a girl could have. He was so mild mannered and cool and I didn't even go into his trombone playing or chess games. Or the soccer and basketball. Or what a smarty pants he was. I'm not sure if it's his sense of humor I'll miss the most or his ability to accept and get along with everyone, but I miss him now. I believe he was haunting me for a while because I was obsessed with PS2 for about a month, but I think he must have gotten bored coz I am not the video gaming genius he was. I still send his email account funny bits of news. Nick, I won't forget you...ever.
