Thomas Wictor

Posts Tagged ‘cancer’

A letter to Mom and Dad, Part One

Dear Mom and Dad: Today I got some really good news, which I’ll keep to myself for now. In case you hadn’t heard, I signed up with a fake publicity firm that stole almost $40,000 from me. The guy who runs the company has no background in the publishing industry. What happened was that Tim…

 

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A letter to Mom and Dad, Part Two

My letter to Mom and Dad continues. 28. On April 14, Mom, you came home. You refused to eat or exercise, even though you’d been told over and over that you needed to do so in order to be a good candidate for chemotherapy. We fought about it, and you accused us of criticizing you….

 

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The ruin of souls

The person I’m going to make famous has compelled me to disclose far more about myself than I wanted. But I’ve spoken to Tim and Eric, and I have their blessings. Some things will be neither confirmed nor denied. But now I’m going to reveal things solely for the purpose of helping you understand the…

 

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Mom has died.

She died at 12:00 p.m., October 13, 2013, at the age of eighty-five. Dr. Leberthon kept his word and saved her from pneumonia. She died of cardiac arrest, which occurred after she went into a coma. Her death was very peaceful. She simply stopped. Thank you, Dr. Leberthon. Another miracle. You saved Mom from suffocating….

 

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Dying isn’t catching

It appears that Mom is very near the end. One thing I’d like to say is that our culture has forgotten how to die. People—even health-care workers—act very abnormally around dying people. Just stop it. Mom was still Mom. She hadn’t changed. Why would I act differently around her? Last night she told me to…

 

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Why I no longer hate

It’s easy to hate. Look around at the arrogance, deceit, corruption, and criminality you see every single day. Listen to the cretins on the radio. Read Tweets from obscenely wealthy celebrities who take your money and in return wish death on you because you don’t share their opinions. Growing up, I hated my father and…

 

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My friends are…

…pretty amazing in terms of what I don’t know about them. Joe Cady hadn’t found it necessary to tell me the story below until we had a conversation about cigars. When I was in high school, my friend Bobby-Bob-Bobby and I stole a couple of his father’s cigars. The day my family met Bobby-Bob-Bobby in…

 

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The chimp in my spoon Meniere’s Diet

I finally caught the bastard. He appears only at night, and only when the spoon is in a bowl that’s filled with water and set in precisely the right spot in the sink. I noticed him a few weeks ago. After I eat cereal, I fill the bowl with water and put it in the…

 

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Is it harder when there is no love?

In his piece “Saying Goodbye,” Walter Russel Mead describes the death of his beloved mother, who died September 16, 2013. He writes the following: My siblings and I are immigrants in a new and forbidding land. We have been swept from the balmy seas and friendly isles that nurtured us into a windswept, harder place….

 

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Why the Beard?

I’ve been asked again why I don’t shave off my beard so I can look younger. Well, looking younger isn’t important to me. I’m fifty-one. It’s okay for me to look fifty-one. Currently, shaving isn’t a priority. I always hated shaving. You women should try scraping your face every day with sharp metal. I was…

 

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