One More Day

Some of my favorite songs were playing in the car as I drove across the GW Bridge to Holy Name Hospital and answered phone calls from family and friends singing happy birthday. Life was good and in my mind, it was about to get even better as the love of my life was coming home and the wonderful life we had created together would soon continue to go on as normal after a scary month of hospitals, doctors and many unknowns.

I grabbed my mediocre coffee from the cafeteria and made my way up to the fifth floor. As I started the walk down the hallway to Rand’s room, his doctor yelled my name from behind. Dr. Djubian, who had been wonderful over the past month to both of us, gave me a hug and quietly said “Happy Birthday.” She held me a little longer than I expected and when she pulled back and I saw her eyes, my heart suddenly lurched into my throat.

There are many words you never want to hear come from your doctor’s lips but at this moment, I couldn’t think of anything worse than what she said. “I’m so sorry to do this on your birthday, T. I don’t even know how to tell you this.” These two short sentences, which I can hear as if they had been said yesterday, were then followed by all the other words you never want to hear: tumor, cancer, metastasized, advanced, oncologist. I honestly think I stopped listening at some point as the reality of what she was saying sunk in.

I don’t recall what I did next or what I even said back to Dr. Djubian, but I somehow pulled myself together before walking into Rand’s room and was greeted by his cute voice from beneath his blankets, “Is that my birthday baby?” At this point he had no idea of the results from what we both thought were going to be more routine tests of his abdomen and I was about to tell him that they found a large tumor on his pancreas, including many spots on his liver.

As I always did when I arrived in the morning, I lay down on his bed with my arms wrapped around him and for a very brief minute had one of the last moments we would share together without fear and pain. I wish it could have lasted forever but I couldn’t hold back my tears, and within minutes, Rand knew the devastating news. At that very moment, as we held each other tight, our lives changed forever.

As many reading this blog know, Rand died four months later at 7:02 AM on July 4th, 2008 at our home in New Hope, Pennsylvania. We were back in a hospital bed and he was still in my arms but the fear and pain that engulfed our lives over the last four months, slipped away with Rand’s last breath.

This blog will often refer back to what happened over these four months, as much of these experiences are what helped shape the principles of The Palette Fund. As I continue to remind myself, however, these four months were a very small part of Rand’s 50 fascinating years and because of that, this blog will also relate many stories of my six years with the most caring, genuine and intelligent man I have ever met, as well as guest bloggers who knew Rand for much longer.

My hope in sharing some of our personal moments together is twofold. The first is for those who did not have the pleasure of meeting and knowing Rand. This blog will help paint a picture of the man hundreds of people fell in love with through his infectious personality, overwhelming generosity and continually expanding heart. The second is that my experience, even at the young age of 30, can hopefully help others of any age get through the devastating loss of losing a loved one.

Towards the end of Rand’s life, when he no longer wanted to hear about what was happening in the world and lost the desire to even watch TV, I would crawl into bed next to him and we would whisper quietly about how lucky we were to have each other. I don’t remember when it started, but at some point in that last month we adopted to saying the phrase “one more day” every night before drifting off to sleep as it symbolized how lucky we felt to have one more day that we got to spend together.

Those days sadly ended that morning of July 4th, but because of The Palette Fund and the many wonderful memories I shared with Rand, I still get time every day with the man who has made this foundation possible that, in turn, will help so many people for decades to come. Thank you Rand for giving me the gift of being loved by you and trusting me to help spread the joy that you did so effortlessly throughout your life.

One more day –

T