By Sue Murphy
I have some sad news: Harold passed away a few weeks back. I miss him terribly, but he had been very sick for a very long time and now he is free from pain and at peace. When you love someone, what more could you ask?
It was cancer, and he’d been fighting it for years, and I know, I should have told you, but I didn’t. Denial perhaps, or wishful thinking, but I think the real reason was that here, in this space, Harold was always happy and whole.
I have to tell you something else: His real name was Bill, William Patrick Murphy, to be exact, and he was every bit the Irishman that the name implies. I dubbed him “Harold” early on in my writing career to give him room to deny all of the antics that I wrote about even though, with the exception of a tiny bit of literary blarney, every word I wrote about him was true.
Actually, Bill enjoyed being Harold. Whenever I was stumped for something to write about, he’d say, “Write about Harold. People love that.” And they did.
People liked Bill, too. Whenever he walked into a room, he owned it. He was the life of every party, the one people looked for at every convention or family reunion. Even at the end, when his only stage was an operating room or infusion center, he was charming the nurses and lab technicians. When Bill died, we got a fruit and cheese tray and a candle from the staff at the hotel where we stayed during his treatments. He was loved.
He lived 10 years after his diagnosis, more than he had been officially allotted, and he set out to make the most of every one of them. When he felt good, we traveled. We saw Germany and Australia and Italy and Ireland. When his energy waned, we sat on the screened-in porch and listened to the latest oldies album he had purchased with the iTunes cards the girls bought him for birthday and Christmas. It was all good.
He lived long enough to walk both of his daughters down the aisle. He was there to share popcorn with all four of his grandchildren. That last day, he waited to leave until the girls and I and his brother were all gathered around him. We were truly blessed.
He spent his final months trying to teach me the things that I would need to know when he was gone, like the intricacies of his checkbook balancing system, the way to program the lawn sprinklers, and how to drive in downtown Atlanta traffic. When I honked at someone who was veering into my lane near the I-285 interchange last month, he was so proud I thought he was going to cry.
I’m still working on programming the sprinklers. I’m still working on a lot of things, but I have a lot of good help around me, people who have stepped in and stepped up to make sure I stay afloat. People sent cards, they sent meals. My peeps still call to check on me every day, so I know I will be OK.
It’s a weird road, though. I’ll be moving along just fine and then I’ll dust the cologne bottles on Bill’s dresser and burst into tears. It will come in layers, I know that, but I’m committed to moving forward, even if some days, I’m just whistling in the dark.
