Russ in Deep Waters

Russ in Deep Waters

I saw him for the first time in Toys-R-US. I was twirling a pink plastic hula-hoop around my skinny eight-year-old waist; I noticed him stop and watch in amusement. I did a little show, making funny faces while walking and twirling at the same time. I love an audience. Finally gravity pulled the oversized hoop around my ankles and I took a deep bow.

The man I performed for had very curly hair, and I thought he looked a little like Richard Simmons, the energetic aerobics teacher on TV. His teeth we crooked, but his smile came easily. Before I could say hello (as I did to everyone I saw on the street), my mother made the introduction,

His name was Russ Waters. This was the new friend she had mentioned to me once or twice before. I quickly went to him and embraced his legs. This was a typical act for me, having been raised in an Italian family where hugs were as much a part of life as breathing. My six-year-old sister, Laura Dawn, was different. She hid shyly behind my mother. Mom asked what she thought of Russ. Laura peaked our, made a sour face and said he was ugly. Then she hid again.

After that first meeting in the toy store, visits with Mom’s new friend Russ became a Friday night tradition. He made the ‘separation’ between mom and dad easier somehow. His quick humor and willingness to spend time with two squealing girls made it fun for my mom to take us to his house. Like a good friend, he joined us playing board games, watching movies, and telling jokes. Sometimes we went out for dinner at a pizza place that had a mini choo-choo train circling the ceiling and loud music blasting children’s songs.

Russ quickly became a special person in my eyes. When my mother asked Laura again what she thought of Russ, Laura smiled. She looked hard at Russ and said proudly, “I think he is cute, cute like a chicken.”

There was something about this man who walked into our lives that someone form the outside could not see. He was sick, very sick. Soon after we met him my mom informed Laura and I that Russ had a liver disease called scelerosing colangitis, a disease that not many people in the United States have. A big scar on his stomach shows where his large and small intestines have been reworked. The stories he told about the scar made it much easier to accept. The first time we saw the scar, he told us he was scuba diving and he had to rescue his best fiend from a shark. The shark grabbed on to his middle. The hit the shark on the nose while holding on to his stomach and his friend. That story made Russ our hero; yet knowing what really had caused the scar made him an even braver man in my eyes.

The doctors at Stanford Medical Center told Russ his time with us would be short. And, indeed, he slowly began to turn yellow and itch all the time. Visiting him in the hospital was on of the most difficult things I had ever done. When I saw him lying in the metal bed, all I could think of were the times we hiked, boated, and fished while on vacation only months before. While I was in shock and denial, Laura Dawn knew just how to fix our friend Russ. She threw a fit about wanting to go to the grocery store, because “that’s where the livers are!” she wailed. When we got to the store Laura Dawn raced back to the meat section and grabbed a package of beef liver. “Here mom, here. We can give this to Russ and then he will be fine.” That package of hope is still with the family, safe and cool in the freezer if needed.

Two months before the time the doctors said he would be gone from our lives, Russ was determined to make the most of each day. He married my mother, even though they spent most of their honeymoon bouncing from hospital to hospital having blood tests done. Because my sister and I loved him so much, it was easy to welcome our best friend into our family, even if would only be for a short bit.

Wanting to solidify our bond before he passed on, Russ bought us all kayaks. He thought kayaking would be the perfect way to remember him, as he was once a scuba diver. We could paddle our little boats remembering we were splashing on the surface of his favorite place. For weeks we kayaked together, wondering which outing would be our last. For weeks we continued paddling, no longer focused on that question.

I am going to turn 30 this summer!! In celebration of life, I dipped my kayak paddle into the cool waters of the Puget Sound last week, and breathed a sigh of freedom. I looked over the glistening water to see Russ smiling at me with the same smile I had seen at Toys-R-US. He was amused. I was trying to snap on my spray skirt without luck almost tipping. “Come here,” he beckoned. “I’ll hold you steady so you can get it without ending up soaked.”

           In the past twenty-one years I have grown closer to him than to my bio-father. Behind Russ’s back, making certain he can hear me, I proudly call him “my dad.” Sometimes I forget he still has a liver disease, he is just my dad. Any of our loved ones could die at any time by disease or accident. For some reason Russ Waters has held onto this life and our family very tightly. I am so lucky he loves us so much because I have needed him so much over the past two decades and he has been there. Always.

In my early teen years I suffered my own illness, a mental illness. Where some families would have turned and ran, my mother, my sister and Russ helped me through it. They educated themselves and talked to my providers. I was hospitalized, just as Russ had been. I had to take medication, just as Russ does. We turned my “mental illness” into “an illness like any other.” By doing so I came to accept and embrace my strengths and be aware of my triggers. I take life one day at a time, sometimes one moment at a time. If I ever forget how far I have come in my wellness, if I dip into depression; I know all I have to do is reach out to Russ or my mom. They gently remind me how far we have all come in mind and body. My little sister Laura Dawn has been a little hero her self, together we have been cheerleaders to our parents and each other to “Keep Living!”