My Rocket Scientist Friend

i

NOT all our friends make us feel pretty special. But lucky me, I had one in the person of Brett (not his real name) who, because he was who he was, caused me to believe I was special as he befriended me.

Brett was a rocket scientist.

Yes, the kind that most of us, ordinary mortals, make jokes about to justify our less-than-genius IQ.

Brett didn’t look like a stereotyped egghead like Einstein. He was also nowhere near, in looks and eccentricity, to the Doc Emmet Brown character of the Back to the Future films.

My friend, in looks at least, was a regular guy. However, he might appear to be more than just attractive in the eyes of his starry-eyed friends (like me who admired super-clever people) just because he was a rocket scientist. He had no airs, none of that looking-down-his-nose attitude. The jokes he cracked were either outrageously funny or ridiculously corny. He could be sarcastic towards another but without the latter being aware of the sarcasm. Most important of all - for me - he could give a wee lecture on propulsion using layman’s language, with my less-than-genius IQ somehow able to grasp its principle.

We lost contact for a few years until I woke up from sleep, in two separate instances, knowing that Brett was in my dreams. I had no idea what it was about, nor why he would be in my dream. I just knew he was in the dream, which made me unsettled for most of the day. As I prioritized my pressing writing deadlines at the time, it took me over a week before I managed to write him a short note.

His reply to my email came in very quickly. We spoke on the phone, with 7,000 miles between us. His voice was rather croaky. I felt straight away that all was not well. He confirmed that he was very ill.

“I have cancer; I’m fighting for my life,” he said.

In shock, I cried. And in a flash, I thought I knew what the dreams were for.

Brett tried to laugh and dismiss my tears and my trembling voice. He said, “I’m scheduled for a major, major surgery. Yes, I know I’ve had a few other recent surgeries. Fingers crossed, after this one, I’ll be fine – not the same as before, mind.”

Brett was operated on by a team of specialists for close to 30 hours. It was touch-and-go a few times during those 30 hours.

The surgery, thank God, was successful. (Yes, I prayed for him.) His life was saved.

He knew, as he admitted to me, that the procedure would change his life forever. He would no longer be able to speak. And - this furthered my distress - to think I was the last person besides his family who he spoke to, on the phone, a few hours before the surgery. He could also no longer eat solid food or drink any liquid. He would need feeding tube for the rest of his life. Tough, very tough on him as it was for me, and I was only a friend.

Actually, I did not immediately learn how the surgery went. It took a few days before I heard a couple of times from his close friend at work that yes, he was conscious a day after surgery. Conscious – but would he live? I did not have the courage to ask.

When I did not hear from my rocket scientist friend again after two months, I looked, online, for the obituary pages in his local paper. It was disquieting, but I had to know.

When I heard from Brett again by email, it was as if a terrible weight lifted from my chest. He was cheerful and feeling upbeat. I could imagine him with his siblings and only son – smiling and reassuring them that all was well.

“I would write that book on surviving cancer,” he wrote, “then perhaps by next year, climb Mt. Shasta, and enjoy nature like before. I’ll go fly-fishing again with my mates, and get back to my much-delayed project, that of putting up a taller wall in my property to guard against forest fire.”

My friend’s passion for life and living was, indeed, amazing. But when I thought of the devices he worked on for most of his life, I saw that his passion for life and living was rather ironic.

His very words echo this irony:

“… the radiation [not from his cancer treatment] took its toll… I hope to God we never have a nuclear war with anyone even though I spent a lifetime developing rockets to deliver such a terrible weapon…”

ii

THE saying, “life is too short”, is a mantra for many.

Life is too short to dwell on one’s failure.

Life is too short to weep for a cheating partner.

Life is too short to waste time on haters and trolls who were only projecting their own self-hate and insecurities.

For me, saying “life is too short” means living life to the fullest, and taking every opportunity and every little thing that might make life – mine and those of others linked to me – a bit more meaningful.

When I say “life is short”, I also refer to living day-by-day, as if it would be my last day on earth; therefore, nothing should be left undone.

The thing is, did I really apply the above, that of not leaving things undone?

And then the reality of irony struck me, perhaps like a missile: life, indeed, could be very short…

One busy day, someone special to me was alive and breathing. Proof was he had just emailed a PowerPoint document, followed by a request for a few moments to chat on the phone.

Then another day not long after, that same person dies.

Then I realized to my horror and guilty heart:

I had not acknowledged the receipt of the presentation by email, nor had I even given a reason for declining the phone call at the time.

The chat / phone call was to demonstrate to me a just-acquired high-tech gadget meant for someone who could no longer use tongue and vocal chords; cancer had eaten away those and were surgically removed, amongst other places in the body, excised, where the dreaded C cells were lodged.

Sad, so, so sad.

I failed to reach out to a dying friend, a friend who had reached out to me many times in the past.

Life, indeed, is short and should not, must not be taken for granted – especially when someone needed just a little time.

Sad, so very, very sad. And I felt eternally bad...

In memory of my rocket scientist friend

The first version, parts 1 and 2, were published in my blog post, The Other Side of Romance

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