GOOD-BYE TO “HOT STUFF”
A EULOGY FOR BILL STARK
1935 to 2007
By Katharine Blossom Lowrie
And so began the sitcom
Bill and I divorced decades ago. So how did I end up folding his boxers, suffering his impatience, relinquishing the remote and sneezing from his cats? Esophageal Cancer. His third go-round. Sixteen years ago, a surgeon carved a tumor the size of a golf ball out of my ex-husband’s throat. Bill’s neck ended up looking as if a pit bull had mistaken it for dinner – his karma, I suppose, for a three-pack-a-day smoking habit. Good news is, they got the sucker out.
Except the Big C struck again in 2006. With a vengeance. Inoperable this time. What began as squamous cell carcinoma bred a tumor on Bill’s vocal chord, and the adjacent lymph glands welcomed it like a lover. “Chemo and radiation are your new best friends,” his oncologist told him. (I soon began to wonder who Bill’s worst enemies were.) Quickly wasted by chemo, he required a feeding tube after radiation toasted his tongue and scorched his throat to the point he could no longer swallow. He lost 60 pounds in a heartbeat, and his blood pressure plummeted to a point where most folks greet St. Peter. When the tumor blockaded his oxygen, a tracheotomy was performed. And so began the sitcom.
Everything transpired through a tube
Insurance adjuster, X-ray technician, Hypnotherapist, Roger’s legion of friends knew him best as an affable host, always up for making whatever room he was in a better, happier place. So, it would be criminal ingratitude for me to repay a debt of joy with the currency of tears. Roger provided me many happy memories and I will repay him with the interest on that debt and in kind, but never have I found words so heavy than when I tried to lift sad ones to find the happy ones crushed beneath. So I’ll refer to this as a celebration since Roger would be appalled to find himself the cause of an unhappy gathering. He wouldn’t hesitate to remind any of us this is his party and everyone should be having fun. He’d also be asking why there isn’t an open bar, a dance floor, and shouldn’t there be more people here.