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  Dear Reader:

  Curtis Bunn has carved a niche as a storyteller from a male perspective, taking pride in crafting tales such as The Old Man in the Club about the older guy who frequents the club scene in search “catching up” to The Truth Is in the Wine with a husband who keeps secret that he’s a lottery winner while attempting to rekindle his marriage. Now the author focuses on health, bringing us the tale of a Washington, D.C. high school English teacher who suddenly, after a routine exam, discovers he has cancer.

  When diagnosed as terminally ill, Calvin Jones must decide if he should take the chemotherapy he is offered to extend his life. He makes the choice to decline and to focus on living his life in the fullest.

  This thought-provoking journey leads readers to ponder what they would do if in the same scenario. A discussion guide is included where readers can continue the buzz about handling news of an illness.

  The author’s message through the eyes of Calvin is emphatically about each of us embracing and seizing each day.

  As always, thanks for supporting myself and the Strebor Books family. We strive to bring you the most cutting-edge, out-of-the-box material on the market. You can find me on Facebook @AuthorZane or you can email me at [email protected].

  Blessings,

  Publisher

  Strebor Books

  www.simonandschuster.com

  To my late grandmother, Nettie Royster aka “Mama.” Your love and wisdom are missed, but remain in my heart.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  God, the Almighty, Ever-Present, Omnipotent, continues to bless me in ways beyond measure. All things start and stop with Him. Thank you, Lord.

  It’s been thirty-five years since the death of my father, Edward Earl Bunn, Sr., and yet I still dream of him and I pray that he knows his name will always live through us, his family. My mother, Julia Bunn, has been my closest ally all my life and my friend and traveling partner as an adult. Her beauty, inside and outside, illuminates my life. My brothers, Billy and Eddie, and my sister, Tammy Beck, are my first and everlasting friends that I love through and through.

  Curtis Jr. and Gwendolyn (Bunny) are my children, my lifeblood, my heartbeats. They make me proud and humble. Gordon, my nephew/second son, makes my chest stick out. I love my niece, Tamayah (Bink Bink), a college student, and nephew Eddie Jr., who I expect big things. My cousins, Warren (Button) Eggleston and Greg Agnew are really my brothers. Ditto for my brother-in-law, Deryk Beck. And I am grateful for my loving cousin Carolyn Keener and uncle Al and aunts Thelma and Barbara and Ms. Brenda Brown.

  My wife, Felita Sisco Bunn, is the love of my life, my “wholemate,” closest friend and proof that true love exists. I’m grateful for my mother-in-law, Shirley Jordan, and Larry Jordan and father-in-law, Ted Baker, Cecilia Baker and the Baker clan.

  The Strebor Books family, led by Zane and Charmaine Roberts Parker, mean more than any typed words can convey. Thank you!!!

  I enjoy listing by name the supporters because you all mean so much to me: My ace, Trevor Nigel Lawrence, Keith (Blind) and Delores Gibson, Darryl K. Washington Kerry and Loretta Muldrow, Randy and Flecia Brown, Sam and Maureen Myers, Ronnie and Tarita Bagley, Tony and Raye Starks, Darryl (DJ) and Wanda Johnson, Lyle Harris, Monya M. Battle, Tony Hall, Marc Davenport, Tami Rice-Mitchell, Brad Corbin, William Mitchell, J.B. Hill, Bob & La Detra White, Tamaira Johnson Kent Davis, Andre Johnson, Wayne Ferguson, Tony & Erika Sisco, Karen Turner, Betty Roby, Leslie Neland, Kathy Brown, Venus Chapman, Monica Harris Wade, Tara Ford, Christine Beatty, Greg Willis, Al Whitney, Brian White, Ronnie Akers, Jacques Walden, Dennis Wade, Julian Jackson, Mark Webb, Kelvin Lloyd, Frank Nelson, Hayward Horton, Mark Bartlett, Marvin Burch, Derrick (Nick Lambert), Gerald Mason, Charles E. Johnson, Harry Sykes, Kim Mosley, Angela Davis, Ed (Bat) Lewis, Shelia Harrison, David A. Brown, Rev. Hank Davis, Susan Davis-Wigenton, Donna Richardson, Sheila Wilson, Curtis West, Bruce Lee, Val Guilford, Derek T. Dingle, Ramona Palmer, Warren Jones, Deberah (Sparkle) Williams, Leon H. Carter, Ricky K. Brown, Clay Dade, Zack Withers, Kevin Davis, Sybil & Leroy Savage, Avis Easley, Demetress Graves, Anna Burch, Kevin & Hope Jones, George Hughes, Sandra Smith, Sheila Wilson, Mary Knatt, Serena Knight, Joi Edwards, Sonya Perry, Daphne Grissom, Denise Taylor, Diana Joseph, Derrick (Tinee) Muldrow, Rick Eley, Marty McNeal, Nikita Germaine Houston, D.L. Cummings, Rob Parker, Cliff Brown, D. Orlando Ledbetter, Garry Howard, Stephen A. Smith, LaToya Tokley, Angela Paige, Clifford Benton, Len Burnett, Lesley Hanesworth, Sherline Tavenier, Jeri Byrom, Carla Griffin, Liketa Morris, E. Franklin Dudley, Skip Grimes, Christine Beatty, Jeff Stevenson, Billy Robinson, Jay Nichols, Ralph Howard, Paul Spencer, Jai Wilson, John Hollis, Garry Raines, Glen Robinson, Dwayne Gray, Jessica Ferguson, Carolyn Glover, Kim Royster, Erin Sherrod, Mike Dean, Sheryl Wesley, Dexter Santos, Chastity Austin, John Hughes, Sherri Polite, Mark Lassiter, Tony Carter, Kimberly Frelow, Michele Ship, Michelle Lemon, Zain, Karen Shepherd, Carmen Carter, Tawana Turner-Green, Marilyn Bibby, Sheryl Williams-Jones, Jewell Rollen, Harold Rose, Danielle Carrington, Nia Simmons, Cheryl Jones, Kiesha Pough, Karen Marie Orange, Ashley Nicole, Yvonne Young, Barbara Hopkins, Vonda Henderson, Danny Anderson, Shauna Tisdale, Melzetta Oliver, April Kidd, Keisha Hutchinson, Olivia Alston, John Hollis, Dorothy (Dot) Harrell, Aggie Nteta, Ursula Renee, Carrie Haley, Anita Wilson, Tim Lewis, David Dickerson, Sandra Velazquez, Pam Cooper, Regina Troy, Denise Thomas, Andre Aldridge, Brenda O’Bryant, Pargeet Wright, Mike Christian, Sid Tutani, Tammy Grier, Regina Collins, Roland Louis, April Tarver, Penny Payne, Cynthia Fields, Dr. Yvonne Sanders-Butler, Alicia Guice, Clara LeRoy, Calvin Sutton, Denise Bethea, Hadjii Hand, Fred Gore, Bernadette Brown, Petey Franklin and The Osagyefuo Amoatia Ofori Panin, King of Akyem Abuakwa Eastern Region of Ghana, West Africa.

  Special thanks and love to my great alma mater, Norfolk State University (Class of 1983); the brothers of Alpha Phi Alpha (especially the Notorious E Pi of Norfolk State); Ballou High School (Class of ’79), ALL of Washington, D.C., especially my beloved Southeast.

  I am also grateful to all the readers and wonderful book clubs that have supported my work over the years and to my literary many friends Nathan McCall, Carol Mackey, Linda Duggins, Terrie M. Williams, Kimberla Lawson Roby, Walter Mosley, Monica Michelle, Nick Chiles, Denene Millner, Leslie Neland and Nhat Crawford.

  I’m sure I left off some names—it was not intentional. If you know me, you know my mind is going…but not my imagination. I appreciate and I am grateful for you. #LiveLife

  Peace and blessings,

  —Curtis

  CHAPTER ONE

  LIFE

  I’m about to die. Doctor said so. Maybe not today. Perhaps tomorrow. Whenever it’s coming, it’s coming soon.

  Cancer.

  But I’m not scared. I’m a little anxious, a little curious, to be honest. Curious about how it will happen. Where I will be at that moment—the place and where will I be in my head, my mind. Will I get scared when I feel it coming? Will I feel it coming?

  Well, those are thoughts for another day, a day that, truth be told, should not come for a few months or so. That’s how long it will take the cancer to totally ravage and deplete my body and put me to sleep. Forever. That’s what the doctors say. And they know everything.

  So, here I am. In the prime of my life…waiting on death.

  Can’t cry about it. Not anymore. When I said I wasn’t scared, I was talking about now. A month ago, when Dr. Wamer gave me
the news, I was scared as shit.

  Do you have any idea what it’s like to be told you’re at the end of your life’s journey? At forty-five? With a sweet daughter? With so much more to do? With so much undone?

  I was so overwhelmed that it took me two days to pull myself out of bed, to turn on the lights in my house, to eat an apple. Then it took me another two days to tell my father, who took it as if cancer was eating away at his existence.

  “Why can’t it be me, Calvin?” he said. “Why you? You’ve lived a good life. The best thing I ever did was marry your momma—God rest her soul—and contribute to your birth. The rest of my life, I can’t say I’m that proud of. Except you. You’ve made me proud.”

  And why did he say that? I bawled like a freshly spanked newborn, and my sixty-eight-year-old dad and I hugged each other at the kitchen table at his house for what seemed like an hour, two men afraid out of their wits.

  Since then, I have pulled myself together—what’s left of me, that is. Doctors say they can’t do surgery, but I can try radiation and perhaps chemo. But there are no guarantees. That’s code for: “it won’t work.” And I have seen how debilitating those treatments can be.

  It never made sense to me that you go to the doctor for a checkup feeling fine. Then he tells you that you have cancer or some hideous disease and starts firing chemicals into your bloodstream like you shoot up a turkey you’re about to fry on Thanksgiving. Almost immediately you feel like shit and before long you start looking like shit. You lose your hair, you lose your energy…you lose who you are. And eventually you lose your will to live.

  For some, for most, that’s the route they chose and I wouldn’t dare begrudge them that.

  Me, I would rather live whatever time I have left instead of having my insides burned out and become so drained that I cannot live, only exist…until I die.

  Maybe it’s me, but that doesn’t seem like fun. Haven’t had much fun since I went to the hospital for my annual checkup, feeling good and looking forward to a date that night with a nice lady I had met. Next thing I know, they tell me I have some form of cancer I can’t pronounce, much/less spell. “Sarcoma” something or other. Attacks the blood cells, organs, bones…you name it. When they said it was fatal I lost interest in any more specifics.

  I will be forty-six in four months…if I make it that long. I have a twenty-three-year-old daughter and a zest for life that is as strong as a weightlifter on steroids. Staying laid up in a hospital, withdrawn and diminished after chemotherapy or radiation does not qualify as living to me.

  When I finally was up to eating, I ended up at the National Harbor, where I could see the Potomac River run from Maryland into Washington, D.C. It was an interesting spot with good sandwiches and nice desserts, which fulfilled my sweet teeth. Yes, I enjoy cakes and pies too much to limit my attraction to “sweet tooth.” That’s why I said “sweet teeth.”

  Anyway, I sat alone, at a high-top table near the bar—a dying man with a plate of food and his thoughts. Ever since learning I would die, I was able to slow down my thinking. Everything was on express.

  People walked right by me, some spoke to me or smiled at me. None of them realized they were in contact with a dead man. That’s how I saw myself—walking dead. I was like a zombie, a creature moving about the earth but already departed. I just didn’t look like one…yet.

  I saw everything differently, too. Like, it did not matter if my favorite football team, the Washington Redskins, won another Super Bowl. I didn’t care much anymore about my wardrobe or purchasing that Mercedes CLS550 I had been eyeing or even if my 401(k) flattened out. It all seemed so meaningless to me after the diagnosis.

  Still, I was not sure what I was inspired to do or how to live out my life, other than to not let doctors turn me into a bed-ridden slob before my time. I didn’t ask anyone else’s opinion on it. I just went with it.

  My daughter, Maya…I couldn’t tell her. It was hard for me to even say her name without getting choked up. That’s how daughters are to their dads; we live to their heartbeat.

  My father told her. “She deserves to know,” he reasoned. “Maybe not everything going on with you. But this? She deserves to know this.”

  Maya did not call me about it. She showed up at my house one Saturday afternoon, right before I was about to get in a round of golf, in an attempt to free my mind of the burden. The garage door went up and there she was, pain and sadness all over her soft, lovely face. I knew my daughter and that look made me cry, without her saying a word.

  “Daddy,” she said, hugging me so tightly. Every time we embraced I smelled baby powder, like I did when she was an infant. It was my imagination or just how badly I wanted my little girl to remain my little girl.

  “I’m OK, Maya,” I said. “It’s going to be all right.”

  She sobbed and sobbed and I held her as tightly as I could without making her uncomfortable. It broke my heart. My job as her father was to protect her. It crushed me that I was the cause of her anguish.

  “You didn’t have to come here, sweetheart,” I managed to get out when I finally composed myself. “See, this is why I didn’t want to tell you right away. You are all upset over something you can’t control. It’s out of both our hands right now.”

  Maya wiped her face and looked up at me with those eyes that were the replica of mine: brown and piercing.

  “Daddy, we can’t control it, but you’ve got to let the doctors try,” she said. “I spoke to an oncologist from Johns Hopkins on my way here. He said nothing good will come out of doing nothing.”

  I had to break it down for her so–as, Isaiah Washington said in the movie Love Jones—“It will forever be broke.”

  “Let’s go inside,” I said. I wiped away her tears and kissed both sides of her precious face. She turned me into mush. We were both a mess.

  I called my friend, Thornell, and told him I had to renege on golf. I hadn’t told him the news, either. That would be another tough call. But nothing compared to that talk with Maya.

  “Sweetheart, about two months before I went to the doctor, I spoke to an old high school classmate at Ballou. His name was Kevin Hill. Yes, your godfather. Great guy, as you know. Do you know how we met? We played basketball against each other in junior high and became friends when we ended up at Ballou High School together. When Kevin got sick with multiple sclerosis, it slowly but surely ravaged his nervous system over the years until he was unable to do anything but lie in bed to die.

  “I visited him at Washington Hospital Center. We reminisced and I was able to make him laugh and take his mind away from his plight, at least for a few moments. But the whole time I was looking at him and feeling so sorry for him, there was so much more for him to do in life. I thought I didn’t convey that, but he sensed it. And he wrote a letter to me that means more to me now than ever.”

  I pulled out the folded sheet of paper with the letterhead that read: “Kevin Hill…Remember Me.”

  And then I read it to Maya: “Calvin, don’t feel sorry for me. The things I did in my life, I enjoyed them. I could have done more, but I learned and accepted that God’s plan was different. But all this time laying around in bed, I have had a lot of time to think. And I have a lot of regrets. I regret not traveling and not mending my relationship with my sister and not learning Spanish and so many other things. You know what I should have done, but makes no sense to do now? Cut off all my hair. I saw how some bald guys looked so cool with a shaved head. Even Samuel Jackson looked cool with a bald head in Shaft. I should have done that a long time ago. Now, if I do it, no one will see it.

  “Anyway, my point is: Don’t live with regrets. Live your life. Carpe diem. You know what that means? It means: seize the day. Seize it. Take it. Own it. Make it yours and get the most out of it.

  “Nothing is promised. Yeah, you’ve heard this before. We all have. But we go about a day as if it’s no big deal to make the most of it because we can do it the next day. Or the next. That’s not the right approach.
I’m forty-four. I got this disease from bad luck. If I knew it was coming, I would have done a lot of things I planned to do later. You and I have done a lot together and been as close as two friends could be, so I can say this to you without you getting offended: Get off your ass and live your life.”

  Maya got it then. The fear and hope left her. Reality settled in. She knew, at that point, I was done. No amount of radiation, chemo, Tylenol or anything else could help me. My days had been finalized. It had to be about what I did with those remaining days that mattered.

  “Daddy, what can I do to help you?” she asked.

  “Love me, baby,” I said. “Your love means everything to me. And pray for me. Pray that I’m able to make my last days here meaningful and fun and that I live them as if I’m alive, not waiting for death.”

  My daughter cried. “I can do that, Daddy,” she said softly while hugging me.

  We corralled our emotions after a while and I walked her to her car. “I feel so much better,” I told her, and it was the truth. I didn’t realize how much of a burden it was not having had that conversation with her. I finally was prepared to live my final days, to “seize” them as my friend Kevin said I should.

  Problem was, I didn’t know how or where to begin. I actually did not have lofty dreams of travel or glory. I didn’t have a “Bucket List.” I was an ordinary man with few extraordinary ambitions. I didn’t like to travel much because I didn’t like to fly and riding too long in a vehicle made me carsick.

  I ate when necessary, but did not have exotic tastes. I had a group of friends, but I spent the most time with Kevin. I had but one vice: golf.

  My first thought was just to play golf every day…until I collapsed on a lush fairway. Kevin would have appreciated that. He and I were so close that we had become like brothers. For sure, we had a connection that was rare among people: I carried his kidney in my body.