This is the time of year I can’t help but think of my husband’s friend of 35 years. Mac was an independent, cranky old fuck, 10 years older than my sweetheart. A carpenter all of his life, he’d made a decent living, had never eaten anyone’s shit, and had survived most everything life can throw at a person. Crappy parents, yup. Juvenile delinquent, certainly. Problems with alcohol, drugs? Yes, but ancient history. Good marriage gone bad? Sadly, yes. Estranged from a child? True. Depression, even to the end, but Paxil actually did do some good and kept him out of the panic attacks that plagued him periodically.

Mac’s end came a mere three months after his COBRA health insurance expired and four years before he was Medicare eligible. The colonoscopy he’d paid for the week before revealed cancer. Mac’s independent spirit ~ that all American, up by the bootstraps, don’t take nothing from nobody, I’ll do it myself, ain’t no help anyway spirit ~ would not allow him to depend on others. And in the end, for quality cancer care, there is no real other to depend on anyway.

Mac called the non-emergency number for the police department, asked them to investigate a man down at his home address. Then he stepped out into his tiny front yard, a few feet away from the watermelon patch he loved, and blew his head off with a shotgun.

Mac worked all his life in this country. He was, like many of us, deeply flawed. He was also kind and generous and loving, a crackerjack funny man I loved with all my heart. I can’t forget him, and I can’t forget that he died because he believed he was out of options, that there was nothing for him as an uninsured man with a newly diagnosed cancer.

Did his depression contribute to that decision to take his life? I’m sure it did, as did the sense of being absolutely alone with an insurmountable problem and the profound need to leave something behind for his kids and grandkids. He couldn’t see everything he’d worked for all his life ~ a kickass gun collection, some incredible ancient and valuable bottles, some eyecups and a little piece of property ~ going on the auction block to pay for his treatment. He wanted to leave something for his children. In his mind, his decision was selfless. In my mind, it’s a goddamned American tragedy.

My friend, the Bad American, with more on the American dream.

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