Chapter 17: A Glimpse into the Future

On November 2^nd, our Lauren gave birth to Paul Matthew Blake.

He was perfect.

Our story – our stories, I guess I should say – take a turn here.

Something very important occurs, and it has consequences − for all of us, and for everything that happens afterward.

Also, this brief chapter is not very sexy. But life is often not sexy. In fact, sometimes even sex isn’t sexy. But if you stick with us, I think you’ll be rewarded – in every way!

Epilogue — Twelve Years and a Few Months

LAUREN

Candace left us 15 months later.

The headaches and visual distortions she had been experiencing in the last month of her pregnancy were originally attributed to blood pressure or to some accumulation of fluid related to the pregnancy. But after she gave to birth to Shana, the headaches and vision did not improve. Two months later she was diagnosed as having a glioblastoma – a brain tumor. Prognosis: 12 months, max.

I don’t want to dwell on this time. Candace set about her life the way she did everything – with cheerfulness, positivity, and purpose. She doubled her efforts to care for her new baby, and to make sure that Caleen and Eddie got every bit of attention she could manage. She anticipated every imaginable need and made every possible arrangement for her family’s future, including some we didn’t know about until after her death.

The one thing she couldn’t do was to prepare Teddy for a life without her. But even there, she had a plan.

Jane and I were a mess. Our only resort was to buckle down and do everything we could think of to ensure that her family was taken care of while she was sick, and after she ... left. Ben felt and shared Janey’s pain.

Our dads, they were another story. They were wrecks. Candace had stolen their hearts, and they just didn’t seem to be able to wrap their heads around a world where such a force of happiness and goodness could be yanked away, seemingly in an instant.

And they hurt for Ted. They realized that whatever pain they were feeling, Ted’s was a thousand times worse. I think they were furious at their own inability to do anything for him. The one time Ted had spoken with them to ask if they’d look after Candace if anything should happen to him, they quickly assured him that Candace would always have them, in whatever way she needed. No one even considered the opposite situation.

She refused various experimental chemotherapy regimes, choosing instead to live her remaining days, in pain, but free from the constant fog and nausea of chemo. And she lived her life and loved her family, until she couldn’t anymore.

Right before the end, she asked me to call Georgia. I telephoned her, and she picked up on the second ring. I said “It’s Candace...” and before I could say anything more, she said “I’ll be there tomorrow. Don’t worry about meeting me.”

She was cremated, as she had requested, because she and Ted thought that he and the children would be able to remember her and communicate with her in the coming years if she were in a beautiful inlaid wooden box, in whatever home they lived, rather than in a plot of dirt somewhere.

Ted was Ted. He was solid. He was able to do his work. He managed the legal and financial complications that accompany a family death. And he tried to support his now-motherless children, which he did with amazing composure. But he was also unmoored and rudderless. We all pretty much took over the non-work aspects of his life.

We had discussed all this with Candace. One of the things we had talked about was where they would live. Matt and Dad found a condo in our building, one whose owner wanted to retire to Arizona but wanted to keep his unit as a rental property. The real estate and relocation division of my financial services company bought their house and arranged their move into the condo. Matthew and Ben also arranged office space and facilities in Matt’s company so Ted would be able to continue his graphic design business from there without having to worry about the practical details.

And Georgia. It turns out that she and Candace had arranged that Georgia would move into their home – wherever it might be – and would take over the care of the children she loved so much, and who loved her “almost like their mother.”

And to take care of Ted, when he was ready – if, indeed, he ever would be.

As Georgia explained it, “Once Candace was sure of the diagnosis, and of the inevitable outcome, she called me. She knew I was in love with the children and that they loved me, and she asked if I would be willing to take on the enormous responsibility of caring for them.” I told her she didn’t need to say one word more – it was done, for as long as they needed me.

“Then she said, ‘About Teddy. I’m not going to ask for any promises, and I’m certainly not going pressure you to do something you don’t want to do. But in all his life, you are the only other woman he’s ever looked at. He loves Lauren and Janey, but with you ... he looks at you with total – ‘admiration’ is the only word I can think of. And if you decided you wanted to be with him, you’d both have my blessing.’

“From anyone else, such a proposal would have been difficult to take seriously, but from Candace, I knew she had thought about it carefully, and it was from both her heart and her head.

“I didn’t make any other promises, but I assured her that I would care for the children and be there for Ted.”

We sold our condos and moved into two houses, in a new development in one of the older Western suburbs. The schools were good, and we were able to find both houses that were within our means. Matthew and little Paul and I, Dad and Mai, Janey and Ben and Christiana shared a six-plus bedroom house – a McMansion, true, but it fit our needs.

Georgia, Ted, and the three children lived in a four-bedroom on the other side of our cul-de-sac. Eddie had the smallest room, and Caleen and Shana shared the larger one. Georgia lived in what would normally be the “master” bedroom. Ted slept in the fourth bedroom, which doubled as an office when he worked from home. Our children were together constantly.