Alex Trebek

I was sitting here reaching for something meaningful to write about when Carol yelled up to me that Alex Trebek died.

My emotional reaction made the decision for me.

He was 80 years old.

I love Jeopardy. In large part because it is a game show that I can watch and participate in without feeling like a game show watching loser.

I am very much a snob. I consider myself an intelligent guy who doesn't watch reality tv or mindless game shows that make fools out of the participants and viewers. I look down (in silence) on people who do waste their time on idiotic fare like that.

I watch Jeopardy because it makes me feel smart. And stupid.

But I am here to talk about Alex Trebek. Not the show.

He announced that he had been diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer (the worst of the worst) in March of 2019. Right from the start he exuded a positive attitude and a fighting spirit.

People like that force me to look at myself. Of course - everything is about me. 

I don't have that fighting spirit. I feel broken by life.

I am amazed by people who do fight like hell against all odds.  I have to put my wife Carol in that category - she has been through fucking hell for over 3 years now and has maintained a positive attitude and fought like a warrior throughout.

I have questioned myself many times as I watch her go through this. I think if I went into life threatening surgery my mindset would be if I die, I die. Dying under anesthesia ain't a bad way to go. Like dying in your sleep.

But that is a self defeating attitude. I firmly believe that Carol survived 7 and 1/2 hours of brain surgery with two surgeons in her skull, and over 20 collective hours of facial surgery because she is a fighter in her soul. She goes under the knife with the firm conviction that she will be all right.

That conviction is the intangible in the equation. You got your general health and the seriousness of your affliction to consider, but I think a fighting spirit can put you over the top.

Alex Trebek kept hosting Jeopardy through chemotherapy treatments. Are you fucking serious? His last day taping in the studio was October 29. That was 10 days ago.

I would listen to him talk about what he was going through - no self-pity, no giving up - and wonder if I could do the same.

Of course nothing I have faced has been life threatening. Stage 1 Melanoma; slow moving and so far not too serious prostate cancer. Baby stuff compared to what Alex Trebek dealt with; compared to what Carol has dealt with.

If I was facing death would I wake the fuck up? Or give up. I don't know.

Alex made a comment a while back that blew me away, though. He admitted that he suffered through "massive attacks of great depression that made me wonder if it was really worth fighting on". But he kept on fighting because "he realized giving up on life would be a betrayal to his wife, God and other cancer patients".

There it is right there. The god stuff does not resonate with me, but Carol, Keith and Craig sure as hell do.

I am a husband. I am a father. I don't know what the truth of their love for me is, and ultimately I will never know that. But I do know that they love me.

When my father died, by the time I got to the funeral home they already had his body in storage. I asked to see him and the funeral director said that was not possible because he had not been embalmed yet. I said that was precisely why I wanted to see him. The discussion got heated but I would not back down.

Finally they brought me out back, unzipped the body bag and stepped back. I am pretty sure I said something to him but I don't remember what it was. I do remember leaning over and kissing his cheek. He hadn't shaved in a couple of days; I remember the roughness of the kiss.

I was never super close to my Dad. Why was that kiss so important to me?

Because he was my Dad.

Alex Trebek has resurrected and reinterpreted that memory for me. He has implanted that thought process into my brain. That I shouldn't give up. Or at the very least, he is forcing me to doubt my attitude as it is.

The only thing I know for sure is that I do admire people with the fighting spirit; people who never give up.

Like Carol.

Like Alex Trebek.

I will miss you, Alex. The first show I see with a new host will bring tears to my eyes.