life – Lori Romano

What can I say about Duane?

November 17, 2022by Lori RomanoLeave a comment

It’s been a week since my dad’s funeral. No, it hasn’t really sunk in yet that he’s gone. How could it? Duane was always larger than life, one of those people you just can’t talk or think about without smiling–maybe because you’re remembering one of the racy jokes he used to tell.

It’s hard to write about Duane…there’s just too much to say. Every thought of him leads to a story that leads to another memory that leads to another person that leads to another story. It makes it hard to figure out where to start (and it feels impossible to share it all). And Duane was a guy who loved a good story.

Duane knew everyone and everyone’s stories. He collected them, catalogued them, filed them away. He knew everyone and their stories because he cared. He knew people’s stories because people mattered to him. And the funny thing about Duane is that it didn’t make a difference whether he knew you for 30 seconds or 30 years, no matter how/when/why you found your way into his orbit, the result was always the same–he would CARE about you. You’d start out sharing a drink or an elevator ride and then the next thing you know you’re borrowing his truck to move into your apartment or watching him adjust your son’s training wheels because he noticed they were a little wobbly when he rode by on the sidewalk.

Duane was a person who left everything better than he found it. Every house or apartment we ever lived in was cleaner when we left than when we moved in. Every person Duane met or talked to always walked away in a better mood, with a better outlook, or with a funny (and slightly inappropriate) story to share. This world is a better place because Duane was in it, and that was made clear in his final days, as I watched friends and family and near-strangers flock to his side to say goodbye.

It makes you think a lot about life, to see your father there bravely facing the end of it–watching the aides and nurses and therapists and doctors staying late and coming in on their days off, telling him that they loved him, squeezing his hands, kissing him on the forehead.

It makes you think about what is most important in this life as you sit with someone you love through their last days. And while I’ve often said that the thing I value most in this life is connection (and that I truly believe the one purpose we all share here as humans is to find ways to connect with each other), I think the power of human connection has never been so clear and powerful for me than what I’ve witnessed in these last days, weeks, months since Duane went to the hospital for the last time.

Duane loved life. He LOVED life. No matter how beautiful or brutal or complicated or challenging, Duane was down for the ride. And even after the cancer diagnoses and the difficult surgeries, he didn’t really slow down much at all. He was determined to squeeze every last drop out of this life and move onto the next on his own terms–and I’ll be damned if that’s not exactly what he did. I always knew my dad was strong–working as hard as he always did, raising Lindy and I, dealing with his own obstacles and life lessons and losses, graduating to grandparenthood, navigating all the health challenges, etc.–but somehow everything he endured before now seems so small compared to the things he faced these last few months.

For almost three months, we watched Duane get sick, recover, relapse, keep fighting, go on hospice, go off hospice, go on a ventilator, go to rehab, refuse to give up, and then finally surrender. He tried everything, exhausted every opportunity, never gave up, right up to the moment when he told us it was time to go. And I think, out of everything, I am most thankful for that extra time, because it gave us a chance to make his last day his best day, so we could come together and let him go.

We prayed and took communion. He shared a cold 6-pack of Busch Light and Dot’s honey mustard pretzels with Harry and Stevie and Thorin. He dictated all his wishes for a simple graveside service and luncheon to Mom, with a handful of other instructions for after he was gone. Lindy and Richard and Odin and Henry came after school. Cadence said her goodbye to Papa the day before. Jim and Cindy arrived, and Jim mixed Duane his first Windsor & 7 in months. Then the four friends settled in to watch the Husker women’s volleyball team take down Indiana. We all laughed a bit and cried some too. One by one, we all said our goodbyes.

One of the things I find most remarkable about my dad is that for all the genuine care and love he put out into this world, he never really said it: “I love you.” If I’m being totally honest here, I don’t know if I never heard my dad say those words. I would joke with him about it sometimes, trying to illicit some reaction or make some sense out of why those words always seemed elusive.

Duane never said “I love you” but he showed it in a million ways, and anyone who ever knew him can probably tell a story about how my dad showed up, helped out, or just listened or gave advice when they needed it most. He always wanted everyone to leave a little better than they came in. He made sure everyone was taken care of, no matter what. He never said, “I love you.” It was always a finger wave and a “Yep, I’ll see ya.” But somehow, even if he never came right out and said it, he always had a way of making everybody feel like they were the most important people in the world. And we saw so much of that love come back to him as so many gathered last week to pay their respects and welcome him home. (Smartest decision Mom and I made was to upgrade to the big room at the Bertrand Community Building…I just had a feeling there might be a few people who needed to tell my dad goodbye).

That last night, I needed him to know that I loved him. I needed him to know that I knew he loved me too. So I waited until we had a quiet moment in the room together before I left. I knelt down beside the bed and touched his arm.

“I love you, Dad” I said. “We all love you. You know that right?”

He nodded and reached for his electro-larnyx. Then he said, “I wasn’t ever much good at saying it.”

I nodded.

“Maybe you never said it, but you showed it in a million ways. Remember when I would drive home from college? I’d always wake up the next morning and my car would be in the shop for an oil change and a tune-up, and the tank was always miraculously full of gas.” He smirked and nodded. I went on. “And remember the chairs you bought me after I had Cadence and Henry? You were worried about me being able to get up off the couch after my surgeries, you insisted I have the right chairs to recuperate.”

We were both crying then, and it was time to go. I told him I loved him and I kissed him on the forehead. He waved a finger at me and smiled.

“Yep, I’ll see ya.”

I’m not a religious person. It’s not for lack of trying. I just can’t seem to find one that holds sacred everything I do…no exceptions or exclusions. So, I always settle for just saying I’m spiritual and that I believe in something so much bigger than me and all of us that includes and embraces and IS all of us (and then at that point even I start getting kinda dizzy, so I just leave it at that and move on). But ask me right now, this moment, how I KNOW that there is something so much bigger than this and that death is not something to fear because it’s not really an “end.” Ask me how I know death is just a temporary interruption, a small glitch, a thin veiled passage between this place to something else. I know this, because when I said goodbye to Duane that night (and we both knew it was the last time we were saying goodbye in this place), when I told him I loved him and said good night, he smiled and waved a finger and said with absolute certainty, “Yep, I’ll see ya.”

Yep, I’ll see ya, Duane. And until it’s my time to join that epic party I have no doubts you’re now busy orchestrating in the place we all graduate to after this, all I hope is that I can spend my precious time here making this life and this world better than I found it and taking good care of the people around me…just like you showed me how to do.

CLICK HERE to watch Duane’s graveside service. And if you have a memory you’d like to share, feel free to leave it in the comments or email it to lori.romano07@gmail.com.

This isn’t rocket science

February 5, 2020February 6, 2020by Lori RomanoLeave a comment

I was listening to a podcast in the car on the way to work today, and I heard something that got me thinking.

“This isn’t rocket science…”

How many times have we heard people say that (have we said it ourselves) and then launch into some comparison with something they think should be simple. I heard it today and it struck me that we have things a little backwards. We say, “This isn’t rocket science” implying rocket science is the most difficult, complex, challenging thing that exists in our world.

Don’t misunderstand, I’m not here to say rocket science is easy. No way. I’m not even going to pretend I know anything about it. But I would like to point out that we have actually figured it out. We’ve launched rockets, lots of rockets, many of them successfully. We’ve put men on the moon, sent people to explore space, put satellites in orbit, sent rovers to Mars. At this rate, I’d say we actually have a pretty great grasp on rocket science.

“This isn’t rocket science…” I’d like to take this moment to officially challenge that statement.

Hang with me for a minute folks.

I think there’s something much more difficult we’re all grappling with here, something we’re failing miserably at, something even the best and brightest minds shy away from because they just can’t even get close to solving the damn problem.

You know what we don’t have a great grasp on? Dealing with each other.

Let that thought just sink in for a second.

We have literally launched humans into space, mapped damn near every inch of this planet we’re living on, built machines and handheld devices that are all linked and talking to each other on this invisible network called the internet and somehow we can’t figure out how to have a civil conversation with someone we disagree with without resorting to yelling and name calling and spouting ridiculous vitriol toward another human simply because their opinions, ideas, or experiences don’t match up with our own.

We’ve all gone fucking mad.

Indulge me for a moment while I quote Gilmore Girls. (I know, it seems like my train of thought is taking a hard left turn right off the tracks here, but I promise there’s a point. Hang with me.) In Season 1, Lorelei says:

“I’m afraid once the heart is involved, it all comes out in moron.”

In the context of the show, Lorelei is giving some witty motherly advice to her daughter Rory who has just had one of those awkward early teenager moments where she totally embarrassed herself in front of the guy she’s crushing on. But I’ve always loved this quote because I think it carries much more weight than that. I love this quote because I thunk it speaks to the way we humans are ruled by our emotions, whether we really want to admit that or not.

We’re hearing so much lately about this colossal divide in our country, how we’ve managed to politic ourselves into what, to an alien observer, might resemble a good old-fashioned elementary school playground brawl. You know, the kind that tend to erupt after several long days of misunderstandings and snide comments and furtively whispered gossip set tempers boiling. Then, all at once, the rage and frustration and posturing spills over and spreads like wildfire.

See, we humans have this very natural sense of self-preservation. We instinctually want to protect ourselves, our families, the things that are important to us. And some of the things that are important to us are our beliefs, our passions, our individual experiences and ideas. If you think about it–those things are our whole world, our very existence. All of those things are what make you “you“.

So when someone or something comes along that disrupts our experience or questions our ideas or challenges our beliefs, it’s the most natural thing in the world to hear the alarm bells sound.

That’s what happens when there’s a glitch in our Matrix. Our flight or flight kicks in and we feel this gut-wrenching need to preserve ourselves and our reality. It’s all of us. It’s all we know.

And sometimes that fear of losing ourselves takes over. And that’s when we start blaming and labeling and fearing and hating those who are different. That’s when we lose what’s most important–our humanity–because we no longer see our fellow humans as humans. We see only the “other.”

So no, this isn’t rocket science. It’s a whole lot fucking harder than that, because we’ve got to admit that all of us are part of the problem, and all of us are also part of the solution. It takes work to change our patterns of thinking, to recognize those automatic fear responses. It takes courage to turn that scrutinizing lens on ourselves. And it takes a helluva lot of strength to admit we have been wrong.

But guess what? We’ve all been wrong. And we will continue to make mistakes and misjudgments until the day we die–that’s part of life. And I think the real reason any of us is here at all is to learn as much as we can, grow as much as we can, and spread around as much love and light as we can before it’s our time to go.

Walk into every situation and interaction with these two goals, and I think you’ve got a good chance of living a damn good life:

Learn something new every day.
Leave every situation (and any person involved) better than you found them.

Last month, in honor of MLK Day, I had the honor of attending a brunch at work and listening to a speech by Ruby Bridges who, at just 6-years-old, was the first black child to integrate an elementary school in her hometown of New Orleans, Louisiana. It was an incredible speech, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since. Compulsive note-taker that I am, I had more than four pages by the time Ruby finished, but my favorite was this:

“Evil doesn’t care what you look like, what you have, where you live. It just wants a chance to work through you. Evil just needs a place to be. The good news is–so does Good. The Good need to stand up and do something, say something. Let the Good work through you. Doesn’t matter what you look like; if you’re good, I want you on my team.”

There’s always going to be Good and Evil. It’s just the nature of things. But I truly believe there is far more Good than Evil in this world. The problem is, we’ve just allowed the Evil to take over and become the loudest voice in the room. And we’ve allowed ourselves to lose control and start shouting along. That’s what happens when we lose sight of our humanity, when we lose sight of each other. It happens when we fear and slander and name call and hate each other, focusing on the differences, forgetting that deep down at the very core, we’re actually all the same.

To look at an other and recognize them as human is to see our own humanity. To look at an other and celebrate their differences is to celebrate ourselves.

Maybe I’m a hopeless optimist, but I believe if we look long enough and try hard enough and reach out to each other with open minds and humble hearts, what we’ll find will be beautiful. Hell, I bet if we take a moment to stop, take a deep breath, and look around, we’ll see it already is.

Dear 2020

January 1, 2020May 22, 2022by Lori Romano3 Comments

Dear 2020,

We welcomed you quietly–one kid in bed, the other at a sleepover, watching a late night movie on the couch at home. It’s too quiet in this house without Electra. Losing her right before the crush of the holidays and the long vacation from work somehow hurts more. I found myself caught between moments of melancholy and just needing to keep busy so I could stop missing her so much, so I could stop walking into the living room or looking out in the yard and expecting to see her there.

I spent several days grief-cleaning. I vacuumed, dusted, and rearranged Henry’s room. I moved Cadence’s room to the old spare bedroom/office, and then decided to redecorate a new spare bedroom/office/writing space complete with fresh paint and new furniture (which is due to be delivered next week).

And I gathered all Electra’s leftover food, dog treats, blankets, dog bed, kennels, unused medications–anything that could be needed and used–to donate to the local Humane Society. I didn’t want all of Electra’s things to be gone, but I sort of needed them to be. It made the pain a little more manageable. And I’m thankful that Stevie has been so sweet and patient as I fumble through the grief.

The calendar page turns, and a new year always brings excitement. You double down on all the things you’ve been wanting to do, meaning to do, procrastinating. You start out hopeful, start fresh. I’ve never been one to go overboard with a fancy New Year’s Eve party or a detailed list of resolutions, yet it’s hard not to buy into the magic and promise of a fresh start. The excitement this year has been tempered by loss and the introspection it always brings. It has made me think a little harder about my priorities, about the ~~balance~~ lack of balance in my life lately.

I need to be better–a better wife, a better mother, a better friend. I need to be a better leader at work. I need to be a better human in general.

And I need–really need–to make time to write again.

I made the mistake of telling one of my colleagues (who is also a writer) about the 365 Project I completed a few (ahem, like 9) years ago, and he threw down the challenge that maybe it’s time to get serious about another one if it will help me shake off the dust (and we’re talking about a real one, not the bullshit I tried to limp along last year by just finding random photos and quotes and lying to myself that it somehow counted). I’m swimming in ideas and unfinished projects–it’s starting to drive me insane. And since I just spent half my holiday break setting up a brand new home office, he kinda has a point. It might be time to get serious and actually get some shit done.

I mean, if I really want to continue to call myself a “writer,” I need to be writing. Right? That’s sorta how it works.

But I gotta be realistic–there’s no way I can do a 365 Project blog again. Not now.

A blog a week? Now that I can probably do. But to be completely honest, the pressure of trying to write something I actually feel like putting out there in the universe for actual people (other than me) to read is a whole lot of pressure and anxiety I don’t need in my life. I always want what I put out there to be good (or at least a couple levels above shit) so if someone does read it, they don’t feel like they’ve completely wasted their time and burned off precious brain cells.

What I am committing to–seriously committing to–is writing every day. Just writing. A journal entry, a letter, a chapter, a scene. Hell, even a poem if the mood strikes. And who knows, maybe some of it will end up here, but a lot of it won’t. And I’m okay with that. What matters is I’m making space for it, and I’m holding that space sacred. That’s my gift to myself this year.

So here we go, 2020. I’m walking in with no expectations and no specific plans (because dammit that somehow seems to be what always works out the best for me). I’m just going to be here, doing the best I can and then getting up and trying to do even better the next day. And in this new decade, I promise I’m going to have more meaningful conversations. I’m going to connect with old friends and make a few new ones. I’m going to read more books, taste (and cook) new foods. I’m going to travel to a few new (and visit a few favorite) places. I going to live and learn and love, and I’m going to try like hell to fall into bed each night knowing that I’ve squeezed as much joy as I possibly can out of every day.

Sounds like a pretty tall order, but I’ve always sort of enjoyed a challenge. And lucky for me, I’ve got some pretty rad people along for the ride.