“Shut up or take it to the ref,” Carl snarled at the large young man threatening me with physical harm. The fellow was angered by my actions during an intense college intramural touch football game. Carl had seen this and ran over to my side. The fury in Carl’s voice, the hint of violence in his posture, prompted the opponent to retreat.
* * *
Normally Carl tried to avoid confrontation or conflict, sometimes difficult as his being strong-willed and determined could translate into stubbornness. Yet he was friendly and affable and easily got along with almost everyone. He was loyal and generous. And very smart. His most endearing quality, though, was his great appetite for life. Carl wanted to see everything, try everything, taste everything, do everything, and always was open to new ideas. He grasped life with joy and gusto. Being his friend, his lifelong friend, was quite easy.
* * *
“Okay. Ready,” Carl said. He had the three of us, Gretchen, me, and his sweetheart, stand on the absurdly large limb of a Spanish moss adorned giant tree. He triggered the timer on his camera and ran to join us on the branch, arriving a moment before the click of the shutter. Nine years after the intramural football game – when, I joked for years, he saved my life – we four were celebrating life on an impossibly perfect day at Avery Island, Louisiana. Gretchen and I had travelled to New Orleans for the weeklong visit with my dear friend and his lady. Carl brought wine which we sipped while enjoying the preserve.
I think Carl liked being in charge, or rather organizing and directing. He had the energy and the inclination. And usually good ideas. We had been enjoying our daily treat of oysters – raw, opened in front of us at the bar down the street, or fried in a po’ boy – so Carl one day went off for a bit and returned with a large half bushel sack of fresh oysters and four oyster knives.
Returning from Avery Island he pulled over to the side of the road – Carl always preferred to be the one driving – and went into a small wooden building, returning with what was advertised on a homemade sign in front; it was boudin, a local Cajun sausage we just had to try. He had us stop at a small town eating place and sit at a round wooden table with a hole in the center into which we tossed the shells of the massive pile of crawfish he ordered. Eating good food, interesting food, new or different food was one of Carl’s joys. He was an excellent cook and warm host. His dinners for friends were celebrated times. When he moved away his neighbor gave him a custom-made sign in the style of the finest New Orleans eateries with Carl’s name in place.
* * *
“I have really gotten into Indian food,” Carl told us when we visited them at their Phoenix home a dozen or so years later. At the restaurant he ordered for the four of us, explaining in some detail how his favorite, tandoori chicken, was prepared. He wanted us to enjoy it as much as he did. Carl remained as energetic as ever, with things for us to do, places to go, conversations to have. He was still optimistic and forward looking, not interested in looking backward with regret about this or that, second guessing decisions, or lamenting bad outcomes.
There were a few visits over the next decade, always good times. But when we got together at the end of that decade Carl was hobbled. His hip was deteriorating, he walked with a decided limp, his inability to be active had resulted in marked weight gain.
He needed a new hip.
Carl repeatedly found a reason to avoid the necessary surgery, even when the other hip failed. He became wheelchair bound. Still he remained strong-willed, demanding independence, refusing assistance for anything he could do for himself.
* * *
Another decade or so later, he was finally ready to think about new hips. Too late. He now had irreversible and progressive heart failure. And diabetes requiring insulin. Sadly for him, these conditions significantly limited his diet.
In a bathroom stall for the disabled – on his wheelchair as always – he struck his leg on a hard object. The injury required surgical care and large skin grafts. From the hospital he sent me a photo of his leg, elevated on a lift, the skin gone, the exposed tissue red and juicy.
“They have this cherry ice here in the hospital that I can have. It is really good. I really, really like it.” That was Carl, still positive, still optimistic, still finding the best in things, still finding joy.
* * *
The powerful diuretics he needed to remove the fluid his heart could not pump destroyed his kidneys. He went on dialysis. Still he kept on, still engaged. I visited him yearly.
When I arrived in Oregon in 2016, I received a phone call.
“Don’t go to the house, Carl’s in the ICU.”
Daily visits. All the lines and tubes typical for an ICU patient. More lines to the dialysis machine removing liters of excess fluid from his body. Our conversations were shorter, more limited, fewer. Multiple episodes of very low blood sugar and of extremely low blood pressure in the past months had affected his mentation. He was at times modestly confused, he took longer to respond. He dozed often.
My last day there. A snack arrived. A small, single serving paper dixie cup with a tiny plastic spoon. Carl, so weakened, accepted help.
It was cherry ice. I unhurriedly fed him using the diminutive spoon. He eagerly took each little bit and savored the flavor. With his mouth open as he awaited the spoon with its puny serving I recalled feeding my sons when they were helpless infants. There was satisfaction in offering a small kindness, sadness for his dependence as images of Carl, vital and vivant, floated through my mind.
The cherry ice finished, it was time to leave for the airport. I said goodbye to my best buddy, my very good friend, for the final time.
Originally appeared in Kestrel.
05/12/2025
03:05:43 PM