A Place in My Mind: In Times of Darkness, Joy Can Be Found in the Past or in the Hope of a Bright Tomorrow

By Art Marsicano

Art Marsicano shares the inspiring story of his wifes five-year battle with ovarian cancer in this tribute to God, marriage, and the power of love.

In Jeans final years, she smiled more than she cried and reached out to help others when she was the one in trouble. While cancer may have destroyed her body, it did not destroy her mind, soul or her essence.

But as cancer took its toll, Art was forced to think about a life of living alone. One day, a verse of poetry fixed itself into his mind:

theres a place in my mind that so clearly I see
and when I go there I think of thee
there are mountains and rivers and the wind blows free
yet I feel great sorrow, for there is only me

When Jean died, Art found comfort by relying on Gods strength and thinking about the sunny days of the past, including four women that he wanted to reconnect withdiscovering that two of them had died.

But one of the women, Mary, would find him by sending a condolence card in the mail. Soon, Art would discover that his life could still have magic and love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Feb 26, 2015
• ISBN: 9781491760161

Art Marsicano

Art Marsicano is an independent thinker about most things, especially politics, religion and history. He enjoys all things Italian and has studied their criminal organizations for many years. He has degrees from PENN STATE, Saint Francis College, and Lehigh University and is the author of five other books. He lives with his wife, Elizabeth Mary, in Pottsville, Pennsylvania.

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Copyright © 2015 Art Marsicano.

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ISBN: 978-1-4917-6015-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-6017-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-6016-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015902186

iUniverse rev. date: 02/20/2015

Contents

Author’s Notes

Introduction

The Early Years

Before Cancer

The First Year

The Second Year

The Third Year

The Fourth Year

The Fifth Year

A Celebration of Life

Building Memories

Final Comments

Author’s Notes

This book does not contain medical advice! Nothing in this book should be considered a suggestion, recommendation or endorsement of any medicine, medical procedure, physician, hospital, medical professional or medical organization. The author assumes no responsibility for any medical action the reader engages in whether through self-care or under the care of a medical professional. Anyone suffering from cancer or any other illness should consult with a licensed healthcare professional for all medical advice and treatment.

Great care was taken to confirm all factual information presented in the book. However, there is one aspect of the book that is not entirely accurate. Individuals have a right to privacy. Consequently, actual names were not always used. Even the names of locations and organizations were frequently altered.

Portions or the entirety of journal notes, emails, letters and other documents are presented in the book. They are presented as written except to correct obvious punctuation, wording or spelling errors. Also, references to specific medicines have been removed.

Introduction

Jean and I were married for more than forty-four years and often had the glass is half full discussion. In my view the glass is always half full. After Jean developed advanced ovarian cancer she would say her glass was broken. Yet she bravely fought the evil that had taken over her body and for five years enjoyed life knowing her days were numbered. During that time she smiled more than she cried and she reached out to help others more than she asked for help. Those five years were very hard for me although I recall the many times I laughed. As time passes I remember the painful times less often.

Some events described in this book were included in one or more of my earlier books. The Last Two Years was the first book I wrote and it covered a period during which my father died and it was determined that Jean had advanced ovarian cancer. It was difficult to write and I couldn’t review it without crying. Several readers of the book went to great lengths to communicate with me through the publisher. Their connections to the book were so deep that they felt compelled to tell me of their experiences. Their comments and those of others, who read the book and spoke directly to me, convinced me that I should write this book now that Jean’s journey is over.

Some of the letters Jean and I received during the five years of her illness are included in this book. My responses are also presented as well as some material written by Jean. Nothing was added to any of these although in some cases passages were removed in order to improve readability.

Nowhere, a region of uncertainty in the afterworld is a novel I started one year before Jean died and completed it one year after her death. It was inspired by the many wonderful conversations I had with Jean about the afterlife and the preface of the book included things we did and saw which prepared the reader for the novel that followed. Portions of The Last Two Years and Nowhere must be repeated in this book because they are an important part of the spiritual and emotional whole I’ll attempt to present.

Surprisingly, a small but important event in the second of my Italian mob novels, Laugh at the Devil, is based upon something that happened to me more than fifty years ago and didn’t completely unfold until four months after Jean died. It’s had a profound effect on my life and there’s a spiritual aspect to it all of which will be described near the end of this book.

I live in the present, honor the past and plan for the future. Yet the past occupies increasing amounts of my time. I suppose that’s because at my age there’s far more behind me than there could possibly be in my future. But if you’ve had a good life, great joy can be found in the past. I’ve had a wonderful past, a great life and I hope to live long enough to see all of my grandchildren married. That would be another twenty years or so, long enough for me to write six more books although I’ll never write another one like this. It’s unusual for someone to write more than one book about their life and I already wrote The Last Two Years, which covered a portion of my life and Jean’s. But that book was incomplete because Jean was still alive; still fighting the evil that had invaded her body; still hoping against all odds that she would survive.

An autobiography should be about more than the events that make up the days, weeks and years a person experiences. Love, hate, joy, pain, beliefs and mystery should be part of it although they are not easily described. My life, my story, has been wonderful because of the opportunities that were given to me. Yet my writing can’t do justice to the magic that seems to follow me, even in the worst of times. The people I’ve known and the things I’ve seen shaped me and were placed before me by a powerful presence that I know exists but cannot describe. I’ve stumbled through life believing that and hoping things would turn out well. Some of my friends think I’m too optimistic about life while others say I’m naive. Perhaps I’m both. I believe in giving people, life, myself and even God a chance to make things better believing that most of what I see and know is fundamentally good and part of the natural order of things.

The Early Years

Memories of my youth are so clear to me that at times I step back and wonder if they’re real. How could I remember the details surrounding the death of my grandmother, or the time when I threw away a medal of The Holy Mother, the mother of Jesus, that had been returned to me by a young woman I had been dating? It’s surprising that events such as these, which took place more than fifty years ago, can be confirmed if you have good family and friends, and a bit of luck. It’s also amazing that events which took place so many years ago still have a profound influence on me.

There is an enormous amount of information in our minds and more than the past can be found there. The here and now are seen clearly and recorded, and the future is considered. Past, present and future swirl about with a mix of imagination allowing us to live in the present while hoping for a future that is exciting and happy. But the past—what is its purpose? People and nations need to record and consider their histories, for the future is built on the foundations of the past. Yet people and nations often record something very different than the realities they experienced.

Life flows unevenly and chance plays as much a part in the fabric of our lives as the great events noted in newspapers and history books. As a young man I hated watching the Vietnam War unfold and did my best to avoid becoming a casualty in a war that should not have been fought. As an electrical engineer I had little difficulty finding a job that gave me a draft deferment that kept me out of my generation’s war. Yet I hated having the direction of my career influenced by the stupidity and dishonesty of men who sent the children of the working class off to die in war while their children remained largely uninvolved. However, random events and chance occurrences were kind to me, although I didn’t realize it until years later.

Although my mind is filled with echoes of my early years, it was my high school and college years that created the prism through which I see the world today. And during that time I formed relationships which have had a profound effect on me. The most important were with four women who were so special that I often think of them and our times together. People who know me well, especially women who have read my books, have told me that I elevate women to a higher place than they deserve. One female friend told me that I have a Madonna complex that permeates all of my writing. She was especially distracted by my description of the afterlife in Nowhere, my last novel, where I wrote, Nearly all women are immediately dispatched to the highest region of the afterlife for all of eternity because few of them were given the opportunity to do evil and evil is not inherent in the female makeup. I believe today, as I did when I was a young man, that evil is far more common in men than in women.

Jean was the first of the four women to catch my attention in a serious way. We married six years later and shared more than forty years together. Ovarian cancer took her life a short time after our forty-fourth anniversary. We discovered her condition was hopeless less than two months before she died. At some point nearly everyone reflects on the what ifs that could have taken them to a life very different from the one they look back on and what they see looking ahead. If Jean hadn’t agreed to marry me my life would have been much different, of that I’m certain. And it would have been far less meaningful.

Quite by accident, I reconnected with another of the four women shortly before Jean and I learned that her condition was hopeless. Cathy was a beautiful woman whose photograph suddenly appeared before me one evening immediately after my daughter invited me to join her on an internet social network. I soon discovered that she was still a wonderful caring person. She communicated with me frequently via email, sharing my pain, as Jean moved toward her end. When Jean died I informed family members of her passing. Next, using the internet, I informed Cathy and other high school friends.

Shortly after Jean died, I learned that the third of the four women who meant so much to me had died. I was able to determine when she died although what caught my attention was the tragic manner in which she died. Whenever she wrote me, she ended with her signature and below it she would write, La Poetesse. A curved line, half of a horizontal figure eight, was always placed below that. I always thought I would see her one more time… at least one more time.

More than a year before Jean died I began to focus on the next reunion of my high school class. The 50th reunion was special and I frequently discussed it with Jean, my two daughters and high school friends who occasionally crossed my path. As plans for the reunion were coming together, Jean’s condition deteriorated. Even before the doctor determined that Jean would lose her battle with cancer, I knew she wouldn’t be alive for the reunion. Her trajectory was on an obvious downward slope for months and the engineer in me knew how to use the data of today and yesterday to predict what is likely to happen tomorrow. That intensified my desire to connect with the last woman, the fourth.

Jean’s death and the painful rituals that accompany giving a loved one a proper farewell took hold of me for weeks and I forgot about the last woman even as I thought about my coming class reunion. I was also consumed by the crushing reality of being alone. I slept alone, ate alone, and wondered around the house for hours, stopping only to organize Jean’s personal belongings for distribution to friends, family and charitable organizations. I knew that Jean’s cancer would eventually take her and I’d be left alone. My mind was constantly exploring death, the afterlife and the solitary existence I saw for myself. Jean and I had discussed the afterlife for years and enjoyed pointing out the inconsistencies in each other’s beliefs. Even as her time approached we discussed them, especially since I was writing a novel about four men in the afterlife. I never said anything to her about my fear of being alone after she died. Instead I spent hours thinking about it and a year before she died a short poem just came to me.`

there’s a place in my mind that so clearly I see

and when I go there I think of thee

there are mountains and rivers and the wind blows free

yet I feel great sorrow for there is only me

From that point on the poem and the place it described became my way of dealing with the fear and reality of loneliness. The place is real. It’s a difficult to reach place in Canada