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Thursday, May 15, 2003
Sad news
April 28, 2003. My Dad, Arthur Duane Newman, died at the age of 67. He had been fighting cancer for the last several years (and winning), but it finally got into his bone marrow and screwed up his body's ability to produce blood. At that point the doctors were out of options except for transfusions, which he refused. I think he just decided that it was time to stop fighting. My sister called me later that day, but he was gone before I could get there. I had talked to him on the phone the day before... He didn't want sympathy and insisted that we keep quiet about his cancer, so only the people closest to him knew. Most of our relatives didn't have any idea of what he was going through, so it was a shock to a lot of people. We had several years to... I want to say "get used to" the idea that he might not be around much longer... But that's not something you can get used to... We didn't have a conventional funeral; instead we had a "celebration of his life", which we know he would have liked. We had a lot of help from some of his friends (and therefore our friends) who are members of the Harley Owners Group in Yakima. Our funeral director is the son-in-law of one of these friends; he didn't just allow the things we wanted to do, he helped. He was part of the group that picked up Dad's Harley and took it to the funeral home for the viewing, and later for the funeral. We put up lots of photos and other memorabilia. The general idea was to fondly remember the time we had with him instead of dwelling on our loss. Some people spoke about what knowing him had meant to them. I talked about how my Dad had pictures showing him holding me (as a baby) on a Harley, and how he joked about me having to take him to get his license when he started riding again (a license wasn't required back then). My sister told how we conspired to keep her efforts to get a motorcycle license a secret until we could surprise him. It was a complete surprise, surely one of the biggest of his life... Naturally I miss him, but on the other hand I'm glad that he was around for an extra three years or so, due to the excellent medical care that he received...