All language subtitles for God Said, Ha! SK

Who or.

Three.

Three and a half years ago

my husband and i split up

and

it was an amicable
breakup in fact we used

to joke that it was a
divorce made in heaven.

Of course it was sad but there was one
thing i really look forward to and that was

i got to live alone again

and i bought myself
this little bungalow in

Hollywood and i made it
my symbol of independence.

Well

i set about decorating it

and i wanted to make sure that it was really
girly and strongly feminine and i were

wanted to say to
anyone who walked in

a woman lives here alone and

happy about it.

Now for the first year that i had this house
i was still living in new York city so i

would scrimp and save and send my
money back home so that i could decorate it

and it was during this year that i develop
this elaborate fantasy for my shangri-la.

I believe that i'd spend a
lot of time alone there and

probably give a lot of

little petite soirees

fabulous gourmet dinner parties.

Maybe someone would drink a little bit
too much and i would insist that they spend

the night in the
guest room which is

just big enough for someone
to spend the night in after a

rousing evening of
conversation about.

The latest Coen brothers movie.

Problems in Bosnia with that
horrible slow but on the leash epic.

Fun game we can all play where we all
name all the justices on the supreme court.

Isn't this dessert fabulous and
aren't blueberries even out of season.

I figured i'd spend the long afternoons
there listening to try club sky and

writing all of those great screenplays
that are just in my head right now.

And i would never marry again

and i will live in this house
alone for the next sixty years

well me and my three
cats Gus Rita and frank

and after several years my
neighbors would look down the street

and they would
say to their friends

their lives Julia sweeney.

You know she never married
after a brief early liaison

but we've never
known anyone who was

happier and more

elaborate

life and that glorious really.

How we envy her existence.

Well

that's when god just said

ha.

About a month

after i moved back from new York

and i had a sconce myself safely
in my new perfect little abode

my brother Michael

who had also moved to los Angeles
was diagnosed with lymph cancer.

Mike

hadn't been feeling well for awhile oh and
he didn't have any insurance so he just go

to the free clinic and by the time he
was diagnosed he was in stage four and.

There only are four stages like

stage five is dead.

So

it was an incredibly
serious situation and

i immediately moved him into my home and
took over taking care of him and our brother

Jim who had also moved to los Angeles
was over all the time and helping out

and after a few
weeks our parents who

were naturally distraught
packed up all their

bags drove down i'm
from spokane and moved in

for the next nine months there we all were
in my perfect little house made for one.

Now of course our biggest
concern was for Michael

and

of course

we all love each other very much

but.

Let me just take a moment.

To

rant to you about

what it's like to suddenly have your parents
living with you when you've spent half

your wife away from them
and you can never really lose

your temper because of the
enormity of the whole situation.

For example this is how my
mother would answer the phone.

Hello this is Jerry sweeney
answering the telephone

to take down a message
for her daughter Juliet week.

Had to take her aside
and say you know

hello.

It's going to be okay.

My mother has this habit of
string together disconnecting

thoughts and then trying
to present them as one idea

and

she's always saying things like

oh i think the canal of
woodward the blouse you wanted

altered is on the bed
have you seen the car key.

Once my mother took
me aside and she said

you know i think your father might be
getting Alzheimer's because he doesn't know

what i'm talking
about half the time.

My mother has this

storytelling technique that
i call the red herring style

where she'll drop a piece of very intriguing
unrelated information into the top of

her story and then go on
and act as if it's irrelevant

for example once she said to me

Julie i had to get the ingredients for that
potato salad so i went to the store and

oh i had a hard time pulling out of the
driveway because there's a man lying there.

Anyway i went to the store and i didn't
know if you wanted new potatoes or i

and I'll say mom
there there was a

there was a man

lying

in my driveway

and then she always acts
as if I've interrupted the

key the Cadence of her
story and she'll go oh oh.

Yes.

I.

I have this office in my
backyard that i used to write in and

prepare for auditions or

as my mother calls them try out.

And

my parents were always coming
back there and interrupting me and

i finally had to explain to them
that when they did that it was like

not only having my parents

living with me in my home it was like
having my parents with me at my job too

and so they agreed they would only come
back there if it was very very important

and my mother
immediately came back

and she said Julie i'm
sorry to bother you but

i have been through
your kitchen top to bottom

and i cannot find where
you keep your mixes

and i said my why

and she said your mixes
you know like your ram

Laura scatters
beef stroganoff mix

were there.

When

i was out of my office

and my mother came
back there and she said

Julie the light has gone out in the
bathroom and i found another bulb

that i didn't know if you wanted it
screwed in in some special way.

I.

Now

my father was a us attorney and

after his retirement
five years ago

he's chosen to spend all of his new free
time listening to national public radio.

He has a little walkman that he keeps
on a belt and these headphones and

like a stereotypical teenager in a movie
he's always off in his own little world

and recently he told me that he hasn't missed
morning edition once in seven years and

because of this it seems as
though Bob Edwards and more

eliason and cokie Roberts
are his very best friends.

And i think he has a
special fondness for

kochi because he's
always saying things like

whoa whoa you know
what kogi did today.

Or else a

know kogi doesn't like
with that Bob dole is saying

or once he said

you know koki broadcast
in her pajamas this morning

and i said really

and he said yeah they had all this broadcast
equipment to put into her home so she

could just get up and broadcast and this
morning she said she was in her pajamas

can you imagine

and i said oh

kochi.

Now because my father
was constantly listening to npr

and i mean constantly like he slept with
the headphones on all night because there

was a special other Canadian broadcast
between the hours of three and five am

we always knew the news like

as it was happening and
one day my father came bound

the hallway

and he said Julie there has
been an earthquake in Japan

and i said oh my god when

and he said

thirty seconds ago.

Now

we were especially
concerned about this because

my sister Meg lives in
tokushima Japan and

tokushima is only forty miles from Kobe
which was the earthquake's epicenter

Meg lived there
for seven years and

she has a Japanese boyfriend there whose
name is Yamamoto and he's a sway potato

farmer and she calls
him yam for short

and he doesn't speak any English
though he doesn't know how funny that is.

Now

when my father was practicing as the us
attorney his specialty was an Indian land law

and while it always
sounded really cool and

politically correct when
i was growing up and

i would tell my friends that my
dad was an expert in Indian land law

what

i did explain to them
was that my dad

wasn't exactly on
the side of the Indian.

At the

government's policy
in the pacific northwest

towards the native
Americans is basically to

create a reservation

and then later if the government finds
something valuable on the land they

swoop in and take it back and

my dad was the guy to
swoop in and take it back.

Well there was one big case that got away
from my father in his career and it was

against this Indian family
called the so happy's

and i always loved that
name cause i thought

what a responsibility
to live up to

and

the so happy he had this sacred burial
ground that my father was trying to condemn

because they were putting up this dam
nearby and it was going to flood that area

well the so happy spot valiantly against
this and in the end they won well this was

the big case that got away
from my father in his career and

sometimes still you can find
them in the kitchen late at night

with a drink in one hand and
the other hand on the counter

looking at the floor and saying
those god damn so happy.

Now

over the course of the nine months
that my parents stayed with me

things started to slowly change
around the house for example the food.

Where i once had bottled Samuel
Adams beer in the refrigerator

that would be drunk and then replaced
with ck canned pabst blue ribbon beer.

Or if i had fresh chunky salsa
from trader Joe's in the refrigerator

that would be eaten and
replaced with a can of del monte

tomato paste that my mother
was sure could double as salsa.

Once i was out of my office and my mother
came back there and she said chilly i'm

sorry to bother you
but I've been through

your kitchen i can't find
your parmesan cheese

and i said oh well actually i have a chunk
of parmesan in the refrigerator and then a

special greater forward in
the cupboard above the stove

and she said why

and i said

i have a chunk of
parmesan in the refrigerator

and then a grader
for it in the cupboard

above the stove

and she said oh Julie you
know you don't have to do that.

If i used words like
pasta it was as if i

was throwing my big
city ways right into the.

They say you mean noodles

and if i used a phrase like marinara
sauce it really blew their minds

so after a few months i was
reduced to saying things like

hey how about the
noodles with the red topping

and

now please keep in mind that i had spent
years in therapy talking about my parents

then learning how
to do things like

those set boundaries.

But here i suddenly was
in this enormous situation

with Mike sick and the
medical bills mounting

and my parents there

and there was nothing i could do but accept
the surreal nightmare that life had become.

Now with Mike thick
there was a lot to do

Mike got radiation
five days a week

and two different kinds of chemo

one chemo we called the big chemo and
he got that every three weeks and that went

into his veins and required him to
sit with an Ivy for about four hours

and the other chemo was
the spinal tap chemo and

that went through directly
into his spinal column

and that he got
nearly every other day

so almost every day someone
was escorting Mike from Hollywood

out to the u c l a cancer center

plus there are a lot of
other things for us to do like

stand in line at social
security to see if we could

get the right forms to try
to get Mike and medi-Cal or

figure out how to get a
disabled parking pass or

get one of the myriad
of prescriptions filled.

Mike.

Up until his diagnosis had always been
the most private member of our family

you really got close
to Mike on his terms.

Mike was actually a master at
boundary setting from a very young age

in fact as a teenager Mike had a doorbell
installed outside of his bedroom door

and as an adult

if you said
something to Mike like

hey how about dinner and a movie

Mike was apt to respond

yes i could do that on
Tuesday between the hours of

six thirty and nine but
after nine i have other plans

so for someone like Mike to be sick like
that and in my house with our parents there.

It was a particular invasion

and we all just pretended that our
parents were down on this extended visit.

Mike had this habit of asking each doctor
or nurse the first time he encountered them

for their cards that he could

verify their qualifications
and then he would

quiz them on their
educational background

and

i'm not exactly sure why
Mike did this i think it just

had something to do with

Mike trying to keep some control

but all i knew is that whenever a new
medical professional would enter the room

my stomach would tense up

because i knew at some point Mike would
be demanding their card and then going over

their history of
work experience.

The doctors prescribed
marinol for mic

which is basically

marijuana in pill form and that's an accepted
drug for cancer patients to help keep

their pain down
and their appetite up

but

marijuana in pill form doesn't work nearly
as effectively as it doesn't leave form.

Horror alternately our brother bill who
lives in spokane with his wife and kids

was able to get his hands
on some real primo stuff.

Bills always had this talent.

In fact in high school bill would occasionally
supplement his income by selling pot

out of the family basement without
her parents knowing about it of course.

My mother would
always say things like

you know that
deal is so popular.

But his friends
only stay for five

and.

After my

diagnosis

his condition was
like a pendulum.

Sometimes he'd be so thick

he'd have to spend
the night in the hospital

and sometimes he'd feel well enough to go
back to his own apartment which we kept and

was only about a mile from my place
most of the time he stayed with me me

and when he did this is how
the sleeping arrangements were.

My parents slept
in the guest room

Mike slept in my room and i liked to sleep
on the pull-out sofa back in the office

and after a few months the lines started
to cross between whose house it really was

and i think this happened
partially because.

Well i have a lot of furniture in my house
that i inherited from my parents when they

moved from the big
house to the condo

and so like my coffee table and my end
tables and my lamps are all the same things i

grew up around

and suddenly have
my parents living there

and my brothers
around all the time

it's turned to feel more like

i was living at home again

and i found myself
walking around thinking

oh

when i go to college.

I'm going to get my own dorm
room and then i'm going to

do what i want and oh my
god already what they call it.

It was really noisy
and crazy in the house

and my brother bill was coming
down from spokane again and again

and Meg was coming from Japan
and relatives were showing up

and of course Mike had
all of his friends around

and instead of the Tchaikovsky that i
was hoping to play in the afternoons

my mother usually has
the Irish rovers blaring

and the feeling at the
house got to be really frenetic.

I think it got to be too
much for my orange cat geth.

That is my most

sensitive cat

and

i hadn't seen him at all
for a couple of days and

it was raining outside and i was

really worried about him

and so i was standing on
the porch yelling gas gas gas

and then my neighbor came
out on his porch and he said

Julia you know gas.

Over here.

Really and he said yeah

do.

You want to see him.

I said oh well

i guess so

and so i walked across
our front yards and

into his house and

down the hallway to the back bedroom
and sure enough sitting on his bed with gas

and i said hi

Kathy

how are you

and my neighbor said

you know

gas has been sped sending
a lot of time over here.

A lot of time and

i believe that Gus
thinks he lives here now.

Oh and he said you know.

Eventually i went out i
bought him some food i

i made this little bed
for him on the floor and

you know i can shut
him out if you want

and i said oh no no you
know if Gus would rather

live over here i guess

that'd be alright.

I said guess would you rather

live over here.

Gus looked up at me as if to say

i'm sorry but the answer is yes.

My brother Jim works for
the city of west Hollywood and

he had arranged for
me to be honored as

mayor for the day
on Halloween as pat

and.

I had agreed to do this

month before my got sick and

months before the
movie came out and

was a bomb and

months before i never wanted to
be pat again as long as i lived then.

Months before the public had
the exact same feeling about me.

But i'd agreed so there i was in the pat
outfit for the very last time traipsing down

Santa Monica boulevard with my brother Jim
and Mike who was feeling pretty good then

and wearing his traditional
Halloween on thumb a priest outfit

and i had to get
up on the stage and

i was so not into it it was just my
most halfhearted pat performance

and i was just
standing up there going

ooh.

We were walking by and i know that they
were just thinking i can't possibly be the

real person who plays pat
because that would be so pathetic

and i think my sad
display with even too

much for Mike because
he left halfway through

also because he had a date with his radiation
therapist who was meeting him on the

corner of robertson
and Santa Monica.

I tried to go with Mike to all
of his radiation appointments

and we both found it to be
very interesting i mean it's very

high tech and

at u c l a they even have
sound systems in the room

and they encourage patients
to bring music to listen to

and so while Mike's brain was being radiated
he usually listen to either the crash

test dummies or fox
unaccompanied cello suites.

Mike

being the one of us sweeney kids most
concerned about his appearance was naturally

distraught when after the
first chemo he lost all of his hair

but he was eventually able
to develop this look for himself

and he took to wearing black jeans and
a black t-shirt and a black baseball cap

and i actually gave him this resume war
dogs t-shirt that he began to her constantly

and as mine would
come out of the radiation

room i'd be waiting for
him in the waiting room

and he always had this oddly amused
expression on his face and then our eyes would

meet and we laugh
that little laugh like

how weird is this.

When you're around
someone who's as thick as Mike

you have a couple of urges

one has to be really healthy

i mean you want to get
up and take your vitamins

and exercise and eat your
green leafy vegetables and

meditate

but on the other hand you have
this equal urge to be really unhealthy

i mean you want to
eat fried foods and

driving fast cars and
take up dangerous sports.

For this one day

i was feeling really stressed
out and really down and.

I just needed a
release of some sort

and i decided to do something
a little unhealthy and dangerous

and for me that meant i was
going to smoke myself a cigarette

and buy the new
book by the pope.

As

okay.

As for the pope i

am not really a big fan of this pope as
you can imagine but i kind of enjoyed

disagreeing with
him on so many topics

but it means that i have to really keep
up on what he's saying and writing all the

time and this was the day that
the pope's new book had come out.

As for the cigarette

you know

i really don't smoke

only very very occasionally
when i'm really under pressure and

my parents are
militant non-smokers

my father smoked two and a half packs
of unfiltered Chester fields a day until

three years ago

and like most former smokers
he absolutely hates smoking

and he's always going on
about the evils of smoking and

i always join in his tirades
and agree wholeheartedly

but it means that if i am going to
have a cigarette i really have to hide it.

Well

as i said this one day i was feeling
really stressed out and down and

oh i just looked awful my
hair was a disaster and i

didn't have any makeup
on me because literally stick

and i was wearing these overalls which
is a really bad fashion choice for me.

I thought i can't stand it anymore you're
i'm going to get out of here and i'm going

to smoke myself a cigarette
and get the pose book

and so

i got into my car and i drove to west
Hollywood and i went to book soup

and i walked in and i

get the book first and.

I couldn't find the pope's
book anywhere and.

Suddenly i felt
awkward asking for it and

i guess i was just hoping
that there would be a big

ten foot cardboard cut
out of the pope you know

and.

Then i didn't find it and

like somebody buying some
pornography i suddenly felt that

i should get something for
on top of it and underneath it.

So that it would say to the
clerk you know i'm interested

in what the pope has to
say among other things.

So i started wandering around
book soup looking for something

else to get and i found
myself in the self help section.

I was looking up
at all the titles and.

There was one book entitled

the atheists guide to getting
through the day there is a tomorrow

and i thought well
that's interesting that

someone would take
the time to write that book.

And then i thought

guess the book
i'm looking for is

what happens when your
brother gets cancer in your

entire family moves in
with you whereas back book

and

i was getting worse and worse

and

at just this moment and

i hesitate to report
this to you because.

Well because it's
embarrassing and

also because i'm

really not into scatological
humor in any way

but

just this moment

suddenly let out

oldest part

and it was like ok though

horn had gone off at book soup.

Everyone's heads whipped up

and

i didn't know what i should
do i didn't know if i should

flee the scene or a hyphen

look around like it wasn't me

but of course i just ended up standing
there like a deer caught frozen in the

headlights you know
what the pope's book

and

i was so humiliated

and at just this moment this head came
from around the bookcase and this guy said

Julia

Julia sweeney.

And i said

yes i wanted to say
you recognize my call.

But i said

yes

and he said remember me it's
Marshall from the groundlings theatre well

i didn't remember Marshall but i did what
i always do in that situation which is to

overcompensate

and so i said oh
Marshall Marshall Marshall

oh gosh it's just so
great to see a Marshall

and he said hey how ya
doin how ya doing so are

you still on Saturday night live and
i said oh you know i'm just really am

not on that show anymore

and he said oh so well
what are you working on now

and i said oh you know just to

nothing.

And he said oh

hey how Steve

you know i gotta tell ya

you and Steve are
the cutest couple

and i said oh well.

Steve's doing really
well but you know

we got divorced

and he said

oh

and then i tried to make my escape and he
came up behind me and he said hey how's

Mike these still running the
box office at the growling theatre

that Mike sweeney is so funny

and i said

oh i

actually might taking a little time off
from work right now because he has cancer

well nice seeing a Marshall

and

i took my book up and i paid for it and
you can imagine at this point how much i

really really
wanted a cigarette.

So i got out of book soup
and i went to this corner

market and i bought
this pack of cigarettes and

i thought

ok there can be no smell of smoke in the
car because i know the next morning we're

all going to be loading into
it to take right the chemo

so i got into the car and i

started heading east on sunset

and i rolled down
all the windows

and i lit up my cigarette

and

ugh i was enjoying the cigarette like nobody
ever enjoyed a cigarette and it was kind

of holding it outside the driver's
window and yet i was smoking it

and i had tears running
down my cheeks but.

Was weirdly happy at the
same time and i was just

so exhilarated to be smoking and
driving into gotten away from Marshall

and

i got closer to my home and i
tossed the cigarette out of the car and

i turned onto my block.

I suddenly smelled
something burning.

Then i realized that my
car was filling up with smoke

so

i pulled into the driveway and i
turned around and i re realized that

my cigarette must have flown out the
driver's window and then back in the back

passenger window when it
had landed on my back feet and

like ignited

there was a

fire going there.

So i pulled into the driveway
and i jumped out of the car and i

opened the back door and i got the
cigarette out of the car and the fire out

and i walked in the front door and my
mother said oh thank god you're back i need

your car keys i have
to go to the store.

Oh

ho ho

the most terrible thing
just happened and she said.

That

and i said

well i was just

driving down sunset boulevard

and right

next to me was this man

this

old man in a pickup
and he was smoking

and my mother
said oh those lucky.

I love that her reaction was so big
like that just might be my whole story

and he was smoking

and he tossed his filthy
cigarette out of his pickup and

somehow it landed
in my back seat and it

burned this big holger
which i'm sure you'll see

and she said oh my god
that's the most horrible story I've

ever heard Bob come out
here and here that's horrible.

And my dad came out and i
told him the story and he said

now where is this guy

and i said he was right over.

On this side of me

he was

right on this side of me

and my back passenger window happened
to be open and then he was the one.

Yeah well the next day we all were in fact
loading into the car to take me to chemo

and as we were my father
looked down to the grass and

he kneeled down and he
said hey look it's a cigarette

and i said that's it that's the cigarette
the horrible old man was smoking.

I might ask that

wow cuz

of this cigarette
has lipstick on

and i said

oh well

sunset boulevard.

As.

Well

as you can imagine
from time to time

things would get

pretty tense around the house

and i think that for my mother

my father's drinking

and the constant listening to npr like
sometimes she'd roll over on the walkman in

the night and it would
just drive her nuts.

Got to be too much

and

one day i came in the front
door and my mother said i

need to talk to you privately
meet me in the hallway.

So you know we move
five feet to the hallway

and

my mother said

i have had it with your father he is driving
me crazy and i am breaking up with him

but he's not leaving your
house and neither am i.

And i said oh

and she said but i will
need a new place to

sleep because i am not
sleeping in there anymore.

Well

at that point i'd pretty
much had it and i said

you know what

no

my policy is that when couples come to
stay with me at my house they must remain a

couple for the
duration of their visit.

I do not have enough beds
for couples to break up wanting

me

but

sure enough for the next
few nights my mother insisted

on sleeping on the pull
out sofa in the living room

and during one of those nights

i got up at about three thirty in
the morning to get a drink of water

and i could hear the TV
going in the living room

and my mother called out
Julie come in here i'm watching

incredible movie.

So i did go in there
and i saw that she was

watching Nicholas rave
in a lonely place which

is one of my favorite film Mars

and i said oh mom that
this is a great movie in fact

that has a great exchange
just about to come up.

Well

in in a lonely place

Humphrey bogart plays
this Hollywood writer who's

suspected of killing a
young coat check girl

and Gloria grahame plays this neighbor
of his who ends up providing him an alibi

while when Gloria grahame is in
the police station the officer says to her

why were you keeping an
eye out for this bogart character

and she says because i like his

pace.

While later when bogart
has Gloria grahame alone in

his apartment he looks
into the mirror and he says

great

how could you
like a phase like this

and then he leans into her

and she pulls back and says

i said i liked it

i didn't say i
wanted to kiss it.

So we watched the scene
and we both really enjoyed it

and my mother said if i were
her i'd stay away from him

because he obviously had
a terrible drinking problem.

I said well actually she might want to
stay away from him because you know

he could have killed
that poor Czech girl.

I loved that to my mother then
drinking was really the bigger flag.

Well

after a few minutes
my father came out

and he said hey i know this
movie this is a great movie

and he sat down with us
and we all continue to watch it

and a few minutes later

Mike came out and
joined us on the sofa

and at one point my mother reached
over and took my hand and held it.

Which is something that but

Mike would never let her do

and i flinched and i almost said

mom

but i was surprised
when Mike just

let her.

Well

by the time the movie
was over it was about

five forty five in the morning and
the sun was just starting to come out.

In the l a times was tripping across
the front porch and into the door

and we all decided
that it was really

too late to try to go back to
sleep that we just stay up and

make one meal and toast and

wait for it to be time to
take Mike to radiation.

Well

in the middle of all of this

all of these sleepless
nights and the doctor's

appointments and the
noodles was red topping.

The most wonderful
thing happened.

My

good friend David came
down from Aspen to visit me

and he brought along his brother
Carl and he introduced us and

ca Carl and i
immediately hit it off.

Carl went back to pocatello Idaho where
he was living and we started talking on the

phone long distance and i figured
we were pretty interested in each other.

This was a pretty big deal for me because
Carl was the first guy that i was really

really attracted to since
my divorce two years before.

Carl's enthusiasm is in bow hunting
and even his job is related to this passion

and

as a

virtual

vegetarian

at least until my
parents arrived

and as a proud
volunteering member of peta

his expertise
naturally disgusted me

but at the same time
i found it wildly sexy.

Carl and i would talk on the phone late
into the night and we would get into these

big ethical arguments
all about animal rights

and then i would hang up the phone and
go to sleep and dream that he was running

after me in the woods naked
with nothing but a bow and arrow.

Plus

i figure that

if you have as dim a view of the future
of civilization as i have and believe it's

all going to come crashing down in
some sort of post apocalyptic nightmare

Kara would be a
good choice as a mate.

Well Carl and i continued
to talk on the phone

and then in February he said
he'd like to come down for a visit.

Well this was great i mean i finally
was going to get a guy into my cool girly

bachelorette pad the
only problem was that

my parents were
going to be there.

I thought oh great i'm going to have
all the candles lit in the living room and

finger food on the
coffee table and

Carl and i are going to be snuggled up on
the sofa and my mother's going to walk in

and say hey what's
on TV tonight.

Or

how am i going to get my father
to clear off the dining room table his

five thousand piece puzzle of a
map of Sarajevo that he got breathe

fifty dollar
contribution to npr.

So that i can pour some wine and look into
Carl's eyes deeper deeper than ever before.

Well.

What i didn't anticipate

was that my parents
presence would provide the

hotbed of titillation
the likes of which

i'd never experienced before.

This is why why.

My parents you know

they know i'm not a virgin i
mean i was married for five years

but by the same token they're not
going to condone me starting up a sexual

relationship with someone
right under their noses.

On the other hand i am an
adult and it is my house so

it was kind of a tricky situation and it
basically meant that Carl and i had to

sneaker round and i hadn't had to sneak
around with a guy for about sixteen years and

i forgot how exciting that is.

Yeah

Karl

sucked on the pull out
sofa back in the office

and i slept on the sofa
in the living room and

we spent all this time
around the family and then

at night i would go out to
say goodnight to Carl for

about an hour.

But then i would come in and sleep on the
sofa in the living room and get up at six

thirty in the morning and have
coffee with my dad and then go out to

wake up Carl.

Carl and i found ourselves playing footsie
underneath the dining room table and

my mother was making all of these traditional
meals and saying things do with like

YouTube be sure to be home
at six i'm making meat loaf

and i suddenly felt like
this catholic school girl

again in a uniform and i
found myself saying things like

oh my parents are so weird
let's go make out in the garage.

I.

Well one day Carl and i spent
time at will Rogers state park

and we got back to the house and

there was nobody there

and that was really unusual because
there was always someone at the house

and we walked in and i said

oh my god Karl rove alone

can the bedroom take
off your clothes now.

Across that oh

okay but i just noticed that your garbage
cans are empty down on the curb do you want

me to move them up to
the side of the house first

and i said

no we don't know
how much time we have

the bedroom pick
up your clothes now

and so he did and

i did and

we did and

it was wonderful and
afterwards we came back out the

living room and car looked
out the front window and he said

Julia your

your garbage cans they've been
moved up to the side of the house

and i said really
and he said yeah who

who would have done that

and they said i don't
know i don't think

i don't think my neighbors
would do that and look all

of their garbage cans are
still empty down on the curb

and he said.

You don't think that your
parents came back here and

hurt us and got embarrassed
and decided to leave but

before they left

with the garbage cans
up by the side of a house

and i said oh no no you know my parents
there you know so naive and we weren't very

loud or at least
didn't think we were.

Well the next day the exact same thing
happened Carl and i came back to the house

late in the afternoon
there was nobody there

i said Carl i just wish i
knew how much time we had

and caused me to

and just then the phone rang and i answered
it was my father and he said hi Julie

this is dad

listen your mother and i are in
Santa Monica and we're heading home

and we just wanted
to call and let you know

that you should expect
us in forty five minutes.

I.

Well

we were all continuing
to help Mike in

all of his different
therapies and.

He was doing really well

with the exception of
the spinal tap chemo.

Mike had received so many different spinal
taps that scar tissue had built up along

his spinal column and they
couldn't act as in any more

so

one day we were at u c l a and Mike was
on the examination table and my brother Jim

was there and myself and my mother and
my father who was reading a fifty thousand

word essay in the new yorker all
about the plague in India as a diversion

and

the doctor came in and he said

Mike this is what i suggest

i think that we should put a shunt into
your forehead which is a plastic opening so

that we can put the chemo
directly into the cranial fluid.

So you know this was just

awful and

Mike immediately say said listen doc if you
think you're going to put a prophet into

my forehead you may as well give
me a la bottom me at the same time

and there was this awkward pause and
then my mother chimed in and she said

oh Mike i don't think as like
a boss it i think it's more like a

a spigot

and

then i think even the doctor was
a little embarrassed and he said.

Well Mike let me just tell you that my
patients who have the shunts will they have

they love them.

I like that oh they do do they well
then by all means give me a shunt

and Mike didn't get a tion

and after that his refrain
became i love my thought

and

whenever the doctor would come into the
examination room he'd say how you doing Mike

and Mike would say

i'm not doing too well doc
but I'll tell you one thing

i love.

And

it just show you how
surreal things were getting

at night the whole family would
watch shows like iar and Chicago hope

and whenever anyone would
come into the emergency room

Mike would yell out

give up a shot.

Something to love

i.

Well

what Mike said that i
was going to get out

of his illness was a
fabulous doctor husband

and we were always scoping
the hallways for the cutest doctors

and if a doctor treated Mike and he
wasn't handsome enough or single

we always asked
for a second opinion.

Well

one day while Mike was getting chemo just
to make conversation with one of the nurses

i said do you know a good gynecologist in
town because I've just moved out from new

York and i need to get
started with someone new

and she said that she did and

she wrote down his name and number
for me and i put it in my back pocket

and when i got home
home instead of just

filing away the number because it was really
months before i needed to make my annual

exam i decided to call
and make an appointment

and

i went in i was examined
and about a week later my

doctor called me and i
was in my office and he said

Juliet we've gotten all of
your test results back and

i'm sorry sorry but

you have cancer.

And i said what

and he said

yeah and you have cervical
cancer and it appears to

have spread to your uterus
and your fallopian tubes and.

I recommend that you get
a hysterectomy right away.

And i said.

What that that's impossible you
know of my brother has cancer

and he said oh really what kind

and i said

lymphoma

and he said

well that's really unrelated
and i said i knew it's unrelated

i'm just saying this is just.

Really bad timing i mean this is just like
the worst you know i mean couldn't it wait

and

obviously it couldn't

and

so

i hung up the phone and

i looked out the windows in my office into
the windows at the back of the house and.

I could see my mother
in the kitchen cooking and

my father hovered over
the dining room table and.

Mike in my bedroom room and.

As i crossed the backyard i actually
considered not telling them but

i didn't know how
i was going to hide

having a hysterectomy

and

so i went into the house and.

You know i told everybody and

of course they were devastated.

Mike immediately said

oh you just couldn't
stand a good year.

It must have been hard for you being an
actress with me in the cancer spotlight on

the draft.

And later he said you know jewels
you just got a little sympathy cancer

and between Mike and
me that was no joke we

really felt like i did
have sympathy cancer.

Well.

There i was having to lose
my reproductive organs and.

You know

i never had a child before and i guess i
always assumed i would someday i just

hadn't chosen to
up until this time and

now it looked like that
was going to be impossible.

I guess i always thought of
my reproductive organs like

this really the great
shiny bike that i had in the

garage that i totally was
going to ride some day

but

i just never taken the
opportunity to ride it yet and

now someone was
stealing my bike.

On the other hand

if you do have to have cancer

you actually have an
advantage of having cancer of the

reproductive organ because
you can simply take it out

it's not like having
cancer of the liver or the

lungs which are organs
you need for daily existence

with a reproductive organ
you can simply remove it

which got me to thinking.

What if you got
cancer of the fat

and then you had to have
like this emergency liposuction

and i mentioned that to
my doctor and he told me

that actually some people
do get cancer of the fat.

Well

my doctor told me to call the cedar sinai
comprehensive cancer center to make an

appointment and when
i did the receptionist

was a little less than
accommodating she said

oh yes i have your name
down here myth weenie

and i said i

know that sweeney and
she said yes miss weenie

and i said no that's

that's sweeney

and she said that's
a weird name weenie

and i said.

No it's not because it's sweet

and she said oh yes i
have you down here now

i'm very sorry but i i cannot make an
appointment for you right now because it turns

out that your cancer is this very very very
rare type of cervical cancer and we have

spent all of your slides over to the u c l
a pathology department where they are

studying that type
of cancer there.

If i said

oh well that's interesting i

was there some way that we
could get those slides back so

you know i can make
an appointment so

i could get rid of this cancer

and she said well

our courier service has
taken a very very long time and

she really couldn't predict
when the slide could be back

and i that will certainly
there must be something

that we could do to help
expedite this process

and after a moment she said

well

i suppose if you'd
like to pick them up.

I thought.

That she's never asked anyone
else to pick up their own slides ever

but i said.

Well

have coincidentally

i will be at u c l a cancer center
tomorrow and i suppose i could

hop over to the
pathology building and

pick up my slides.

In without seeming
to blink an eye or

note the irony in that
statement she agreed

and the next day i left Mike and the chemo
lounge and i set about to get my five.

Well

the pathology building
at u c l a is this big

eight story building and it's not set up to
have any regular person walk into it i mean

there is no reception
area there's no directory

of doctors there's
no nothing like that

and i found myself walking
up and down the hallways and

finally going through these doors
marked green his only no public admittance

and in fact everyone was wearing
green lab wearing masks and

the hallways were lined with

what looked to me like big
tupperware filled with lungs

and

i was just trying to get someone
to recognize me as an alien

and finally this
woman did and i said.

Yes

my name is Julius

and i'm looking for my
slides and she said oh

what research project
are you working on

and i said no research
project they're just slides of me

they're me

they're me

and he said oh

nobody picks up their own slides

and i said yeah
that's what i thought

and she looked into the
computer program and she said

oh your cancer is being studied by dr
yao fu and he's up on the eighth floor

well

i went up to the eighth floor and i found
dr fu's office door sure and i opened it.

It was like something
out of a movie set i mean

there were books piled
high to the ceiling and xerox

machine next to a filing
cabinet that was overflowing

next to a microscope and peering
over the microscope was doctor fu

and i said excuse me dr fu

yes

my name as Julia sweeney
and i'm looking for my side

and he said oh let research
project are you working on

and i said

no

research project you
know they're just the

sides me they're me

or slides me.

He said oh well nobody
picks up their own.

At least that i know and he said

wait a minute

you mean to tell me that

you have this cancer.

I said

yes and he said wow this is the incredible
you know i have been studying this very

rare type of cervical cancer
here it used the allay for the last

twenty years and you
know i look at these

profiles and i study
these fides but I've never

actually met someone who

had the cancer

and i said oh
doctor fu here i am.

And he said gosh.

Well very rare type
of cervical cancer

only fifty diagnosed cases that we know
of so far in the whole world and the well

none of them have died

and i said oh

i feel so lucky.

And he said the

cash this is just incredible do you
mind if i take you out for a cup of coffee

and i said no and

so we did go get a cup of coffee

and

while we were there at one point

dr fu took this tour and eighteen
t envelope out of his back pocket

and

he put it on the table

and he drew ooh my
reproductive organs on it and he

kind of described me what
was going to be happening

and at one point he said

are you sad about
losing your fertility

only he said

productivity

and i said

yeah

i am sad about that but you know

i'd rather live

and he said yes
living is better.

Than we walked back to his
office and on the way he even

squeezed my arm and told
me what a wonderful time he had

and it was really true we really had
had the most enjoyable afternoon and so.

I figure if i have to be the kind of girl
that they asked to pick up around slides

when they would never ask anyone
else to pick up their own slides

and if i have to be
the kind of girl that

they always forget at Starbucks

then at least i'm the kind of girl
who gets to meet people like dr fu.

A few days after this i decided to go
see the late show of the movie house guest

my good friend Phil
hartman was in it

and he's always so funny and i was going
to see him the next week so i wanted to be

able to be sure to say something
really nice about his latest film

and so i win

and

afterwards i was in a really

foul our mood because

well i had not exactly
accomplished my task

and maybe also because i had cancer and
my brother had cancer and my parents were

living with me maybe that also
contributed a little bit my bad mood

but

i came in the front door and

Mike was lying on the sofa and

he just didn't look very good

you know he had his arms
crossed over his chest and he

was looking up at the ceiling
and his jaw was slackened

and i said Mike

Mike how you doing.

Mike said hey Jules
actually i'm feeling pretty good

and i said oh great

and i headed toward the
kitchen and my mother intercepted

me and she said oh how
was house guest i love that

in bad i see him on TV

funny and your TV isn't working the channels
are out of sync with the channel that

the cable back then i
don't know how to fix that

and i wanted because i
have a video i want what

i'm making soup in the kitchen and
the soup is boiling over on the stove

and really your father
could handle it but he

has

been touring

and

so i said fine I'll go
into the kitchen so i went

in and my dad said hey i
was house guest and i said.

It was okay and he said that
Phil harmon is hilarious and i said

yes he is and then my
mother leaned in the doorway

and said you're out of
cat food there is no cap

and i said oh

okay and she said i would have got some
capital for them but i don't know what kind

they like and you always get mad when
i get the wrong thing and i realize at this

point that Rita and frank are
underfoot and they're going yeah

oh and.

I should tell you at this point that for me
to have my parents in my house always

meant that every audio device
available was always on in the house

radios on in the kitchen this area was
on in the dining room the TV's on in the

living room and there's
not a lot of space in

between those places
and now the cats are going.

So i said fine I'll go
to the grocery store.

So i went to pavilions and.

You know they were having
this sale on friskies like

three for eighty nine so
i decided to get a bunch

and i was standing in line and.

You know

when you're in the grocery
store at midnight on a

Friday night buying fifteen
dollars worth of cat food.

As a single woman
in her mid thirties.

Well that this special feeling.

How.

So.

I got the cap food
and i went home and

while it was gone my father had put dry food
into the cat food bowls but it's the dry

food that might have hate so i picked it
up to throw it out my father grabbed the

other side of the bullies no no no don't
throw it out to save another pepper wherein

i see that he has his little
tupperware bowl behind them

and i say no no no
doubt this is the kind of

hate really just gonna
throw it out when he say's

law and order serving
in the tub awareness that.

Really i'm just gonna throw caution to the
wind and just order one this is normally

reserved in the tupperware
and i said no even if

i

wouldn't have been
in the tupperware

and of course the capital
goes flying into the air and

all the capital goes
everywhere including into the.

Overall

though

and at this very moment
the phone rings and i grab it

and it's my sister Meg calling
from Japan and she's upset

and she says thank god your.

Mama did

sent me a letter to

be read i paid back the forty eight dollars
that i charged on their visa bill for the

subscriptions to the national geographic
magazine that i gave everybody for Christmas

and they want me to pay them
back before they get their bill.

I want to check

around one hundred dollars

and i am putting a note

that says i don't want to have
any more dealings with you

and i was thinking you already
live in Japan how much less can you

know.

I just love that i not only
get to be one of the recipients

of the gift of the national
geographic subscription

i get to also know about all the
trauma and the subterfuge around the

horror.

Well then my mother walked in and she just
started talking to me even though i was on

the phone which is
something she does

and she said.

Julie have you heard of a
place called the house of blues.

Everybody's talking about their.

Thumb woo.

I love blue

i love blues and gospel

that because i love gershwin

and now.

Ten years ago if my mother would have
said something like that to me i would have

pointed out to her that the
gospel was not gershwin

but that they did share
the same first letter.

But now when my mother says
things like that to me i just go.

I.

My parents have these
friends the past bs and

they're really good old
friends of theirs in fact

Bob passerby was the
best man at their wedding

and they just loved them
and they live in palm Springs

and sometimes my parents
would go out there to visit them

and to give you an idea
of Bob has mr personality

once when he and his wife came to l a to
visit us and we all went out for breakfast

at nine in the morning at cantor's
and he ordered a boilermaker

and he's

just trying to level
the playing field.

Well my parents went out to palm Springs
to visit their friends and that left Mike

and i alone in the house
both of us having cancer.

While we immediately started
answering the phone houses cancer.

We wanted to put a sign out front
that said international house of cancer

and if anything wasn't working in the
house or even if a tree was a little droopy

outfront we'd say gosh
maybe the tree has cancer

and my black cat Rita
started to inexplicably

lose all of the hair on
her back and undersides

and we started thinking

oh no now read i have cancer

but we took readers to the vet and the vet
couldn't explain why that was happening.

A couple of weeks before this mic it had a
port put into his abdomen so that we could

pump nourishment directly
into his stomach because

he was having

such a hard time digesting food

and this was
working pretty well but

during this time that
we were alone together

one night he suddenly
started having a reaction to it

and he start

throwing up

and throwing up

and it didn't look like
there was any end in sight

and Mike was really
reluctant to go to the hospital i

mean he would just wait
until the very last second to go

but

eventually at three in the morning we both
agreed that he just had to go to emergency.

So

the car to make that long
long drive down Beverly

boulevard Santa Monica
boulevard Wilshire blvd Westwood

and when you're
driving at that time.

There is nobody
else on the road in

l a really becomes the desert
that it was always meant to be.

Well

Mike was sitting in the passenger
seat trying not to throw up in the car

and he was wearing his
reservoir dogs t-shirt which was

worn thin and feigned by then
and i was driving and thinking

now i have cancer too

and at one point Mike said

why did i do to deserve this

and that was really
unusual might just

never asked why

and i said my

no one would deserve this

no one and Mike said

yeah even Christ
only suffered for a day.

Well.

We got to emergency and they could
see that Mike was really dehydrated

but

all of the veins in his arms were exhausted
so they were trying to get this needle in

in up over his ear to
get a saline solution in

and he was
continuing to throw up

so it was making
it very difficult and

i was looking in the
doorway at the this

and to just show you what
a wonderfully dark sense of

humor my cat in even the
most horrific of circumstances

he turned to me at
this point and said.

Hey

i guess it's not so funny
now that you have cancer too.

I was at my like yeah normally Mike i'd
be laughing my ass off at you right now.

Well.

Mike was hydrated and he came back home
and our parents came back and he got better

and then he got worse

and then he got better

and then he got worse

and then he'd get a little bit better and
then he got worse and worse and worse

and sometimes i'd find
my father alone crying

and it was around this time that the family
made this nonverbal shift in our hopes

and we stopped praying
for Mike to get better

and we started to pray
for an end his suffering.

Then my mother started to
talk about my possibly dying and

going to heaven.

Heaven.

Oh that word.

It reminded me of when i
was a junior in high school

and i was taught religion
class by father fitter and

he was a jesuit

and he introduced
the first existential like

ideas into my head

and one day in religion
class father fitter said

perhaps

heaven is an instant

perhaps ps if there's no

time after death heaven is just

that light at the end
of the tunnel that great

moment of awareness
and then it's just like that

heaven is an instant

and while this idea might
sound very simple to you and me

at the time for me

it was mind boggling and i could
hardly wait to share it with someone

and i wanted to tell my mother.

Well

i got back to the house and

i couldn't find my mother
anywhere and finally i

found her in the back
bathroom coming out the tub

and i said mom father fitter
said that heaven is an instant

and she stood up and said what

and i said yeah i'm father fitter said that
you know if there's no time after death

maybe hell Ivan is just
that light at the end of the

tunnel and then it's just
like that heaven is an instant

and my mother with
the comet in one hand

took the other hand and
slapped me across the cheek

and i never could understand
why she would have that reaction

but

maybe don't walk into the bathroom of a key
catholic mother of five whose comedy out

the tub and tell her
that heaven is an instant.

I.

Well it was really important for my parents
that Mike received the last rites i was

actually opposed to this
because i didn't want to send

Mike a signal that we didn't
think he was going to make it

but my parents'

wishes prevailed in
one afternoon when i was

spending time with Mike
alone in the hospital and

he was actually having a pretty good day
and we were playing this game of scrabble

in came father Sullivan in his Roman collar
clearly there to give Mike the last right

and

Mike being Mike immediately
asked him for his card.

Started quizzing
him on his credentials

and

father Sullivan said

Mike you're just going to
have to take it on faith this time

and so they're over the scrabble
board Mike received the last rites

and

after father Sullivan left
Mike turned to me and he said

you know mom and dad sent him

and i said oh Mike i know i'm

sorry

Mike said

no actually that was

that was kind of cool.

Well

my continued to decline

and eventually his Oregon
started to go one by one

but he just kept on ticking

and the doctor said he would for awhile
he had the heart and lungs of a thirty one

year old male and he was
just going to keep on going a bit

but eventually even the doctors
couldn't explain why Mike was still alive

and eventually one doctor
suggested that perhaps it

was just psychological at
this point maybe Mike just

wasn't emotionally ready to go.

So they sent this
therapist in to talk to Mike

and she sat in a chair
next to his hospital bed

and she said Mike.

I want you to visualize that
you're on a trampoline right now

and imagine yourself going

up and down

up

and down

really feel yourself going up

and down

and now i want
you to imagine just

jumping off to
the side a little bit

and

a few hours later

Mike died.

You know.

I just hope that for
Mike finally giving up all

control meant that he
ultimately gained some.

Well

three days after Mike passed away i
was scheduled for my hysterectomy

and

i sincerely wanted my parents
to just go back home i just

figured that we were also sick of
being around people who were sick

but

they insisted on staying and i found myself
saying the strangest thing things like

my friends who who've
had his directness didn't

have to have their
appearance there with them.

They got to have
their hysterectomy

on their own.

But

my parents demanded to stay and so they
did and i went into cedar sinai for about

five days and during one of those
days my father sat in his chair crush

my hospital bed

and for twelve hours he just

stared at me

he didn't read he
didn't watch TV he didn't

even listen to the radio
he just stared at me

and i was so glad
beyond the morphine

and

after my surgery the doctor came
into the recovery room and he said

giulia the operation was
a big success we were

able to get out all the
tumor that we could see

we were able to save your ovaries which
is a very good thing because your ovaries

amid these hormones which you need but
we're going to recommend that you get about

nine we weeks of radiation and this could
adversely affect your ovaries so we took

the opportunity while
we were in there to

move your ovaries up about a foot and
a half from their original position so that

they'd be out of the
rays of the radiation.

So i said

ok

and he said don't worry you know your
ovaries can work from wherever they are

and i said

okay

and he said now the other good thing about
keeping your ovaries is that if you are

interested in having a
biological child one day

you still can

we can go in and
extract some eggs and

you can mix them with sperm and then have
a surrogate mother have the child for you.

So

you know i was
taking all of this in

and i thought

how great now i have
to meet a guy and a girl

and

then he said now if you really are interested
in having a biological child one day

i should tell you that
the radiation could still

adversely affect your ovaries
even in their new position

so i would recommend that we go in
now we can harvest about twelve eggs

and

i was thinking why
twelve cause they're

eggs

and

he said we could harvest these
twelve eggs the only problem is

we don't have the medical technology to
just hold onto these eggs by themselves they

have to be fertilized first and then
we can freeze them for up to five years

so basically if we do do this you have to
know who your sperm donor is going to be

now.

So i said

oh.

Okay.

Hm

well i have been dating
someone for a couple of months.

I dunno if now is the exact moment to say
to Carl the next time he comes into town

hey before we go to the
movie on Friday night why not

fertilize all my eggs.

In case things work
out between us.

So i said well how many different
sperm donor people could i have

and he said well i'm not going
to allow twelve startup costs

and i said no no i understand
that but how many different sperm

donor people could i have

and he said i dunno

six

so

i got out my address book

an.

I thought okay what are
the criteria the criteria are.

Somebody who i know
whose number i have.

I think i could possibly fall in love
with one day and not only fall in love with

them i would want to spend
many many many years with

them and not only spend
many years of them i would

want to raise a child with
them and not only raise a child

with them it would have to
be our biological child and then

we would hire some woman to
have this child and now who fits

description.

Well needless to say i
decided not to do that.

I came home from the
hospital and there my parents

were eager to help me
in any way they could

and i was in a tremendous
amount of pain and.

I tried very hard not
to take the prescription

painkillers that my physicians
had prescribed for me.

I just figured if i could

endure the pain on my own

and if i i could do that
thing where you visualize

the pain and then encompass
it and then transcend it

i would really enjoy those perky
down a lot more later with a Margarita

and

now

after you have a hysterectomy or

really any abdominal surgery the name of
the game has to have fluids running through

your body i mean you have to drink all the
liquid and go to the bathroom all the time

and keep these charts
about it it's just awful

and one day i was in
the bathroom and my

mother was on the other
side of the closed door

and she lie and then and
then Julie did you go yeah

and i said

he yeah and she said god

yeah.

And as i was sitting
there on the toilet i

thought you know i think
this is my lowest moment.

Well

i was finally able to persuade
my parents to just go back home

i was able to do
this partially because

my good friend David the one
who'd introduced me to his brother Carl

had decided to come down from Aspen to
help see me through the radiation process

and so my parents packed up
their bags and loaded up the car and.

You know

my parents for me have always
been either a source of comedy or

a reason to be in therapy

and I've always thought of them
as kind of wacky and provincial and

i always jumped on the
dysfunctional family bandwagon

but

it wasn't intel that year
when the shit really hit the

fan i saw how ultimately
functional they really were

and when i think of the hundreds of images
that i now have in my head of my father

filling out social security
forms late into the night

or my mother whipping up
jello for Mike in the kitchen.

Or each of them taking
one of them Mike's arms

when he was too weak to
walk to the car by himself.

I think how horrible that
must have been to have

brought a child into
this world only to have to

help them out of it again

and as the Toyota drove away

i realized that my feelings for
them had deepened so much.

Well.

David moved into the
guest room for the big

radiation extravaganza

and every morning at eight
forty five we go to cedar sinai so

i could get my radiation

and you know David will wait for me in the
waiting room just like i had done for Mike

and i'm sure i had an oddly amused expression
on my face when i came out and then our

eyes would meet and we laugh
little laugh like how weird is this.

It was so strange to
suddenly be on the other

side of this experience
that i just had with Mike.

It almost felt like we
were square dancing.

One morning i woke up and.

When you have someone pass away
who's as close to you as Mike was to me

it's almost as if

the synapses in your brain don't

I'll get the message
all at once and

especially in that
moment of waking it's like

you forget and then something
has to remind you that they've died

and.

One morning i woke up

and i walked down the hallway
and my eye caught this glimpse

of a picture of Mike and his
best friend Andy in Hawaii

and it was as if i had just
heard that Mike had died

and i wanted to go running
down the hallway and bang

on David's bedroom door
and say Mike died Mike died

but i didn't do that

i just burst into tears and
they started crying and.

David got up and he didn't know
what to do to try to help me and.

Eventually he decided
to try to help me based

on his applied theory
of the fire stopped me.

Basically a firestop is when.

You know when a forest
fires burning out of control

sometimes they bring this
ring around the outside of it so

that when the fire gets to the dead
area it just naturally comes to a stop.

Well for David to
apply this theory to me

meant that we
immediately had to go see

the Bridges of Madison county.

Well

this was the day that Bridges had opened
and so there David and i were in line for

the first matinee at like ten in
the morning me already crying.

And

we went in and sure enough at just that
moment when the entire audience burst into

tears and started crying i stopped crying
and didn't cry again for another week.

Well it turned out that my radiation
therapist happened to be from spokane

and not only that she'd gone to my
same high school Mary cliff high school

but we didn't know each
other she's a few years ahead

but we've both been taught by sister
and to nella and so whenever i'd go in for

radiation we would
reminisce about her

and we remembered
when sister aunt nella hottest

Emerson and she made
us memorize the quote.

Give me hell

and a day and i will make the
pomp of emperors ridiculous.

Well i asked her

if she knew what had ever
happened to his durant nella

and she said that she did she heard that
she'd moved to an Indian reservation on man

in Montana and she was
teaching the children there

and so every day as i
would lie in the radiation bed

i would think about
sister aunt nella and

i'd wonder how the
children were taking her.

One morning i walked into my radiation
doctor's office and he said Juliet

we have some bad news

and we said oh

bad news and i sat
down and he said

it appears that

we've lost one of your

ovaries

and i said oh

don't worry i have my oncologist warned
me about that he told me that one of my

ovaries might die because
the effects of the radiation so

you know i was prepared

and he said no no no no no no.

I don't mean that one of your
ovaries has died i mean that we've

lost one of your ovaries

we've been looking at
these x-rays and then

we see this ovary over here but to this
ovary over here has gone off somewhere.

I know I've seen this before and
it's not unusual for an ovary once

cut off from it's
responsibilities to travel.

I.

Guess i could understand that if i were
an ovary and i suddenly didn't have to deal

with that fallopian
tube anymore i

just wanted

some stuff

and he said that don't worry you
know it's going to turn up eventually.

We just have to
keep an eye out for it

and i said oh okay now.

I'm not going to like

cough it up am i.

He said no i'd be pretty
much impossible and

so after that we were
always an ovary watch.

Well

my radiation finally
came to an end

and my energy was restored

and David moved back to Aspen

and my ovary came floating
by couple of months later

and you know i talked
to my parents much more

frequently than i did
before this whole ordeal

and my mother says she
finds herself driving out to

holy cross cemetery all
the time to visit my grave

she'll just be running an
errand downtown in spokane and

find herself absentmindedly
driving towards the cemetery.

She's also doing a lot
more volunteer work at

st Augusta since which
is my parents' parish

and she's part of this
women's auxiliary group there

and several months ago
she called me and said

Julie you know the ladies auxiliary has
been meeting and we have all agreed that.

He told Jesus that is up
on the altar at st Agustin.

Well

he has that chest the ad

look on his face

and he's just kind of hanging in
the air and he found the printing

and we

decided that we'd really
like a new gene that.

Well we told this to msgr and Julie
msgr caliber mean epic video js that.

Wow he gave me a catalog
where you order those things from

Europe and whatnot

and i went through it

and

let me tell you Julie
one Jesus was just

sadder than the next.

And then i got to the last
page and i found mine Jesus.

While he has long blonde gorgeous
curls and legs that chess go on for days

and he's very muscular
and it's almost like he's

fretting that crap.

And i showed him to the ladies

and we all agreed that we wouldn't
mind looking at him for an hour every

day

and

so we've ordered him and he's up and
i call him my sports connection Jesus.

Well

as you can imagine things have slowed
down considerably back at my house.

After my radiation ended

my

black cat Rita miraculously
grew back Oliver hair

and one day i opened
the door and there was gas

and he walked in like he'd been
walking in air every single day and

he stayed.

And i still get a lot of mail for Mike
Mike subscribed to a lot of different

periodicals some of which are starting to
lapse and one of them is to buzz magazine

and in the last few
months I've gotten two

of those computer
generated notices for Mike

one that said

hey Mike where'd you go.

In the next one said Mike
sweeney where have you been.

And i finally finally have
my house all to myself

and you know i
really really love it

but sometimes when i'm sitting
there i think why does it feel so empty.

Thank you.