(See video at the end)

It was a Saturday afternoon. I was in the living room teaching myself Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen on the guitar. Alex came down.

“Dad. I have this lump.” Then he turned and showed me the back of his right thigh.

“Woah.”

A fist-sized blob of flesh was pushing out against his skin. I felt it; it was squishy and moved up and down if I pressed it.

“How long have you had that?”

“A while. At least a month.”

“Ok.”

He told me later that when he saw my reaction he got worried. He expected Shani to be nervous, but he expected me to blow it off. 

I called Shani down, did some googling, forbade Shani from googling, and then took him to PM Pediatrics. Not so much because I thought it was urgent, but because we were going to worry about it until we saw a doctor.

That doctor wasn’t much help. She said we needed to see our regular pediatrician and get a referral for an ultrasound. And she seemed alarmed. Doctors usually have good poker faces, but I felt her emotions rise when she laid eyes on that lump.

Things went pretty quick from there. Pediatrician Monday. Referred for ultrasound Tuesday. Referred for MRI Wednesday morning. And each step brought another level of fear into the whole thing. Our pediatrician told us she would call as soon as she got the radiologist report from the MRI. She told us to expect it Thursday.

But that Wednesday afternoon, I was on the back porch leading a conference call. Shani popped her head out.

“Come on,” she said, phone to her ear and waving me inside.

“I have to go,” I announced abruptly and closed the laptop.

It was the pediatrician. We sat at the kitchen table; Shani put it on speaker.

I knew from her tone.

I honestly don’t remember what she said, although my heart is racing now just writing about it. I wrote some words down on a piece of paper. Here, check it out.

But whatever words she spoke, what they meant was clear. Alex had cancer.

We hung up the phone just as Alex walked into the kitchen. We told him. I went upstairs and told Jack. And soon we were all upstairs in our beds. Jack was under the covers, stunned. Alex was in his room texting friends. Shani and I sat on our bed and stared at each other. We rotated some. I’d go sit with Jack. Shani would lay with Alex for a while. The only levity was that occasionally the puppy would bound in and demand attention, joyfully oblivious to the situation.

I went downstairs and called my brother. The call went like this…

CHRIS

Hello?

MIKE

[Insert 60 seconds of gasping and trying to speak before he finally gets the words out.]

Alex has cancer.

[Insert two full minutes of uncontrolled sobbing.]

Chris said all the right things; he was wonderful as my brother always is. He asked me a bunch of questions, none of which I knew answers to. When we hung up, I decided I wasn’t up for making any more phone calls. He promptly overnighted Alex a care package of bacon and candy.

That evening, Shani’s friend, who is a pediatrician, came over and read through the radiologist report for us and answered our questions.

And I’m fairly sure that night was the worst night of my life.

The next day Alex and Shani went to CHOP (Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia). Our pediatrician had gotten us in to see Dr. Kristy Webber, one of the world’s leading experts on sarcomas. They conferenced me in as well as our friend, Heather. We recorded the conversation and Heather took notes.

Dr. Webber was pretty amazing. She was competent and direct. She spoke in plain language. She listened. She addressed Alex directly.

She told us that the MRI was not conclusive. It could be cancer; it could be something else. She wanted a biopsy and then we would move forward quickly. In the meantime, Alex should exercise and go about his normal life.

So we kinda did that. I told my family after that (through email). We told our jobs. Then a few days later, Shani took Alex in for a biopsy. They laid him on his belly, numbed the area, and then pulled out chunks of the tumor using a giant syringe.

Then more waiting. (I think cancer is mostly about waiting.) Shani and I barely left the house. If we did, we made detailed plans for conferencing each other in if Dr. Webber called with results. We went about our days in a tense fog.

The call was quick. Shani was in the car when it came and it was too fast to conference me in. She called me right after; I was in the car with Alex.

“Dr. Webber said that she wants to run one more test, but from what she sees so far, she is ‘cautiously optimistic‘.”

I felt muscles in my neck and back letting go. I had no idea they were even clenched, but suddenly I was deflating deliciously like a punctured parade float.

“Alex, if you don’t have cancer….Fuuuuuuuucccccck.”

Dr. Webber said she’d get back to us the following Monday or even Tuesday. And I can promise you that during that time, no words have ever been analyzed more exhaustively than we analyzed the phrase ‘cautiously optimistic.’

It was actually Thursday when she finally called.

It was not cancer.

Alex has what is called a “Desmoid Tumor.” It is not cancer; it does not spread. And unless it is painful or growing, they don’t do anything. They just leave it. Alex had to have another scan in 3-6 months, but otherwise that was it.

—

—

So, funny thing. Alex and I have a list of hikes and backpacking trips in National Parks all over the country. Our plan is to work our way through the list over the years. (You better stay in shape, Dad!) And on our list is to go canoe-camping in Congaree National Park in South Carolina.

We’d planned to go last spring, but we had to cancel due to the pandemic. We’d rescheduled for this April and even put a deposit down on a canoe rental. But the lump screwed all that up. We figured there was no way we could still go. Even if it wasn’t cancer, Alex would still have to have surgery to remove the lump. We’d written off Congaree once again.

But about 5 minutes after we got off the phone hearing the news about the Desmoid Tumor, it hit me. I rushed up the stairs and into Alex’s room.

“Alex! We can still do Congaree!”

And a happy dance followed.

So last Friday we mounted up and drove south. The drive was nine hours. We alternated album choices (Purple Rain, Adele 21, Faith, lots more) and we chattered away about if Jack would get a girlfriend in college, theories about Falcon and Winter Soldier, what it was like living in New York City. We gorged ourselves on luscious blackberries that we had brought. And every time we stopped for gas or to pee on the side of the road, the bright smell of spring got more and more intense.

Our hotel was by a huge mall, so early the next morning I let Alex try driving the car around the massive empty parking lots. At 10:00 we went to get our canoe only to find that the park was flooded (!) which meant canoeing wasn’t possible.

Alex didn’t miss a beat.

“Smoky Mountains National Park is 4 hours away!”

So we shot west as Alex found us a hotel in Tennessee. By 2:30 we were on the trail and did an epic, stunning 13-mile hike that took us well past sundown. He and I are so good at hiking together; it was just terrific.

Sunday morning we gassed up and pointed back north. Alex put on the soundtrack to Hamilton. We cranked it up loud, and we sang out loud to every song as we flew across gorgeous country filled with hills and farms. We even started to cast our family version of Hamilton (I’m George Washington, Alex is Hamilton).

But it was during the song “Dear Theodosia” that I started to feel them. Tendrils of emotion began burrowing across my chest. The song is a duet between Aaron Burr and Hamilton. They’ve both just become fathers and they’re singing their hopes for their newborn children. The lyrics caught me again and again. (“I’ll keep the world safe and sound for you.”) And the reality of the past month started to really sink in. I held it together until “It’s Quiet Uptown.” Hamilton’s son is killed in a duel, and the song is two parents grieving for a dead child. I became acutely conscious of Alex’s physical presence just two feet to my right. The reality of my son. He was right there; I could touch him.

• On the night after we got the initial diagnosis, three times Shani woke me up wracked with uncontrollable sobbing. We wrapped around each other in the dark and she murmured “he’s my baby” over and over.
• On the evening we got the initial diagnosis, Jack Nuckols got in the car and drove. He put it on the New Jersey Turnpike and blasted 100 miles north. I can picture him blaring music and screaming along with it, drowning with emotion. Contemplating the threat to our nuclear family that is the core of his whole world.
• On the day after we learned it wasn’t cancer, my Uncle Bob called me and through gravelly sobs told me it had been “the longest two weeks of his life.”

Because in the darkest moments of this ordeal, when we let it slip in, what we were facing was the possibility of living in a world that didn’t have Alex in it. We were facing the possibility that this boy would grow sicker and thinner and weaker. That he would face debilitating pain and nausea and eventually…let go. This glowing star of a boy, who shines so dazzlingly bright, would begin to dim, and then flicker, and then go out. My son.

But there he was, real, right next to me, signing every word of “Your Obedient Servant.”

I looked out the window to the left and tears just sort of dribbled out.

—

So, here’s what I’ll say. Two things.

1) No sympathy, please. Accepting sympathy would feel almost dishonest to me. Narcissistic. Ungrateful. Everyone reading this knows someone who didn’t find out it wasn’t cancer 20 days into the process. Send your support there. I actually believe my brother’s response was the appropriate one.

2) Friends. For each of us — Alex, Jack, Shani, and myself — for each of us in different ways, it was friends who carried us. I felt that support every single second of the ordeal. And I come away reminded of what I already knew: That when it comes to love, I am the richest man in the world. Deep and heartfelt thanks to everyone who lent their love and friendship.

Oh. And we’re doing Congaree in November, dammit! Also…I made a little tribute/gratitude video. See below.

I wrote Jack a letter for Christmas (I do that every year). And I shared the following advice for when he heads to college:

1) Don’t put off your work.

Jack does.

2) Don’t get fat.

I did.

3) Don’t get into debt

I didn’t.

4) Don’t smoke

I’ve got a deal with both boys (credit to Devin Moberg) where on the day they graduate college, if they haven’t ever smoked a cigarette, I will hand them a check for $1000.

OK…but because it was a big list of “don’t” — I ended with:

But more important is what you SHOULD do. And the answer is…everything. Go explore. Go try things. Go make mistakes. Say yes to the world. Say yes to weird offers. Say yes to pretty girls. In fact, those things I don’t want you to do are really there because they’ll limit your ability to do the million other things that are out there. Go have adventures. LOTS of them. Life is short – go live the crap out of it!

So that’s what I had. Gimme your college advice for the boy.

Jack just received the following text:

The boy has received his first college acceptance. Milkshake!

Here is the essay that Jack submitted. He worked really hard on it.

Discuss an accomplishment, event, realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others?

In 2017, the Yankees made the playoffs for the first time in 4 years. 

I had grown up a Yankees fan from day one, but ever since I had been old enough to truly follow them, they had been just average. The team was old and, in all honesty, kind of boring. I found myself paying more attention to the league than the team. Then 2017 happened, and that season was different. New York became fun to watch again and I became entranced by every pitch. Instead of watching with my brain, I watched them with my stomach.  What was once a hobby was now a religion. My mood fluctuated with the team, pitch by pitch, game by game. My life began revolving around the Yankees. I felt baseball in my soul.

That October, the Yankees made the playoffs and were set to play in a one-game, winner-take-all series against the Minnesota Twins. Although they were young, the Yankees were a much better team and were favored to blow the Twins out of the water. But instead, they immediately went down 3-0 in the first inning. I was stunned to the point that I was shaking. I got up from my couch, went into my room, and cried. 

I don’t cry much, and I don’t know why. It may be because I don’t watch enough sad movies or don’t get into nearly enough sad situations. I guess it’s just not how I handle loss or sorrow. But there I was, head in hands, sobbing over a baseball game. At that moment I realized how ridiculous this was. I was a freshman, in the middle of one of the most important academic years of my life, and I was in my room crying over a baseball game.  I was being emotionally moved by the actions of men I didn’t know, in a game whose result I had no control over. There are so many hobbies I could’ve chosen that would be so much more productive than this. My brother loves to cook, and his love for that hobby is productive. My mom is an adamant anti-gun violence activist, and spends relatively all of her free time working to help a cause she believes in, an activity that is decidedly productive. But, to an outsider, baseball is in no way productive. My enjoyment of the sport doesn’t benefit anyone but myself. The amount of effort I put into something so seemingly unproductive is ridiculous, almost childish. 

It was a matter of seconds before I realized I was wrong. Baseball isn’t ridiculous, it isn’t childish, and it isn’t by any means unproductive. Baseball is my life. Baseball has been the basis of my friendship with two of my oldest friends. Without baseball, I can’t imagine that I ever would’ve made those friends. We grew up playing wiffle ball together in backyards and arguing over whose team was going to win on any given night. It is also central to my relationship with my dad, who is one of the most important people in my life. Some of my fondest memories are playing catch with my dad in parking lots across the country, and going to every stadium we could.  Baseball is the background music to every one of my summers. It is everything. Without baseball, I’m not the person I am today. So, I don’t find this ridiculous or childish. I find it vital. 

By the way the Yankees came back to beat the Twins. Then two weeks later they were knocked out of the playoffs by the Astros. 

I cried again.

The tension has been building. We’ve felt a disturbance in the force for quite some time.

We’re pretty strict about COVID.

Actually – strike that. We’re pretty sensible when it comes to COVID. We follow the scientifically-based guidelines laid out by the state of NJ and the CDC. So we’re not strict – we just seem strict because the town we live in is full of morons.

Actually – let me elaborate. Every weekend in my town there are high school parties in basements that parents (moronic ones) allow. And – shocker – these parties led to a COVID outbreak that shut down the school and ended the soccer season. So we’re not strict, we’re smart. But to Jack, we seem strict. Our rules used to be no being inside houses with friends and masks on/windows open in a car.

But with this latest, moron-induced surge, where a bunch of Jack’s friends got COVID, we tightened things up.

So 2 weeks ago, Jack wants to go to a friend’s house to hang out outside.

What kids? How many? Masks? OK.

And off he goes. But then evidence starts to trickle in that there was a large gathering happening. And there are clues that Jack may have attended. Which means Shani interrogates me, and then I interrogate Jack. After a series of texts he calls me and assures me that he’s only with the kids he mentioned and that they’re not at the big gathering.

Fine. But Shani’s not buying it. I sort of am, but I’m prone to believing Jack so I can avoid the conflict. He comes home and all seems well.

Fast forward two days later. I’m in my bedroom presenting to a client. Shani bursts in holding her phone out like it’s a cross and I’m a vampire. 

Evidence. She’s got an Instagram post of the big outdoor party and there is the side of Jack’s head.

Busted.

She rushes out and heads down to the basement to bludgeon Jack.

My meeting ends, Shani and I talk. We discuss our actions. We call Jack up, expecting a big talk about trust and lying and parenting and all that. It’s gonna be ugly.

Enter Jack. He sits.

“What’s my punishment?”

“No X-box until Saturday for lying. No seeing friends until COVID is 20 per 100,000. So figure a month at least.”

“OK,” Jack says. Then he gets up, nods, and returns to the basement.

So that’s that, right? But it’s not. Not at all. Tension is higher than ever. Shani sleeps poorly. We have long talks about…I don’t even know what. Jack stays in the basement more than ever. There is a silent murk sitting over everything. The disturbance in the force is ever present. 

Until a few days later, Shani went for a walk with a good friend and they talked about the whole thing. She got a little perspective.

So I’m at the dining room, presenting to a client, and Shani rushes in.

“IhadalongtalkwithHeather andshemadealotofgoodpointsandIthinkweneedtotalktoJackabout…”

I wave her off, finish my meeting, and then she and I have a quick talk. She’s ready to discuss it again with Jack. New approach. We call Jack upstairs. Shani starts.

“I want to reset. I’m really scared of COVID and I’m hard on you. But I’ve been thinking about how hard this is on you and how much you’re missing out on and it just…breaks my heart.”

Then she’s crying. Which sets off a chain reaction.

1. Jack goes for her and wraps her up.
2. The DOG goes for her and jumps into her lap.
3. All this love and hugging makes me start crying.

So we rescind the lockdown. Jack apologizes for lying. We have an open, flowing, authentic conversation about COVID and drinking and pushing boundaries and being safe, and the whole thing clears the air beautifully.

And with that, balance returns to the force.

So…NuckolBall has been pretty sporadic and infrequent over the past few years. A far cry from when I used to write posts all the time.

Well, there are three reasons for my lack of posting.

1. I’ve been taking care of this horrible orange stain on my rug.

Getting rid of the orange stain has been very time-consuming for me. Especially this past year. I’ve spent hours and hours scrubbing away. And when I wasn’t scrubbing, I was researching strategies to remove the statin. And when I wasn’t researching, I was trying to recruit people to help get the stain out. Getting that stain out has been a hell of a lot of work. Phew!

2. Alex is gay.

Wow. Big revelation there if you didn’t know.

Alex came out about 3 years ago, and in all sincerity, working through that journey has been by far the most interesting thing I’ve done as a father in the past few years. I didn’t feel like I should make that public. But it made it hard to write about what was going on in an authentic way.

3. There’s been a lack of conflict

Gone are the days when Jack was struggling mightily to get that big hit. He hasn’t played baseball in a couple years — so that natural tension is gone.

In all honesty, things have been pretty smooth sailing. Which didn’t make for good blogging.

HOWEVER…things have changed.

1. The orange stain is removed.

As of a few weeks ago, it’s gone. I got pretty drunk the night it became official. And there still a little clean up work left, but that serious problem is dealt with.

2. I’m clear to talk about Alex

More on that later. Lots of good stuff to share.

3. Tension is back

Oh yes. Drama has returned to our family. As a 17-year old, Jack has become a smoldering presence in our basement. He’s ready to be done dealing with me and Shani’s rules — and every day he finds a bunch of subtle or not subtle ways to let us know.

It is the tension of impending separation. And it is interesting indeed.

We are heading into Jack’s Final Home Season and I’m going to try and ramp up the writing for it.

Stay tuned.