The Honey Badger Book

Hello all.  Once again we'd like to thank you for all your love and support this year.  We've meant to turn "From the Honey Badger's Burrow" into a book for awhile and now here it is.  It includes the blog but also at the end some family pictures along with some of John's beautiful poetry we've found since his death.  You can order your own copy in hard cover or soft here or you can also get it in PDF for free here.

Happy Holidays, with love -- The Ritters

Reclaiming Eden

Thank you all for your love and support and for following the blog.  This is the final entry we are posting from John's journal.  Love -- The Ritters

Politics and Fanaticism

One thing I do know, if the people who claim to be worthy of heaven, the ones with the 800 number to God, are, in fact going there, well, that would be my definition of hell. 

Recently, I’ve wondered if man were immortal whether things would be different.  Without the prospect of death, would we be more generous and caring of our fellow human beings?  Would greed be blunted or exacerbated?  I suspect that we have more than enough resources to alleviate most human suffering.  Is it our fear of want and life’s scary possibilities that drives us to self-centered absorption and, in extreme case, outright narcissism.  Actually, it seems to me that if we finally and fully put the lessons of cancer ahead of our mortality avoidance strategies, we could reclaim Eden.  Do those who live in the gated communities and the 1-percenters not understand?  No pile of money can stave aging and going to where, in fact, all men have gone before.  To me, the only purpose of life is to love and help others.  Don’t get me wrong; I suspect although I’ve tried, I’ve come up short.

On learning lessons from others (even in death)

I’m not saying that we tend to put lipstick on the pig, but might a person’s passing mean more with a bit of truth.  Might a bit of reality give readers a chance to consider someone they know who has a similar death-dealing issue and opportunity to gather up the courage to intervene.

Dead is dead.  Flowers, cards, expensive caskets, and bullshit eulogies may comfort the living, but don’t blunt or educate us to acting in their best interests if we care about preserving and protecting life.

Living and relishing life in “the grey zone”

Too often we view things as a matter of kind, of absolutes.  We tend to identify our world by distinctions of static extremes:  good and evil, happiness and sadness, right and wrong, and so forth.  In my reality, absolutes can be restricted to life and death.  All else is a matter of degree because all other things move on a scale.  Viewing the world in static absolutes restricts and confines us to the narrowest of existence and understanding.  Cancer underscores the fact that there is nothing so important in life than life and death.  Choices always exist though we may not perceive them.  While cancer brings the prospect of death most dramatically into focus, as long as there is hope, something to be done, I will live in the world of degree not kind.

Focusing on our strengths, not weaknesses

I had spent too much of my life focusing on a person’s annoying “shortcomings” than the admirable talents that they possessed and I simply did not have.

Expecting perfection in anyone, as in picking a negotiating team, sees shortcomings overshadowing exceptional talents and stunting our relationships with others.

Prayer to God

Suffice it to say that I do believe our only purpose on this earth  is to help each other.  If you grant me a bit more time, hopefully without too much debilitating issues, I will do my best to help others.  I know that I’ve come up short in many ways.  If nothing else, thanks for listening.  Amen.

John's Eulogy by Seth Ritter

            Before I wrote this, I watched my dad’s eulogy of his father.  It was not that long ago that he stood where I stand.  He perfectly summarized Clarence, my grandfather, both in content and form.  The eulogy was concise, modest, almost spare.  I hope that this eulogy is some small reflection of my dad and, to that end, it will ramble and be wordy, but hopefully with a message that underpins the storytelling.  If there is any music in my words, I credit him.  He taught me how to play.  If I fall short, it is due to my own fallibility, but I have lost my most important sounding board and editor.  He did leave two dictums in his journal, to which I will try to adhere.  They were:  “Tell the unadorned truth about me, maybe someone can learn from my mistakes,  that, and here I am quoting, “no bullshit.”

This is a profoundly sad day, but sadness is not all that I feel.  I cannot complain of the miracles that did not come, but rather celebrate those that did.  5 years ago my mom and dad first learned that Dad had an exceedingly rare and lethal form of cancer.  It took months of medical visits and dozens of doctors to figure out the exact type of cancer.  When he was diagnosed, there had been fewer than100 patients who had this cancer.  Most had all died quickly, living on average less than 6 months from diagnosis. 

Whenever dad would ask about prognosis, one of his doctors was fond of answering that dad was “an N of 1.”  Now my majors were psychology and Spanish, before I went to medical school.  So for everyone with an arts and humanity background, N is the number of patients in a treatment group.  Dad’s cancer was so unique and his treatment had never been tried for this type of cancer that he truly was an N of 1.  And that somehow seemed fitting.

My dad thought that he was dying 5 years ago, and given the facts, that was a totally reasonable conclusion.  He benefited from good hospitals and fabulous teams of doctors, nurses, and support staff.  Dad never was afraid to die; he was afraid to be living but not alive.  At first, he resisted undergoing treatment.  Ultimately, through persistence of the rest of the family and based more on hope than fact we prevailed upon him to undergo chemo and look for a bone marrow transplant.  I believe he thought treatment was futile, but he saw how much having that small hope meant to us.  For that, he acquiesced.  We called it treatment, but it was probably worse than any disease.  Still somehow, the horrendous treatment and the horrible disease fought each other to a stalemate.  His immune system barely existed and the cancer seemed to be in remission.

Against odds and exceeding expectations, he had 5 years free of disease.  He entered his 7th decade with a bourbon tasting party, he saw Mike and I get married, but not to each other, he met his first 2 grandchildren, and he had the grace to endure the latest in a long line of juvenile nicknames bestowed by juveniles.  My oldest daughter knighted him “Juan John Triceratops.”  When she gave him a triceratops pillow pet for Christmas for Christmas, he just smiled and thanked her.  He drank bourbon, actually when he went into the hospital he was cask aging some un-aged spirits distilled in this state, a proud if anachronistic Pennsylvania tradition.  He sat on his patio in a plastic chair, he drank bourbon and snuck cigarettes, and enjoyed shooting the shit with anyone who was visiting or happened to call on the phone.  He grew some of the best citrus that Pennsylvania has ever produced and mind you, he made custom dirt and fertilizer for each type of plant he grew.  He laughed too loud and too long at his own jokes, some of which were actually funny, but his laugh was always funny and it was infectious.  He was absolutely inseparable from my mom and took frequent road trips to visit my brothers, me and my family, and his beloved cabin in the Poconos.  As he points out in his journal, he had 5 more years of birthdays, holidays, and family occasions.  He did exactly what you are supposed to do with borrowed time; he lived the hell out of it.  He also spent a lot of time organizing and managing things to make it easier for all of us, when he wasn’t here anymore.  Even in his reprieve, he knew that day would come too soon and he prepared for it.

          What is remarkable is how little in my dad’s life view changed before and after Dad’s diagnosis.  As you all know, Dad was a teacher during the week.  Over weekends, he bartended.  He worked 2 jobs for most of my childhood, but never at the expense of playing with us or taking us to soccer practice.  He never complained and he didn’t take a sick day for 30 years.  On the contrary, I saw him bartending at the Anchorage and I had him twice as an English teacher, he was upbeat in perpetuity, always enjoying the moment, and picking his opening to casually drop something profound.   I remember him taking on the character of Dr. Evil during one of my English classes to draw out a quiet student.  I remember him singing Robert Palmer’s “Addicted to Love” to raise money for Key Club which he advised for many years.  He had several backup dancers from the English department, as I recall it, most of them were women.  Who else would choose the Honey Badger as his cancer blog’s mascot?.  He never worried about how he would be perceived.  He was always up for anything, if it was good for a laugh, or for a good cause.  He was willing to try something a little unconventional if it might reach a detached student, such as myself in high school.  He was a person who ran towards responsibility and applied himself selflessly and tirelessly.  After my brothers and I had left for college, he took care of his parents, visiting them daily, cooking for them, laughing with them, enjoying their presence while it lasted.

          He had an earthy, timeless wisdom and patience that seems to be in ever shorter supply.  It was the kind of wisdom that comes from having family roots to an area that go back 300 years, and seems to be born of a close relationship with the earth and growing things from it.  He also had an erudite, well seasoned, literate intelligence.  He was able to, seemingly at will, greet any happening with a germane reference to poetry, Shakespeare, or something more obscure.  What is all the more remarkable is how he chose to apply these talents.  He mentored newbie teachers, students, and student teachers.  He talked to us as though we were on his level and subsequently, he dragged many of us closer to that level.  He helped friends in need.  I have a early memory of one of dad’s childhood friends sleeping on our couch for several days.  Although I didn’t know it and my parents explained only that he was sick, I now realize that he was withdrawing from alcohol.  He years ago died during another bender.  Dad always had a special place in his heart for cases that others considered lost, whether long term lapsed alcoholics or punk rocker students at lit mag.  I thought that this was just how people behaved, until I got to college and learned otherwise.  Perhaps  it is the way more of us should behave, more often. 

          Dad had vision; he saw things in people that we ourselves didn’t always see.  It wasn’t that he didn’t see the warts and shortcomings that we all possess.  He did, he expected it, he just didn’t let our more annoying features be his entire impression of us or cause him to discard us.  Dad was a bartender who ran an alcohol and drug support group at the high school for many years.  He saw the world as it was; he saw the grey in the world and he reveled in that stratum.  His treatment of a person was independent of your status as a sinner or saint.  He knew none of us were saints, but he loved us anyway.   In reading his journal, I came to know that this wasn’t innate disposition, it was a conscious choice he made.  It is a choice that I hope to emulate.

          One of the most amazing traits my dad had was to tell people exactly what he thought about any subject, anytime.  His positions were well reasoned, researched, and supported.  He did not always win his opponent to his point of view, but he nearly always won them to his side.  To be friends with so many people with distinct points of view, to have that friendship arise from mutual respect.  I always felt that embodied his heritage so well.  Ritter means knight in middle German and dad was willing to fight with uncommon determination when he felt it important.  But he also followed that tradition that drove our ancestors to this area:  he struggled for peace and tolerance, he helped the poor and disenfranchised; he held to his own code, which was above all else predicated upon love.  Although he largely was lapsed from formal religion, he better embodied the ideals espoused by all major religions than anyone else I knew.

.         Dad was a father, grandfather, son, brother, and husband.  He was a teacher of many things, a mentor, and a cherished friend.  He was in his own way a farmer, as our people have been for eons.  But he was a farmer of both plants and a farmer of men.  He cherished new growth whether on a peony or a person and he encouraged both with equal verve and dedication.  If life force was all that were required to live, we would have had him until I was a grandfather many times over.  We do not get to choose when or how we die; we only get to choose how we live.  We can cry today, but do not forget tomorrow to live, to laugh, to enjoy a sip of bourbon when appropriate.  Don’t forget to help each other, more than anything, he believed in helping people.  His impact on me and so many people will ring through generations yet to come.  He was well loved and lived well.  Truly, John Ritter was a good man.  

-- Seth C. Ritter

Cancer as a Battle

… as you read this, unless someone has spoiled the ending, I do not know how this will end.  Will cancer be the means to my end?  I fear that it will be.  But then, if you’ve had cancer, that is what you live with day in and day out; although, as I said above, in remission it did not dominate my days.

Cancer as a battle

Battling cancer has a rhythm not unlike descriptions of war as written in Red Bad of Courage and other such chronicles.  Often, the patient, like the soldier, faces the long lulls between battles with little but redundant preparation overshadowed by anxiety.  The soldier cleans his weapon; the cancer patient reviews appointments and the logistics of keeping them.  The soldier counts his bullets, the cancer patient checks his meds and makes spreadsheets to keep track of them.  The soldier wonders how he will face the possibility of imminent death on the battlefield; the cancer patient contemplates how he will handle a diagnosis bereft of hope.  I have never been a soldier - for that matter, neither was Stephen Crane - but I have to think that a soldier’s situation at least has the possibility of a merciful and quick exit.  Even the most deadly and least treatable cancers like pancreatic, leave the patient with the prospect of knowing that there will be no “luck of the draw,” and in six months - give or take - a slow death will most assuredly and inexorably come.  Nevertheless, like Henry, I feel I have arrived at that place where, . . “He knew he would no longer quail before his guides wherever they should point.  He had been to touch the great death, and found that, after all, it was but the great death [and was for others]. . .”  May I have the will, pride, and endurance, not to whimper into that good night.

Endurance and Hemingway

I’ve always believed ala Hemingway that “Life is a battle.”  You win some and lose some, but ultimately, we all know that we will lose the war.  Welcome to mortality.  Beyond that, I always liked the idea that you face whatever comes your way with will, pride, and endurance, the Hemingway Code.  The fact that he chose to put a shotgun to his head notwithstanding.

This much I do know, when Hemingway said life is about living with will, pride, and endurance, well, will is an ego laden illusion.  I remember Michael Landon, diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, declaring on late night television that he would “beat it.”  As I recall he did several one arm push-ups to demonstrate his presumed strength.  He succumbed within a few months.  I know from experience, when I am feeling reasonably well, the confidence that imbues.  But, as in battle, running into a hail of bullets, is foolhardy if not insane.  In regard to pride, well, anyone who has experienced any medical condition requiring numerous visits to the docs, knows that pride is the first thing to go out the window… Endurance makes sense.  Possibly, if Hemingway had heeded his own prescription, he might have found the courage to face life.  Whenever I find myself looking too far down the treatment road, I become very disheartened.  Then, I recover the sense that it is about looking at the ground immediately in front of you, just as you should live the moment, and doggedly taking the next step; and then the next.  It’s about endurance; nothing more, and nothing less.

Hope and Resignation

If a cancer diagnosis has some singularity, and I believe it does, it forcefully underscores life’s fragility…More importantly, I realized how many things have been left unsaid because I’d get around to it – there was time.  But, cancer informs you that you don’t really know there will be.  Unlike vicarious experiences, cancer screams “You are mortal.  You will die.  I’m no joke.” 

Night after night since the ominous skin legions appear and began marching across my forehead, chest, and now arms, I slept in a way I don’t recall ever having slept.  Deep, dream-filled, and unbelievable sleep.  Is this what a man experiences who’s been sentenced to death, has the execution date set, and  is given a reprieve?  Resigned to his fate, he sleeps.  Given a reprieve, he wakes again to the possibilities?

Cancer dominating life versus living the moment

Cancer has made me acutely aware of the fact that so many things we do and assume we will continue to do are not necessarily in our future; in fact, living is not about the future…

Understandably, once diagnosed, I think we tend to let cancer dominate our lives.  But life is not vested in anticipation of death being far down the road, life is about the here and now.  Only in savoring each moment aware that there may not be another are we truly living.  So, besides a loving family and some incredibly and indescribably great relatives and friends, my edge remains in knowing that staving off cancer is a means to the end of gaining a few more moments.

On Chemo Treatment (Humor and Equanimity)

“ … cancer sucks and chemo sucks, and why the hell are there no drugs that feel good and kill cancer.”

Conversation with his hairdresser after 2008 chemo treatment:

Hairdresser: “But you were grey, almost white, and your hair was curly and course.  Now it’s chesnut, straight, and fine.”

John: “Yup.”

HD: “How’d that happen?”

J: “Color by Chemo.  I don’t recommend it.”

Conversation with dermatologist when first lesions appeared in 2008

On March 21^st, I met with the dermatologist, who examined the area and seemed quite bemused.  This doc was probably late forties or early fifties.  Clearly, he had seen skin lesions of numerous types, and yet, “What is it?” was repeatedly met with “I don’t know.”  I remember joking that his group should change their sign from “Advanced Dermatology” to “Not So Advanced Dermatology.”

Comments and conversations about chemo’s crazy toxicity

2008 Chemo treatment (escaping the chemo ward)

We decided to go to the courtyard.  As we approached the elevator, a nurse came running toward us and with some apparent consternation asked, “Where are you going?”  We told her that we were going to the courtyard for some air.  “You can’t do that!” she responded in an urgent tone.  “Why not?”  I asked.  “Because, if your chemo bag broke or leaked, we’d have to call HAZMAT.”  She wasn’t kidding.

2008 Chemo treatment (sneaking away from sleeping Lynnee)

I don’t recall, I think Lynn stayed over and slept in a chair that night.  During the course of the night, in addition to the chemo, I was feeling the effects of nicotine withdrawal.  With the first dousing of chemo complete, I had only a saline drip hanging.  So, I asked the nurse on shift if I could bum a cigarette (she smoked), go to the courtyard, and quell my nicotine DTs.  “Absolutely not,” she said.  “Cigarettes are bad for you.”  “Yes,” I said, “But really, you are pouring chemicals into me that should they leak, you’d have to call a HAZMAT team to clean up.  Really, how much is a cigarette going to impact my chances of survival?”  I still find that whole memory surreal.

2008 Chemo treatment (the infamous “double flush”)

More recently, I was given an obligatory, “Instructions for Oncology Patients” handout.  It included symptoms and a standard “Please call your Doctor or Home Health Nurse if you have any of the following occur when you are home” sections.  Nothing new here except and in bold-faced type, “Double flush your toilet for 24 hours after receiving chemotherapy.”  I had never seen that before.  So, I queried the nurse about it.  “What’s with the double flush thing?” I asked.  “It’s precautionary,” she said.  “Might residual chemo hurt a pet if it drank out of a toilet that was flushed once?”  Again, she responded, “It’s precautionary.”  “Yeah, I get that, but we don’t have a dog and, as far as I know, my wife hasn’t drank out of the toilet for many years now.  Could the chemo pee or poop eat through the porcelain?” I asked.  “Look, it’s just precautionary,” she said again.  “Might someone using the same once flushed toilet have their pubic hairs fall out?  Or, will the single-flushed water generate a chemical chemo hand that grabs a user’s genitals and pulls them in?”  In short, I never did get beyond, “It’s precautionary.”  I’ll keep on it and let you know… The double flush remains a mystery.

"Go On"

Much has been written about cancer, and I have read a good bit of it.  Most of it I did not find useful or true to my own experience.  Some writers advised keeping a positive attitude and thinking positive thoughts, although the studies suggest that a cancer patient’s attitude does not impact outcomes.  Some discussed the anger and the “Why me?” they experienced that followed diagnosis.  This, as well, I did not find to be my experience.  (I’ve always believed that “shit happens; we often have no control over it; and, you deal.)  Still others discussed that even in remission and five, ten or more years down the road, they never escaped the specter of cancer; it taints their every day and many moments of each day.  I did not experience this either.  Other friends have even told me to pray and read the Bible.  I have read the Bible, somewhat, and even prayed, not recently, but just what might I gather if things turn out well?  God favored me and rewarded me for prayer?  And, what if things go south?  God ignored me or doesn’t exist?  Yet others offer, “What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.”  That’s just bullshit (See Christopher Hitchens’ essay published in Vanity Fair four days after his death from esophageal cancer).  Above all others, the stance I find most annoying is that, “cancer is a blessing.”  Sorry, but survive as I have so far, that thought and the justifications for it never had resonance for me.  So, I begin my story with a very real question of why bother at all?  And, honestly, at this point, I don’t know that I have an answer, or will, even if I go on from here.  But, go on I will, because if cancer has a lesson, going on, just as we do when no dark clouds of mortality are looming on the horizon, is it.

-- John R. Ritter

John's Obituary

Here is John's obituary which will be in The Morning Call tomorrow morning.  We are organizing some of his journal entries for posting.  With love, the Ritters.

John R. Ritter

   John R. Ritter, 62, of Neffs died April 16, 2013 at Jefferson Hospital in Philadelphia where he received the very best of care for complications related to a bone marrow transplant for cancer.

   John was born and raised as one of a family that settled in the Lehigh Valley in 1731. Clarence and Arline Ritter, his parents, eventually moved to Allentown’s West End where he attended Muhlenberg Elementary School and Raub Junior High and graduated from Allen High School in 1968.  He was proud of his Pennsylvania Dutch heritage, a student of his family’s history and a believer in the values he was taught.

  He attended Amherst College in Massachusetts, later graduated from East Stroudsburg University, worked at various jobs and then decided to teach high school English.

  He loved his students and worked hard to create a caring and challenging learning environment for them. He retired in 2010 from Parkland High School after teaching for 30 years.

  Because he cared about his colleagues and his profession, he was active in the Parkland Education Association as a building representative, negotiator and president. He was also active in the Pennsylvania State Education Association.

  John’s interest in politics went far beyond education. He believed that Pennsylvania needed common sense solutions to problems that would preserve the quality of life that he experienced while growing up and so he ran for the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in the 187^th district.

  He loved the outdoors, especially a family home in the Poconos and his big back yard where he could care for a large garden

Survivors

   John is survived by his wife Lynn (nee Burner); sons Dr. Seth and wife Rebecca Taylor of Pittsburgh and granddaughters Annabel and Eliza; Michael and wife Meredith Mulcahy of Boston, MA; and Zacchary and Sharon Tang of Baltimore, MD.  He is also survived by his brother Dr. Robert C. Ritter and wife Susan of Viola, ID and their sons Joshua and Lincoln of Brooklyn, NY.

   He is survived by the loving Burner family; father-in-law and mother-in-law George and Marie; brothers-in-law George Robert, Harry, and Gary and their families.

  And he is survived by his aunt Miriam (Unangst) Ritter and cousin Robert V. Ritter and wife Susan and their children Robert V. Ritter III and Sara, all of the Lehigh Valley. Cousins Judy Labenburg and Carl Schmoyer, wife Deborah and their family mourn John’s death.

Services

   Friends and family may visit from 6 to 9 p.m. Friday, April 19th at Trexler Funeral Home at 1625 Highland Street, Allentown and from 9 to 10 a.m. the next day.  The service will begin at 10a.m. in the funeral home following the calling hour. Interment will take place at St. Paul’s United Church of Christ Cemetery in Trexlertown after the service. Online condolences may be made at www.legacy.com/obituaries/mcall/.

Contributions

   In lieu of flowers, contributions may be sent to Christ Lutheran Church, 1245 Hamilton St., Allentown, PA 18102.