When Chris Gulker walked into the hospital room, Mario sat up, said something — I swear I heard him say something — and fell back dead.
We had been sitting the death watch in Mario’s hospital room for four or five days, his grandmother, his mother, her boyfriend, his 12-year-old brother, and me, a reporter for the Hearst’s LA paper, the Herald-Examiner. Chris was the photographer on the story.
The Gulker-Healy team had been covering Mario for weeks — a daily story with three updates a day. The hook was that Mario was going to celebrate the Christmas of 1980 at Thanksgiving since he wouldn’t be alive by Christmas because his brain cancer had gone into the final stages. Our editor, Don Forst, a brilliant newsman whom I usually admired, had dubbed Mario, “Tumor Boy,” to the horror of the entire newsroom. That label got dropped quickly, we heard, because Robert DeNiro complained to his good friend, the Executive Editor Jim Bellows.
However, the story of Mario’s last days continued to be hyped because, in the news biz, the Herex had gotten a head start on the “100 Neediest Families, Miracle of 34th Street” kind-of Christmas stories. Mario’s story went worldwide and the Herex owned it because we had the inside track. “We.” That was Chris and me. Because…in the Herex newsroom, GulkerHealy / HealyGulker always got their story.
Chris had been pulled off the Mario series when the 10-year-old slipped into a coma. There were other stories to cover, but Chris was undaunted. He had sneaked back to LA Children’s Hospital on his way to shooting a high school football game.
Which is how we shared Mario’s death. I choose to believe that Mario waited to die until Chris could be with him.
Gulker would be back on the story with his cameras for the viewing and the funeral. And Healy would linger on the story to do a final Sunday wrap-up on how the death of a child impacts a family, and whether a sudden death is more difficult than a long lingering death, like Mario’s. (Conclusion: Both are devastating.)
Chris remembers that Mario’s grandmother had just stepped outside for a break when her grandson died. I’m not even sure Mario was 10. I remember mostly feelings–sadness and the desparate surge of hope for a miracle when Mario rallied shortly before his coma. I remember that I closed out everyone except those in the Mario circle; Chris was my lifeline.
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| Chris Gulker and his granddaughter, Grace, 3. I assume Chris’s wife, Linda, took the photo of the two in the backyard of their Menlo Park, CA home. |
Now Chris Gulker has brain cancer. After nearly four years of treatments, his doctors have told him that he has a month or two left. I am crying as I write this, and truthfully, I have fudged the time that he has left. Chris blogged that he was told on July 17. Today is August 17. Three days ago, he blogged: Dying: it’s all about living
It has taken me a month to write about Mario, Chris and me. Perhaps my reluctance is terror that I, too, will “catch” brain cancer. I should add that this is irrational and I know it. Chris doesn’t have the same kind of cancer as Mario had. Mostly I’ve delayed so I could pretend that Chris is still living with cancer, not dying with it.
Chris lives in Menlo Park, CA and I live in Washington, DC. Our lives have been separate since 1981. But I feel a gossamer link of love that connects us.
I count on Chris to continue to make the future happen now. (Like when he put the first major paper in the United States online (sfgate.com). Like when he worked for Apple helping do the same for newspapers all over the world. Like when he moved Adobe Acrobat forward as project manager. Like the hyperlocal news site, inMenlo that he and his wife, Linda, created in 2009. (Note to Chris: See WPost Ombudsman’s recent apology for bungling a local news story.) Oh, and of course, there is Gulker.com, which Chris started when http:// was almost unknown to all but the visionaries.
I count on Chris to make me smile with kind words (“The Herex spoiled me – I thought all of life was going to be that much fun. You spoiled me, too. I thought all of my colleagues were going to be as bright and energetic as you are.”)
I count on Chris’s courage. (“I’m more comfortable with death than I’ve ever been… my death anyway. Confess I’m still not thrilled with dying children.”)
And I count on Chris continuing to be my inspiration. Gossamer links are like wi-fi from heaven.
Mario taught me how to be with people I love as they die. I have blessed his help every time I’ve touched death. Thank you, Mario.
Mario taught me the value of “joint journalism,” I worked with his doctors to make sure that my stories were medically accurate. Thank you, Mario.
Someone once told me that the GulkerHealy stories about Mario and how his family struggled to afford to be with him for his treatments and death inspired the founding of the Ronald McDonald Houses. I just checked and their dates and official story don’t seem to coincide with the Mario story. I don’t remember the source of the comment, but at the time it seemed like someone with inside information, so I shall choose to think that Chris and I left a deeply important legacy for sick children. Thank you, Mario.
As Carol Gulota Sotelli, former Herex reporter wrote to me: “Chris is facing this with insane amounts of dignity and grace.”
As Chris wrote: “My death is so full of life.”
Thank you, Chris. And thank you, Linda.
Blessings, and love,
Cathy
What a thoughtful and loving tribute. Many thanks, Cathy, for taking the time to put words to blog.