Paul Faranda, 1958-2005

Four days ago, Wednesday, September 28th, we got
the news that my brother Paul had died. He’d missed his dialysis appointment and
when they went looking for him, they found his body in the bathroom. He was
47.

This is tragic and heartbreaking. We are all crushed. But it is not
surprising. My brother was sick from the age of three onwards, suffering from
congenital kidney disease and juvenile diabetes. In 1962 and 1963 he spent many
months in New York Hospital, and my parents would return from the hospital and
say, “we don’t know if Paul is coming home.”

My brother Jim and I have
vivid memories of the night we spent with my parents friends – Paul and June
Dennis and their family in Ossining – while they took Paul to the New York
Hospital emergency room. He was being treated for kidney disease in Westchester
but he had not been diagnosed as a diabetic. So to build him up, at the
recommendation of physicians, we were merrily loading him up with high calorie
meals. And he was getting sicker and sicker.

He was diagnosed with
severe diabetes at New York Hospital and in the space of a bit over a year,
spent about eight months there. Jim and I also have vivid memories of us
standing along the East River (New York Hospital fronts the East River and FDR
Drive) watching the barges go by, while Mom and Dad visited Paul. This was over
forty years ago, and children were not allowed to visit hospital floors
(infections, you know). It was pretty boring to stand out there, and then for a
few minutes Paul and my parents would be at an eighth floor window, waving to us
like maniacs, while we waved back.

You don’t realize it when you are
eleven years old, but the whole ordeal must have been horrific for my parents –
a very ill four year old hospitalized 35 miles away, and two other boys at home,
who you are trying to construct a normal life for.

So ultimately Paul
had one damaged kidney, a ureterostomy (the ureter that runs from the kidney to
the bladder is instead routed to the surface of his right flank and he wore an
“appliance” to catch the constantly draining urine), and diabetes requiring
insulin and constant blood sugar monitoring.

Now fast forward fifteen or
so years and Paul is graduating from Cornell University, having spent four years
on their rowing team as a coxswain! Pretty good going!

The coxswain is
the little guy who sits at the back of the skiff, steering it, and setting the
tempo (“stroke, stroke”) while everyone else is pulling on the oars. Typical
Faranda – do all the talking while everyone else does the heavy lifting. One of
Paul’s prize possessions is the Harvard jersey he lifted in 1980 when Cornell
beat Harvard for the first time in almost 20 years in a dual race.

Soon
after graduating from the School of Hotel Administration, Paul moved to Texas
and went to work in the hotel industry. He gradually gravitated to the
accounting end of things.

Paul was very careful about taking care of
himself, since his health was a constant issue. He was fastidious about his
diet, his blood sugar levels and his consultations with kidney specialists. He
was self-effacing and never wanted to be a burden to anyone.

Now
diabetes can affect the circulatory and renal systems, and by 1993 Paul needed
to go on dialysis. He also started having trouble with his vision. He was on
dialysis until 1998 when he underwent a kidney and pancreas transplant. They
also re-hooked his ureter to a re-fashioned bladder (a loop of bowel) so for a
while he could pee like the rest of us – for the first time since he was
three.

The transplanted kidney failed in 2001 and he went back on
dialysis. Then in 2004 the transplanted kidney developed a tumor.

Paul
was back in New York this past June and July for about six weeks. His health had
clearly gone downhill – I felt he’d aged tremendously. However he had a great
time while he was here, going to his 25th college reunion – my brother Phil took
him up – as well as to a big family reunion my Uncle Bud puts on every July. So
it was a great trip for him.

I am sure Paul’s biggest regret was that
he’d never married and had a family. It just never worked out for him. It would
have been great if he’d had children. He was a fun Uncle to his nephews. (When I
suggested to my mother yesterday that my son Tim shared some of Paul’s
mischievous impulses, she blanched.) I think in the last year or two Paul
realized that the marriage opportunity window was closing, and he sometimes
became a bit down about that.

All in all, a courageous man, filled with
grace and humor. And hope. A person of great hope. When people have remarked to
me that I seem to be handling my lymphoma situation well, I have always said –
“This is nothing, let me tell you about my brother Paul.”

I spoke to Paul
twice in the last two weeks, first when he called me up to see how my chemo was
going, and then the Thursday before he died, when I called him to find out how
he was planning to ride out the hurricane. He said “It wont be a problem, I am
going to stay here (he lived in Round Rock, a suburb of Austin) and I’ve got my
dialysis scheduled for Friday and Monday.” And as we signed off he said what he
always said, “Love ya.”

My brother Jim summed up Paul exactly right
Wednesday night when he said, “He led a noble life.”