Terry the Nice Guy

The accommodations for family has been good! Tacoma General Hospital

by sherry's sister brook
august 9,2012

Terry the Nice Guy

Terence lives up to his name. When Terence was a little kid his mom called him “Terry the Nice Guy” because he was just the nicest kid around.

Terry’s mom, she had it right.

Terrence, as he likes to be called today, is my brother in law. My sister Sherry’s husband of 23 years. For 23 years a huge part of our family. The “Pop” to their 3 kids- Nadine, Eric and Andrew; “Poppie” to their grand kids- beautiful Bella, energetic Ethan and always amazing Annie, and Uncle T to all the nieces and nephews.

In those 23 years Terrence has never NOT been nice. I’m not kidding. Even when he was delirious a couple months ago in the hospital (I mean Delirious with a capital D) not one negative word passed his lips. He talked a lot about everything, lots of it not making sense because of the drugs but not one word was negative. Not one.

We laugh because some of the things he did say while on big time pain pills were funny. For some reason he insisted during one episode that my name was Corn Bread. Not just “Corn Bread,” but “Korn Breat.” Accent on the word Breat (rhymes with Bread).  He was very specific about this, had a whole rationale even. I have no idea why I’m known as Corn Bread but that’s cool.

This time around in the hospital (yes we’re here again and he is very loopy because of pain and pain pills, and in and out of consciousness) the worst thing he’s done was spit a piece of cold broccoli out and say “this is disgusting” and look over and ask us if, by the way, we had any food over on our side of the room (we did and he must’ve smelled the ribs and burgers). Oh yeah, he also refused to swallow his pills this morning and insisted on chewing them (not good). But it was more like he was teasing his nurse and Sherry because after all was said and done he tossed his head back and downed the pills with a smoothie, no problem. And said “I’m doing it my way” then plopped himself back and went to sleep.

Terence looks for the good in everything. Even with this stupid cancer. He’s said one of the good things about the cancer he has is that he gets to remarry Sherry. They were supposed to renew their vows Sunday, then Monday, then Tuesday and now hopefully Thursday or Friday…  and he’s looking forward to it- telling us from his hospital bed he doesn’t want to miss his “appointment” with Sherry.

Terence has been a role model for our two sons, their cousins too. Adam and Douglas spent lots of quality time with Uncle Terence and Aunty Sherry traveling to Wyoming to fish, hunt, worship even (they got baptized there in the river) for lots of summers as they were growing up.  They will never forget those times. They respect and love “Uncle T” and I don’t think they’ve ever seen or heard Uncle T do or say anything Not Nice.

How could someone this nice be in this situation? I don’t understand it but I have to trust that there’s a bigger arena than the one we’re in- one that could use Terrence’s brand of Niceness.

He’s in the hospital this time because his one remaining kidney is failing in part due to the advanced stage of his cancer. We came in Saturday night around 9 pm and haven’t left (see the pillows in the pic? We’ve used them all).

Hopefully we’ll be leaving the hospital tomorrow, nothing cured or fixed, his kidney worsening by the day.

Terence is only 49-years-old and should a miracle occur he’ll be here on Earth spreading niceness around for another 49 years. And the world would be better for it.

The medical world has nothing left to offer Terence though Terence and Sherry’s faith in God runs deep. We know too that God has a plan for Terry the Nice Guy and whether it’s here in this physical world or not, Terence will be busy sharing his brand of Nice forever after.

Thank you Terence. We love you. 

Brook, Dave, Adam, Douglas & Amanda