Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Other Four-Letter Words
Written and Narrated By: Michael Ausiello
Length: 10 hrs
Oh gosh… reeeally wanted to LOVE this… can I settle for just LIKING it…?
Here’s the thing: I love Memoirs. I love works on navigating the way to death. I love learning about how people manage their Grief when a beloved person in their lives is taken from them.
Is that ghoulish, or is that just who I am? Dunno, but with Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies, I felt that aaaallll those boxes were gonna be “checked” in the mightiest of ways, especially since author Michael Ausiello is a journalist of note who shoooould know his way around a keyboard pretty well…
And this is indeed a heartfelt examination of how he and his husband Kit managed a longterm, soooometimes dysfunctional, relationship, and of their journey from irksome symptom, to diagnosis, to debilitation, to death.
It’s written kinda sorta as a dramatic piece with clever intros such as, “Previously” as tho’ we’re all privy to earlier episodes of the Mike and Kit Show, like we’re in our comfy chairs, munching on popcorn as we watch them from their first meeting, all the way to a life they’ll never get to live due to tragedy.
While there is indeed humor sprinkled throughout this, Mike and Kit with their sometimes obscene senses of humor… and the MULtitude of Kit’s sex toys gone into over and over and OVER again, mostly this comes off as (I s’pose: Naturally) somewhat anger-laden. Mike is furious that Kit’s first symptom was dismissed (Giving Kit a pass for not even addressing it for, like, eons), furious that the first two opinions they got were one way, the final two opinions were another way, furious that chemo-infusion rooms didn’t meet his standards, furious that hospice had them running (Even tho’ he’s the one who called them rePEATedly in a panic), and that they kept getting different hospice nurses for each call (Yeh, it’s called understaffed and overworked!), that Kit wasn’t ALWAYS handled with kid gloves like the sex toy obsessed delicate creature he was (Okay, I’m overstepping with that one as Kit was indeed in a physically debilitated state, but man, did Ausiello write his Series O’ Outrage well, or what?!).
All right, now that I’ve gotten his rages outta the way, here’s what’s lovely: That Kit’s deteriorating condition turned them purely and freely into the loving couple they always could’ve been. Ausiello backed off from his knee-jerk control-issue ways, and Kit became open and sincerely loving, forsaking all others and loving with such beautiful abandon… uhm, sans sex toys… As situations became more dire, Ausiello found himself eschewing those bottles of wine, choosing instead to be Open to the Moment, and opening himself to do Last-Time-This’ll-Ever-Happen things: Making memories and AWEsome last days truly special, despite his knowing that in doing so, he was letting Kit go, letting grief in.
Lovely, simply beautiful. EsPECially as those last months meant being with his in-laws daily so that they could spend as much time with their son as possible. Early on in the relationship between Mike and Kit, Mike was sooo possessive of Kit and so insensitive to Kit’s mom that I felt my jaws clenching, wanting to throttle him with his outsized sense of ownership of Kit. But then Mike’s character truly started changing as he adapted to roles, whatever he needed to be at any given moment (Tho’ Screamer At Nurses wasn’t all that attractive…).
By the way? As Mike’s the narrator of his own work here, when I say he screamed at nurses, that means you’ll be hearing the man screeeeaming in indignant outrage. Ears beware. Still, that aside, the humor shines through his voice and his tones… just >ouch< at times, ya know?
Kit had an AWEsome life, doing a job he loved, being well and truly-loved at the end. And I’m gonna go here and say: Dang, they also had AWEsome health insurance! Imagine? FOUR opinions?!? And Mike had beaucoup understanding coworkers at the end there, loving and supportive… wow…
No matter that there are children out there who die from cancer never having had a chance for such wonderful experiences, no matter how you look at it: Kit died far too young, and tho’ death is easy for pretty much all of us (Like falling off a bike!), the lead-up? THAT was a hard road, but he had Mike forever at his side, loving him, giving him as much dignity in the process as possible.
And the ending was pretty, uhm, well it was lovely once we got past Mike’s eulogy to a crowd that loved Kit and knew him well. That he could deliver SUCH profanity? In front of Kit’s grieving Mom and Dad? I mean, it was true to Kit’s spirit, but YIKES! I’m sure it was hard on the ears for those staid and loving folks (At least I don’t thiiiiink he mentioned sex toys… hmm?).
There are some truly touching and tender moments here; I just wish all the “Previously”s were less packed with possessiveness, infidelity, and other things I’m getting all judgmental about. I mean, I’m a toad (No offense to toads!), and I reeeally struggled with WHY they stayed together in the first place, but I was sooo relieved with how they blossomed together when it all hit the fan…
The way it so often happens in Life.
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