Paul Sullivan, 1957-2007
He was a good guy. Smart. Cutting wit. Laughed a lot. Fun to hang around with. Taught me a few things. Died yesterday after a long, hard bout with cancer, and left a wife and five kids. Some of them he lived to see grown. Like the son he describes becoming a man, below.
Boston Herald obit here. Lowell Sun coverage here. Photo gallery here. Paul wearing his underwear on the outside of his pants is closer to when I knew him, in a couple of different ways.
A lot of biographical details in those obits about someone most of you never heard of. Education, career, family. But a bit of Paul himself, on discovering he had cancer nearly three years ago: “I was reminded how lucky I am.”
Original publication: December 14, 2004
A funny thing happened to me on the way to work a few weeks ago.
I was reminded of how lucky I am.
On Pawtucket Street, I started to feel a twitch in my face. I pulled over and looked in the mirror and saw my face convulsing like in a horror movie.
I’m not a doctor, but I knew this wasn’t good.
I tried to call 911, but the rest of me wasn’t working so well either, and I couldn’t hold the phone. So I got out of the car and walked to the nearest door, which was the Archambault Funeral Home. I slurred to the man at the door that I needed an ambulance, which he called.
When I turned around, a Trinity Ambulance was coming toward me. I waved them down and they did their EMT thing, which made me feel a whole lot safer as we headed to the hospital.
All indications and conversations I was overhearing indicated I was having a stroke. But within a half-hour, the folks at Lowell General Hospital, about whom I cannot say enough good things, found two brain tumors that had caused the seizure.
At least one of these would have to be removed via brain surgery in the next 48 hours. In the days that followed, it was also determined that I had melanoma, also known as skin cancer, which was found in my lungs. This melanoma, they believed, is the root cause of the problem.
You might be wondering by now how this made me so lucky.
Hang in there, we’ll get to that.
Just after they found the tumors, my wife Mary-Jo walked into the emergency room. I could hardly hold it together as I told her what they found. Mind you, 90 minutes earlier, she kissed me goodbye as we went off to work.
She was a rock. I could tell, because I wasn’t.
I dreaded telling my parents, my kids and my brothers and sister about this thing.
That problem was solved when my 21-year-old son Ryan came in the room, and I broke down and told him what the story was and how I dreaded telling his sisters and my parents and siblings.
In that moment, he went from a son to a man and said, “That’s done. Don’t worry about it. I can do it right now.”
Off he went, and from that moment I have felt nothing but joy, relief and love from every part of my world none so much as from the Greater Lowell community where I have grown up and spent my entire life. In fact, with the exception of some college stints, I have never lived farther than 10 miles from St. John’s Hospital, (now Saints Memorial Medical Center) where I was born.
Although my role on WBZ Radio and the speed of the Internet, the world’s fastest gossip machine, sparked more attention to my condition than it would have otherwise, it was from those of you, those who read the newspaper in your home or at the local hangout, who provided me with something I can never repay.
This is where we get to the how-lucky-I-am part.
While my wife and children and stepchildren tended to me and to each other, and my siblings tended to my parents and each other, all with the benefit of our Catholic faith, you people poured your hearts out in the form of cards, prayers and good thoughts.
From offers of rides, to finding my neighbor taking care of my yard, to dinners being brought to our home, to the most important thing just plan old caring I realize how lucky I am to be part of this community.
Someone can and probably will make a case that every community comes together for each other. OK, probably, but all I know is, this one is too special for words.
Today, I return to writing my column every Tuesday and Thursday, and I will return to WBZ radio as well.
But my main job for the next few months is to get this cancer thing behind me and to be healthy. But with my wife at my side, the folks at Mass. General Hospital treating me and, most of all, the prayers of all of you, I look forward to what started as a ride down Pawtucket Street becoming the greatest journey I’ve ever taken.
Topics: obit
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:27 pm on Monday, September 10, 2007
2 Responses to “Paul Sullivan, 1957-2007”
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September 11th, 2007 at 8:46 am
I met Paul back in ‘99 when I was working at Austin Prep in Reading, his high school alma mater (Joe Sciacca’s as well). He was a great guy who could have a room laughing within minutes. He will be missed.
September 11th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
He sounds like someone it would have been good to know. Condolences to his family and friends.