Alan Andler

Andler, Alan, 69, of Cranston, RI, formerly of Newton, MA and Winston-Salem, NC. Entered into rest on November 24th, 2012. Son of the late Harry and Lillian Andler. Devoted father to David, wife Jori, and Mike. Grandfather to Mike's dog Steve. Loving brother of Phyllis & Herbert Roseman, and Shirley & Mark Boudreau. Caring boyfriend of Elaine Ligums. Dedicated father to dogs Samantha, Annie, Little Buddy, cat Trixie, and many chinchillas. Funeral Service will be held at Stanetsky Memorial Chapel, 1668 Beacon St., Brookline, Monday (today), at 1:00 PM. Burial will follow at Beth El Cemetery, 776 Baker Street, West Roxbury. Memorial observance will be held at The Cottage Restaurant following burial at 3:00 PM. The family will also be sitting Shiva on Tuesday at Alan's late residence at 8:30 PM and on Wednesday at the home of Mark & Shirley Boudreau at 1:00 PM, additional days and times to be announced. In lieu of flowers, donations in Alan’s memory may be made to the American Cancer Society, 30 Speen St., Framingham, MA 01701 or to the West Bay Chabad Center, 3871 Post Rd., Warwick, RI 02886.

Words from Mr. Andler's son, David Andler.

Alan Andler was my father. Here are some things he wrote about having cancer and getting treatment. He wrote these things on notecards and in legal pads, which he loved. Over the last few months he was alive, he read some of these to us at the breakfast table on a few occasions. They were funny to him, and I think he would appreciate it if you either laughed or smiled when you heard some of them. I really don’t know if anyone did when I read them at his funeral:

“When does the dying phase begin? This healing phase is killing me.”

“Dealing with Cancer is no big deal; it’s dealing with the visitors and phone calls that can be trying…”

“You don’t beat the type of cancer I have. I’d be happy with no score for a few overtime periods.”

“Doctors tell me I should live at least another 7-14 years. Trouble is they’re dog years.”

My dad was a great guy, and a fascinating man. He had a lot of things to say like those jokes - some of it controversial and a lot of it pretty funny. People usually reacted to it in a strong way, for better or worse. I don’t know if he was always like that, but I know he has been for some time. I guess this [his funeral] is the sort of gathering with people who are old enough to actually remember, so if anyone has stories about my dad’s younger years, I’d really like to hear them.

He wasn’t a perfect guy….he probably focused more on providing for my brother and me when we were young than parenting us, but he set a great example for what it meant to be a hard worker and to be dedicated to what we were doing, which each of us followed in our own way. Sometimes stubborn, usually willful, he did things his way and wanted you to do things his way.

Like his mom, my Grandma Lily, my Dad called it like he saw it, and wasn't afraid to speak his mind. If he was mad or annoyed or had a less than wonderful opinion about something, you got to hear about it…and the list of subjects about which he was willing to speak ran the gamut…About sports there were many…like some baseball managers who aggravated him, the ruining of NFL football by all the extended time added for commercial revenue purposes, the inane comments that Johnny Miller made during PGA golf tournaments, how Tiger Woods always seemed to get a lucky break when he hit a bad shot. About politics and finance it was the same…he would rant on the ineffectiveness of the legislative branch, and spout his opinions about the real causes of the financial crisis.

There are many ways that my dad and I were similar, but where we bonded most in the last 5 years was golf. We took trips together to play, talked a lot about golf, and we came up with ways to bet on who would win the major tournaments.

When we played golf, he wanted to teach me all he knew because he wanted me to be great, but he was honest when he didn’t like the way I was swinging, how long I was taking, a rule interpretation I made, or maybe just where I stopped the cart when I drove up to his ball.

He didn’t play much other than when we were together, but he set very high standards for himself when he did. Even at 68 years old and recovering from 4 months of chemotherapy, he had no interest in moving up to the senior tees, and no interest in me spotting him a couple strokes. He still wanted to win against me when we played, and he really believed he could. Sometimes he did.

He was honest about his competitive spirit, which was something I loved and respected about him, and nothing made me happier than playing golf with him when he was hitting the ball well. One of the last rounds we played together, he was struggling for much of the day. Cancer had sapped a lot of his strength, and it was exhausting for him to walk up even a small hill. He’d picked up on a couple holes on the front nine, and asked me to mark the scorecard with an X for him, to indicate “no score”. But all of a sudden toward the end he started playing great…holes 13, 14, 15, 16. Hitting pure shots, getting more distance, and making putts. When I told him how impressed I was with how he was playing, he said “I’ve played alright for a few holes but it wasn’t much of a round.” He was still holding himself to an impossibly high standard. I said “just be positive Dad. You’re just one hole-in-one away from the best day of golf you ever had.”

We had just walked up to the tee of #17, a par three that he could reach with an iron. He thought a second and said “well, yeah. That might happen. I guess it would be great, except that I picked up and took “no score” on several holes on the front nine. So technically it’s no longer an ‘official round’ and it wouldn’t really count as a hole-in-one.

That moment pretty much summed up my dad. He had inoperable lung cancer that had metastasized to his liver, and he barely had the energy to walk up a hill. Meanwhile, he still had enough self-belief to think that he might have a hole-in-one, but felt it necessary to point out that it wouldn’t really count, according to the official rules of golf.

My dad retained his indomitable will throughout this whole process. Two weeks and two days before his death he mowed the lawn. Not because he needed to. My brother Mike was visiting, and he certainly would have done it. But Dad wanted to mow it himself…possibly just to prove to himself that he still could, or just because he liked it.

And even on Thanksgiving Day, Dad had grown very weak and thought I was hovering, which he didn’t appreciate. When I tried to follow him to the bathroom he turned around and said “this is my house. You’re not the boss of me; I’m the boss of you,” and proceeded to lock me out of his room!

His life could be considered “short” in comparison to some, but it was quite full of experiences: Three marriages, 2 sons, 4 stepdaughters, 2 step-grandchildren, and various girlfriends, before he met his “sweetie” Elaine. He also had many careers, from accountant to owning a retail store, to teaching as a college professor, to running a golf course. Followed by years of volunteering and raising animals.

A long time ago, he said, “It’s ok to make a lot of mistakes. Just try not to make any really big ones.” He also said “if you ever ask yourself, should I……?, the answer is always NO!

Just over a year ago, about a week before thanksgiving, my dad found out that the tumor they found in his lung was malignant…that he had small cell lung cancer. Anyone that has ever experienced something like this sort of diagnosis for themselves or a loved one knows that it is a terrible experience. My dad had been very fearful waiting for the results, and he certainly dreaded the possibility that they would be bad results, which turned out to be the case. It took some time for the reality of having cancer to set in, and he experienced the stages of grief similar to the way that someone who has lost a loved one might.

However, something interesting occurred: He turned his diagnosis into an opportunity for personal growth. In the Spring, just over a month after his chemotherapy and radiation treatments were finished, he had a scan, which showed that the cancer had disappeared from his lung. When he heard the news, he called me. It was the morning, and I had just gotten to my desk at work. He was weeping with joy and said “it’s like I realized that the road in front of me was a good one, when I thought that there was no road at all.”

There was a time, though, that he might have been classified as a "glass is half empty" sort of guy, or maybe more accurately "that glass looks like its probably more than half empty." He himself said “Some might think of me as negative. I say pragmatically positive.”

While he may not have shed that perspective entirely during the last year of his life, he gained a great appreciation for the liquid that was left in the glass. Much of this appreciation he committed to writing. Last night my brother and I spent the evening reading over some of these writings. Some are funny and silly; others are pretty dark. I’ll share one with you now.

“I suspect that I am one of the very few who would consider the year following the diagnosis of a terminal illness ‘interesting.’ There are a number of other adjectives that come to mind, (like ‘depressing’) but it has been interesting. I've had countless insights, developed many new relationships, discovered how caring so many of my friends and relatives could be. I’ve had to adjust to losing control of my life and losing many of the capabilities I was blessed to have for much of my life.”

When I graduated college, he let me have a New Years Eve party at his condominium. People got somewhat out of hand, and one of them melted the element of the stove, as well as put a gigantic hole in the plaster wall of the kitchen. He mentioned it to me briefly, but didn’t make a big deal of any of it. He just quietly decided to patch the wall and fix the stove himself. Apparently, it did not go as smoothly as hoped. Almost 25 years later, among his various writings about cancer and other topics on one page by itself, we found the following anecdote:

“It's best not to confuse positive and ground, particularly when doing a stove repair.”

I will leave you with one more of my dad’s stories, in his exact words.

A Hammer Is Not A Plumber's Tool

I had to replace a toilet seat some 40 or so years ago. They haven't changed much in that time. The most significant change is the ease of removing the old one and putting on a new one. For now, the important aspect is removing the old one.

Back in the late 60s and early 70s (that's 1960s and 70s) American Steel and Beemis were still using metal studs - everyone uses plastic now and surprisingly even plumbers prefer it to rusted out metal.

Back to the story - true story. I was having difficulty removing those rusted out studs. I tried everything. Well, almost everything. Using a vice grip and a hammer, I thought I could loosen the nut holding the seat in place. The irresistible force (the hammer) meeting the immovable object, which in this case was the porcelain toilet.

Porcelain is one of man's greatest created materials, save for the fact that it is brittle. Of course, the creators, probably Dupont or Dow, never said you should test out your hammer on it.

So now I'm dealing with replacing a cracked commode. By the way, a crack in a commode renders it useless.

* * *

My dad did a lot for many people, which plenty of you know about personally or may have heard about from other people. I was certainly proud of those things, but I know I speak for my brother, my dad’s sisters, and other immediate family when I say that we loved him most for being who he was, and we will remember him for that the rest of our lives.