Wings of Hope Gala — Daniel McMenamin Endowment

We thank the Melanoma Research Foundation for honoring Dr. Daniel McMenamin with a Posthumous Courage Award.

Wednesday, October 11, 2017

Capitale, NYC

Delivered by Susie Oh

I refuse to use the terms "fight" and "battle" in describing my partner Dan's final months. I can say that his cells revolted against him, and that we spent the last year strategizing treatments to combat his metastases, but I refuse to say that Dan lost his fight against cancer, as if he were defeated in any way; I wholeheartedly reject the kind of cancer terminology that implies there was a losing side.

So when people describe him as a "fighter", I have to pause. It's true that he was strong, he was brave, and he remained heroically and stoically devoted to his loved ones, but because words mattered so much to him, I'd edit out "fighter" from his epithet and replace it with "quester". Dan was a quester: a questioner and a searcher, someone so deeply imbued with purpose that at times he reminded me of philosophizing heroes from old, medieval romances.

In the fall of 2015, after a long walk in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, I teased him for the introspective, somber look on his face and asked him if he were pondering the meaning of life. "I already know what that is," he said, "The meaning of life is in our relationships." I rolled my eyes at that fortune cookie sentiment. Five months later, we learned that the uveal melanoma that had been treated in 2013 had metastasized to his liver. And so began a year long quest: not a losing battle against an incurable disease, but a quest for experimental treatments, and a quest for a meaning to this horror. Dan persevered through the emotional and physical pain, through infusions and surgeries and debilitating side effects of medications, not because he felt compelled to wage "war" on the big C, but because his loved ones and patients relied on him, and because he hoped to find some ultimate wisdom that he could share with others. In fact, that was the eighth item on his bucket list: "Learn as much about death, dying, [as I can to] teach to others."

Dan's persistent search for -- and drive to share -- knowledge and truth and meaning was, to me, the quality that most defined him as a person and as a physician. Psychiatry was the ideal field for Dan, because it married his love for the art of empathetic conversation with his love of science and medicine. He earned his medical degree from Weill Cornell Medical College after graduating from Cornell, and finished his residency and fellowship at the NYU School of Medicine; he continued to train in psychoanalysis at Columbia University while running his own successful practice; his patients have told me that Dr. Daniel McMenamin changed their lives. And when he realized his time was limited, he entrusted his friends to establish a foundation in his name: we've done so by setting up the Daniel McMenamin Endowment to continue to help and educate people in his place.

Dan moved on from this life on March 6th, 2017, just a month shy of what would have been his 41st birthday. The room was full of friends and family, devotedly keeping vigil by his side. I remember the tears, and then unexpected laughter as we realized he'd drawn his last breath with a smile on his face. In the midst of grief, I was awed by the love in that room, and I now understand that he was right: the meaning of life is in our relationships. This is what Dan taught me about death and dying, and what I hope to share with you in his stead: dying doesn't signify that one has "lost" the game; death is a summation of everything one has won in life. His life had meaning, because he loved us and we loved and still love him. We miss Dan and so we continue to honor Dan by furthering his legacy of love.