I love this photo of my cousin, Richard Kahen. It captures the bright and sunny energy he exuded. And the adoration he had for his grandsons, Blake, on the left, Corey on the right.

Most people knew him as Rick. To me, he was always Ricky. He died about a year and half ago, but his birthday is coming up soon, which has put me in a I-miss-Ricky kind of mood, even more than usual.

Ricky was 71-years-old when he passed away. Not young, but, certainly, not ancient.

Thanks to COVID and the fact that he died when I was in the hospital, I didn’t get a chance to attend his funeral or fully grieve.

But a day doesn’t go by that thoughts of Ricky don’t cross my mind. He was my oldest living relative on my mother’s side (a role that I fill now), someone I could count on to verify or remember obscure family lore.

Ricky didn’t have an easy childhood. Nor the easiest of lives, for that matter. His younger sister Kathy was 4 when she was hit by a car. Afterwards, she was never the same mentally.

Ricky was 8 when his father abandoned Ricky’s family. Ricky’s mother, my Aunt Virginia, went to work, leaving Ricky to pretty much raise himself. He was surely a latchkey kid, however, my mother didn’t work so Ricky at lunch with my brother Donny and I every school day in the kitchen of our first floor apartment at 77th and Essex Avenue in South Shore. I was happy to have a chance to spend more time with him.

I don’t think Ricky knew it, but I idolized him (no, not in a creepy sort of way). He was my cousin, sure. But he was also my friend, my confidant, my teacher (in the ways of social interactions), my protector and sometimes my savior.

Ricky and I were were both placed in Mrs. Schmiddle’s kindergarten class at Bradwell elementary school. Unlike Ricky, I was shy and awkward, and when it was time to put on our coats and go home on the first day of school, I freaked. I didn’t know where my locker was or how to zip up my jacket or even put it on by myself. I became totally discombobulated. I bawled like a baby in the hallway until Ricky came over, found my jacket and zipped it up for me.

Even though Ricky struggled with his weight, and continued to struggle with it throughout his life, he was always popular. He was a good talker with no pretensions, and more importantly, a good listener. He was fun, funny and smart.

Later during my high school years, I pledged a sorority (don’t ask) in which one of my sorority sisters assigned me the task to write a poem about Paul McCartney of the Beatles.

I had no idea what to write that wouldn’t make me sound like an idiot. I whined about it to Ricky, and what did he do? He wrote a bunch of clever, rhyming verses about the famous Paul for me, which I happily plagiarized (the first and only time I did so).

The poem was a hit when I read it in front of the girls at the next sorority meeting. They clapped and laughed with me, not at me. (They liked it so much they wanted me to write another one about George Harrison, but thankfully, they forgot about it.)

After Ricky graduated from college, he opened a shop on Devon Avenue in West Rogers Park called The Funny Farm, which sold gag gifts–squirting flowers, whoopie cushions, fake dog-doo, rubber chickens and snakes. The store had a small, curtained-off, adults-only area in back for the more risque merchandise.

It wasn’t long before life dealt him a horrific blow. At the tender age of 23, he developed bone cancer. His left leg was amputated above the knee.

Afterwards, he would tell me a bit about how he was feeling– but only if I asked. He had phantom pains where his leg used to be and would trudge up three flight of stairs on crutches to the third floor apartment he shared with his friend, Butchie Harrison. Ricky rarely complained, at least to me. Instead, he directed the conversation to how you were doing.

One of the highlights of his life was marrying his beloved Candi Graff (thus from here on in was Candi Kahen–pronounced “candy cane”). Later, Ricky became a proud father to his daughter Allison, and, eventually, an adoring and adored grandfather to Corey and Blake.

Throughout the decades, Ricky and I stayed in touch by phone and saw each other at holiday gatherings. We talked about once a month– always phoning each other on our birthdays, gabbing about family gossip, politics and, well, life.

He was a loyal reader of Opinionated Woman, emailing me when a piece particularly resonated with him. He was an avid reader of books and newspapers, a U.S. history buff with a special interest in Abraham Lincoln, a lifelong White Sox fan. He called me “Jude” as in the song “Hey Jude.”

After Ricky lost his leg, for the rest of his life, he walked supported by a cane. Anyone could see that he didn’t have it easy, but again, he didn’t bitch about it. He worked a full-time job (not at The Funny Farm. A few years after he lost his leg, he closed the store up. The space turned into an Indian restaurant.)

Ricky became an advocate for disability rights. For 26 years, he served on the Buffalo Grove Commission for Residents with Disabilities. For 20 of those years, he was chairman. He was so integral to the agency, it was renamed posthumously the “Rick Kahen Commission for Residents with Disabilities.” 

Ricky continued to be plagued by health issues, and in his 60s, he had a massive heart attack. But with a zest for life (I know that’s a cliche, but he was that rare person for whom it was the God’s honest truth), he vowed to continue to live. His goal: to attend his grandson Corey’s bar mitzvah.

During this time, I went through a deep depression–not about Ricky so much, more about my own issues. Ricky was there for me, giving me advice. He told me to allow myself a day or two to feel sorry for myself, then snap out of it.

This from a guy who found himself too often in the back of an ambulance, headed to Northwest Community Hospital. The advice seemed to work for him. Not so much for me.

About a year and a half before he died, he was diagnosed with kidney cancer. He was in the dialysis center when he had another heart attack, this time fatal.

Ricky was positive, supportive, generous, caring, kind, and inspiring in the way he lived his life. As one of his friends wrote on legacy.com, “He was the mensch of all mensches.”

There are so many times when I want to reach the phone to tell Ricky something. Then I realize no, he’s not there.

Although, not a celebrity nor as young as Marilyn Monroe and Princess Diana when they passed away, like them, he was a bright light to those who knew him, a candle that burned out too soon.

He never made it to Corey’s bar mitzvah.