The Last Witness: Memoirs of Anthony Russo

Prologue

I am seventy-seven years old, and for thirty-one years, I have kept a secret buried in my Denver apartment—a box of forty-seven microcassette tapes, each one a testament to a journey few would believe. They document the last seven months of two lives, ending from the same disease. Mine, and a creature that shouldn’t exist.

My name is Anthony Russo. I was an EMT for twenty years before pancreatic cancer gave me six to eight months to live. In June 1993, I was forty-seven years old—too young to die, too angry to die gracefully, surrounded by people who’d watch me waste away while pretending there was hope. So I went to my cabin in the Colorado Rockies, determined to die alone, to spare everyone the ugliness of watching cancer eat me from the inside out.

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But in July 1993, I met another dying being in those mountains. An adult male Bigfoot, maybe fifty in human years, suffering from what my medical training told me was advanced terminal illness, possibly the same cancer killing me. For seven months, we died together—two beings from different species, both facing the same enemy, both refusing to let the other face death alone.

Chapter 1: Diagnosis

My final journey began in my oncologist’s office in Denver. Dr. Patricia Chen sat across from me, her face set in that expression doctors wear when the news is catastrophically bad.

“The biopsy confirms pancreatic adenocarcinoma,” she said. “Stage IV. It’s spread to your liver and lymph nodes. Anthony, I’m sorry. There’s no viable treatment protocol.”

“How long?” I asked.

“Six to eight months, maybe less. The tumor is aggressive. You’ll start experiencing significant symptoms within weeks. Jaundice, pain, digestive failure, weight loss. I recommend getting your affairs in order, spending time with family, making peace with—”

“I don’t have family,” I interrupted. My parents were dead, no siblings, never married, no kids. Friends, yes. But I didn’t want them to watch me die.

I left her office with a prescription for morphine and a head full of rage. I packed my truck with supplies and drove to my cabin in the Rockies—a retirement dream that would never happen now. Isolated property, two hours from the nearest town, accessible only by a rough dirt road that became impassable in winter. It was perfect, a place to die without bothering anyone.

 

 

Chapter 2: Waiting to Die

I spent July angry. I’d spent twenty years as an EMT saving other people’s lives, running toward emergencies while everyone else ran away. My reward was dying at forty-seven from a cancer with a five percent five-year survival rate. The unfairness consumed me.

I lay awake at night, listening to the wind through the pines, thinking about all the people I’d saved who would outlive me, all the experiences I’d never have, all the years stolen. I didn’t want sympathy. Didn’t want people telling me to stay positive or fight harder. There was no fighting this.

By late July, the symptoms accelerated. Jaundice turned my skin and eyes yellow, constant nausea, weight dropping. I lost fifteen pounds in three weeks. Pain in my abdomen became harder to manage even with morphine. Each day was just one more day of deterioration.

I started making voice memos—medical documentation, recording symptoms, pain levels, medication effectiveness. Maybe someone would find the tapes after I died and learn something about pancreatic cancer progression. Maybe my death could contribute to medical knowledge even if my life hadn’t amounted to much.

Chapter 3: The Encounter

In early August, I was chopping firewood, even though the exertion exhausted me. That sensation EMTs develop—awareness that you’re being watched—crept over me. I turned slowly, hand instinctively reaching for the hatchet, and I saw it.

A large shape in the treeline, maybe thirty feet away. Too tall to be a bear, wrong proportions to be human. It stepped into clearer view, and I understood. Bigfoot. Eight feet tall, covered in dark brown hair, broad shoulders, long arms, face unsettlingly human but not quite. My first thought wasn’t, “This is impossible.” My first thought, with clinical EMT precision, was, “That creature is critically ill.”

Even from thirty feet away, I saw the signs. Emaciated, ribs visible even through the fur. Posture hunched, suggesting abdominal pain. Movement slow and careful. Yellow tint to the exposed skin around its eyes and mouth—jaundice, same as mine. The creature watched me with eyes that showed intelligence and something else: recognition.

We stared at each other for minutes, neither moving. Then the creature made a low, pained sound. My EMT brain catalogued symptoms: cachexia, jaundice, altered gait, lethargy—terminal presentation.

I lowered the hatchet, raised one hand slowly. Universal gesture of non-threat. “You’re sick,” I said aloud, even though I knew it probably couldn’t understand English. “You’re dying.”

The creature’s eyes met mine, and I swear it nodded. Just slightly. Acknowledgement.

I made a decision that went against everything I’d come to the mountains to do. I walked slowly back to the cabin, got my medical kit, brought it out, set it on the ground between us.

“I’m an EMT,” I said. “Paramedic, medical. I can’t fix you, but maybe I can help with the pain.”

The creature watched me open the kit, saw the supplies, and somehow seemed to understand what I was offering. Medical care, comfort, acknowledgement that its suffering mattered. The creature stepped forward, slow, cautious, pain evident in every movement. When it was ten feet away, it lowered itself to sitting, a careful, agonizing movement. I approached carefully.

“I’m going to examine you,” I said. “Just checking your symptoms. I’m not going to hurt you.”

I touched its abdomen gently, the way I’d palpate a patient. Felt the mass there. Hard, large, consistent with pancreatic tumor with likely metastasis. The creature made a soft sound of pain. I withdrew my hand immediately.

“Same as me,” I said quietly. “You’ve got the same thing I have. Pancreatic cancer, probably spread to your liver. That’s why you’re yellow. That’s why you’re in pain. That’s why you’re up here alone instead of with your family.”

The creature looked at me with those intelligent eyes, made another sound. Softer. “Yes, you understand.”

I pulled out my microcassette recorder, hit record. “August 3rd, 1993. Encountered adult male Bigfoot approximately eight feet tall, estimated age forty-five to fifty-five human equivalent. Presenting symptoms consistent with advanced pancreatic adenocarcinoma, cachexia, jaundice, abdominal mass palpable, obvious pain on movement. Creature appears to be in terminal stage. Similar progression to my own disease.”

“We’re both dying,” I said. “Both came up here alone, but maybe we don’t have to be alone anymore.”

The creature reached out one massive hand, touched my shoulder gently. The gesture was unmistakable. Agreement, understanding, relief at not being the only one.

From that moment, we were companions in dying.

Chapter 4: Companions in Mortality

The creature left after an hour that first day, moving slowly back into the forest. I watched it go, wondering if I’d hallucinated the whole encounter. But the next morning, it was back, sitting near the treeline at dawn, watching the cabin.

I made coffee—tried to. My nausea was so bad I could only manage a few sips. I stepped outside. “You came back?” I called out. The creature made a soft vocalization—communication.

I brought my medical kit and recorder. “Mind if I check on you? See how you’re doing today?” The creature gestured toward itself. Permission granted.

I did a basic examination. Jaundice was worse. Palpated the abdomen again—the mass seemed larger. Listened to its chest with my stethoscope. Heartbeat irregular, suggesting the cancer was affecting multiple systems. All the while, I recorded observations.

I made a decision. Pulled out a morphine vial and syringe. “This will help with the pain,” I said. “It’s what I use. I can give you some. It won’t cure you, but it’ll make dying hurt less.” I prepared a dose, showed the creature the syringe. It held out its arm, understood what I was offering. I administered the injection carefully. The creature’s eyes closed. After ten minutes, its posture relaxed.

“Better?” I asked. The creature made a sound that was definitely affirmative. Gratitude.

Over the next week, this became our routine. The creature arrived each morning. I examined it, recorded observations, administered pain medication. We sat together for an hour or two, neither able to eat much, just existing in the presence of another being who understood.

Chapter 5: The Language of Dying

I started talking to it while I worked, narrating what I was doing, explaining my own symptoms, comparing them to what I observed in the creature.

“Your cancer is moving faster than mine,” I said one morning. “You’re losing weight more quickly. The jaundice is accelerating, but you’re handling pain better. Maybe your species has different pain tolerance, or maybe you’ve just been suffering longer.”

The creature listened to everything I said. It seemed to pay attention, would make sounds in response, would gesture, pointing to its abdomen when I mentioned pain, touching its throat when I talked about difficulty swallowing. We were communicating—not with words, but with the shared language of terminal illness.

On day sixty, something remarkable happened. I was recording my morning memo. The creature reached out and took the recorder from my hand. It examined the device, pressed record, pressed play, listened to its own sounds coming back. Its eyes widened. It understood. This device captured and preserved sound.

Then the creature held the recorder close to its mouth and made a series of vocalizations, deliberately, intentionally, then pressed play. Its own sounds came back. The message was clear: My story matters, too.

“You want to be documented,” I said. “You want your dying recorded same as mine?”

The creature nodded.

“Okay,” I whispered. “Okay, we’ll document both of us, both of our deaths. So someone knows we didn’t die alone. So someone knows we mattered.”

Chapter 6: Gifts and Rituals

Gift-giving became part of our routine. I gave the creature my EMT badge—twenty years of service, saving lives. “I want you to have this,” I said. “So someone from my species was there at your death, so you weren’t alone.” The creature studied the badge, tucked it into the thick fur at its chest.

The creature brought me stones from its nest area—smooth river rocks, each carefully selected. I lined them up on my cabin windowsill, markers of our time together.

One morning, the creature brought seeds, wrapped in bark. It pointed to the ground, made a planting gesture, then pointed to itself and shook its head, then pointed to me and nodded.

“You won’t live to see spring,” I said, understanding. “But you think I might. You’re giving me seeds to plant when you’re gone. Giving me a reason to survive into spring.”

The creature nodded. Encouragement.

 

Chapter 7: Lessons in Dying

By October, we developed a sophisticated non-verbal communication system. The creature had learned what certain tools in my medical kit were for, could point to the morphine when it needed pain relief, could indicate nausea by touching its throat, could show me where pain was concentrated by placing my hand on specific areas.

I’d learned its vocalizations—a low rumble meant pain increasing, a soft grunt meant comfortable or content, a higher pitch sound meant fear or distress, a rhythmic huffing was something like laughter or satisfaction.

We couldn’t have conversations, but we could communicate needs, symptoms, emotions. We could witness each other’s suffering and offer comfort.

One afternoon, the creature pointed to my recorder, then made a long series of vocalizations. Different tones, different rhythms. It was speaking—maybe its language, maybe just sounds, but it was deliberate, intentional.

Day 103. The creature is vocalizing what appears to be communication. Cannot determine if this is language or simply expression, but it’s clearly purposeful. Perhaps it’s telling me something about its life. Perhaps it’s saying goodbye.

The moment I knew this was more than just medical companionship came on day 110, November 1st. I was having a particularly bad day. Pain breaking through the morphine, nausea so severe I couldn’t keep down water. I was sitting outside my cabin crying, not from physical pain, but from rage, from the unfairness.

The creature approached slowly, lowered itself to sitting beside me, and then it did something extraordinary. It wrapped one massive arm around my shoulders, pulled me against its side, let me cry against its fur while it made soft, comforting sounds. It was holding me, comforting me the way you’d comfort a dying family member.

When I finally stopped crying, I looked up at the creature. “Why are you doing this? You’re dying, too. Why waste your final months on me?”

The creature looked at me, made a sound, then touched its chest, then touched mine, then clasped its hands together. The message was unmistakable: Same. We’re the same. Dying together is better than dying alone.

Chapter 8: Farewell Rituals

In December, the creature’s decline accelerated. It spent less time with me, more time in the forest. When it did visit, it seemed distracted, focused on something else.

“You’re preparing,” I said. “You’re getting ready to die.”

The creature confirmed, made a gesture toward the forest, then toward the sky, then touched its chest. You’re saying goodbye to things, to places, to your life.

Over the next week, I watched it visit specific trees, touch them, make soft sounds, sit in certain locations—a rock outcropping, a stream bend, our original meeting place—as if memorizing them.

One afternoon, it brought me to a massive old pine tree, placed my hand on the bark, made a sound that communicated, “This matters. Remember this.”

I realized the creature was consciously preparing for death. Not denying it, not fighting it, but acknowledging it and choosing how to approach it. Saying goodbye while still conscious, still capable of movement.

Chapter 9: The Final Days

Mid-January. Day 170. The creature was failing rapidly now, could barely walk, spent most of the day at its nest, occasionally dragging itself to my cabin for our morning routine.

One morning, it didn’t come. I knew what that meant. I forced myself to walk to its nest. The creature was lying in its nest, barely moving, eyes open but glazed, dying.

When it saw me, it made a soft sound—relief, gratitude that I’d come. I lowered myself carefully to the ground beside the nest.

“I’m here,” I said. “I’m not leaving. You won’t die alone.”

The creature’s eyes focused on me, reached out one hand, and gripped mine. The grip was weak, but the intention was clear. Stay.

I sat with the creature for hours. When darkness came, I walked back to the cabin, got blankets and supplies, and returned. Slept on the ground beside its nest. For three days, I stayed, left only for brief trips to get water and morphine, administered pain medication, kept the creature comfortable, talked to it constantly.

“You gave me a gift,” I said on the second day. “You took my angry, solitary dying, and transformed it into something bearable. You showed me that connection matters more than pride. That being witnessed matters more than protecting your dignity. That dying with someone is better than dying alone, even when that someone is a different species.”

The creature’s breathing was labored now, rattling. The sound I’d heard in hospice patients—the death rattle.

“I know you’re scared,” I said, holding its hand. “I would be too. But you don’t have to be alone. I’m here. I’ll be here until the end. I promise.”

The creature squeezed my hand, held on. I recorded everything—every labored breath, every sound, every moment of its final passage.

Day 173, January 18th, 1994. The creature’s breathing changed. Slower, more labored. I moved closer, held its hand with both of mine.

“I’m here,” I said. “Right here with you. You’re not alone.”

The creature opened its eyes, not glazed anymore, but clear, lucid. It looked at me with such intensity. It raised its other hand slowly, painfully, touched my face, then touched its own chest, then pressed our hands together, mine and its over its heart.

The message was unmistakable: You and me, connected together in this.

“Yes,” I said, tears streaming down my face. “Together. You’re not crossing alone. I’m with you as far as I can go.”

The creature made one final sound. Not pain, not fear—peace, gratitude, completion.

Then its breathing slowed, slowed more, stopped. I felt its heart stop beating under my hand.

Day 173, 5:12 a.m. The creature has died peacefully, with witness, not alone.

Epilogue: The Gift of Presence

I sat with the body for hours, unable to leave. I covered the creature’s body with pine boughs, a burial of sorts, marked it with stones.

For the first time in eight months, I was alone again. But I wasn’t angry anymore. Wasn’t bitter. Was just grateful. Grateful for the time we’d had. Grateful for the lessons learned. Grateful for the gift of shared dying.

After the creature died, I expected to follow quickly. But I kept breathing, kept waking up, kept deteriorating, but not dying. February turned to March. I was skeletal, yellow, barely able to move, but still alive.

Ray, my neighbor, found me in late March, barely conscious. Got me to a hospital in Denver. The doctors were shocked I’d survived this long. Eight months past diagnosis with stage IV pancreatic cancer. Then something impossible happened. My scans showed the tumors were shrinking. The cancer was in retreat. Spontaneous remission.

I spent three months in the hospital, slowly regaining weight, slowly recovering function. The cancer didn’t disappear completely, but it went dormant, stopped advancing. By June 1994, I was home. Weak, changed, but alive.

I knew I’d been given something impossible. A second chance. Years the creature didn’t get.

I planted the seeds the creature had given me. Three plants grew—three living legacies from a dying Bigfoot who believed I might survive to see spring.

I listened to all the tapes, hundreds of hours of documentation, philosophical reflections, the sounds of two beings facing mortality together.

I made a promise: I would live for both of us.

Final Confession

I am seventy-seven now. My cancer is back, smaller, slower, but definitely back. My oncologist gives me maybe a year.

Here’s what the creature taught me: Pain is universal, but so is the possibility of comfort. Death has stages, and acceptance is the most important one. Meaning isn’t measured in duration—relationships are about depth, significance, witness. Intelligence doesn’t require language. The greatest gift is presence. Death is a journey we all take, but we don’t have to take it alone.

I am donating the tapes to the Smithsonian, with instructions to protect the creature’s species from exploitation. The point isn’t to prove Bigfoot exists. The point is to prove that dying doesn’t have to be solitary. That connection at the end of life matters more than anything else.

If you take anything from this story, take this: Don’t let people die alone. Presence is everything.

The creature taught me that dying with someone, anyone, even a different species, is better than dying isolated. Our shared mortality transcends all other differences.

Somewhere, somehow, I believe he’s waiting. The being who showed me that even in death, connection transcends everything.

I’ll see you soon, friend. And this time, we’ll take the journey together.