That’s when it hit me. Christ, in His most extreme suffering, had given us the perfect prayer. The most loving and perfect being to walk the earth, God’s own Son, wrestled with God’s will, just as I had. He saw what was coming and asked to be spared. But He knew His Father’s will was greater than His own, and He surrendered His will to the Father.
So I took that prayer, and with all that was in me, every part of my being and from the very depths of my soul, I made it my own. As I sat there alone, I spoke to God.
“Okay, Lord. You can have Zach. I want him, but You see a bigger picture. If Zach must die, please just let it be for something big. I want it to be for something big. Just one soul changed forever.”
At that moment, my soul was freed. I wasn’t in charge of this thing, and in the depths of my being, I truly understood the meaning of hope.
Hope is something much bigger than anything physical we may desire. It is about raising our eyes from a point on the horizon to the heavens and into eternity. And it’s about relying on God’s grace to do it, no matter what the cost.
God knew that what I wanted most of all was His will to be done. And if that meant watching my son suffer and die as He watched His own Son suffer and die, then so be it.
We would walk that road. We would pick up that cross.
In the silence of that early morning, with the sound of the breeze rustling the leaves on the trees, I stood and wiped my eyes. The wind through the open window caressed my face and pushed the abandoned swings hanging from the backyard play set. Life moves on, I thought, and we move with it.
I took a deep breath and tossed my tissue in the trash can as I grabbed the dog leash by the door.
“Come on, Daisy. We’re going for a walk,” I said as she happily bounded behind me, bopping my ankle with her wet nose. We were doing this thing, and we were going to be okay. Life would be okay.
I had no idea as I stepped out the door the big plans God had in mind and the answer to my prayer He was about to unfold.
Eighteen
WHEN DEATH IS ON THE HORIZON, THE SPACE BETWEEN YOU AND IT can be a dark and scary place. Zach’s summer had started out hard. Radiation and surgery for his collapsed lung had taken up the first half, but in the end it had been salvaged. He was feeling good and spent most of his days doing what he wanted, living like a teenager should, and enjoying the last days of summer before his senior year of high school. It hadn’t been easy, for sure, but he packed in as much as he could and started back at school.
He’d survived the tough start of the school year and had worked his way back to finding his purpose again, learning to live in the present and to embrace the beauty of each moment. But he knew what was coming; dying was the backdrop of his life, and that stark view of reality, of life and death, gave him clarity. And then the reality of that was made even clearer by a former hospital roommate’s death.
I remember when Zach, Mitch, and I walked into the infusion room at the clinic a year earlier, at the beginning of Zach’s junior year. Lance, Zach’s one-time roommate from his first regimen of chemotherapy, and Lance’s mom, Laurie, were there too. I had enjoyed the brief time we shared with them over a year earlier; Laurie and I had a lot in common, and it was nice to talk with someone who understood what we were going through. For a split second I was excited to see them again. But then my heart sank; the infusion clinic is not a place where you want to run into old acquaintances.
Lance was not doing well. His cancer had spread faster than Zach’s and was no longer responding to treatments. Though he knew his time was short, Lance continued to live a pretty normal life. At nineteen years old, he was working as a chef and taking care of his beautiful little daughter who was born not long after he was diagnosed with osteosarcoma. His approach to dying was very simple: just live.
Zach and Mitch were impressed. They decided they wanted to reach out and do something special for Lance in some way. The opportunity came when the biannual National Honor Society’s Coffee House (a fund-raising event that showcased the musical talent of several high school students) committee was looking for suggestions on where to donate the funds. Zach and Mitch proposed Lance. On Lance’s twentieth birthday, December 9, 2011, he and his family attended the event.
A local news station picked up on the story, one boy fighting cancer helping raise money for another. It was the first time Zach’s battle with cancer had been covered on the news, and the folks at Children’s Cancer Research Fund saw the story. They wondered if this boy with the generous heart would consider helping raise money for pediatric cancer research. Maybe do a radiothon interview the following year? They tucked his name away for future reference.
Now, ten months after the Coffee House fund-raiser, Lance had taken a sharp turn for the worse. The cancer had spread to his brain, and his lungs had filled with tumors.
On October 6, 2012, Lance died.
Zach, Sammy, Amy, Mitch, Rob, and I went to his funeral. I wasn’t sure how it would be for the kids, seeing Lance. But I knew death was a reality that each of them needed to confront in a real way, not just as an abstract possibility. As each of the kids stood by the casket and looked down at Lance’s body, now looking like the simple shell it had become, it finally hit all of them. Zach would be there soon. His body, too, would become an empty shell. It was the first time I saw the kids really cry. They mourned Lance, but they were also mourning Zach.
We waited in line to offer our condolences to Lance’s parents, Laurie and Brent. They both looked so strong as they greeted each person in line. I wondered if I would be able to contain my tears as my son lay in a casket behind me. As I got closer to Laurie, my own emotions forced their way to the surface. I’d been so concerned about the kids, I hadn’t taken the time to work through how I might feel. It was my turn.
Laurie and I made eye contact. She pulled me into an embrace, and we both melted into tears. We were simply two moms who’d been through the same agony.
“It was just so fast,” Laurie whispered in my ear. “I knew it was coming, but it was just so fast.”
She was on the other side now. She’d been through the worst. My legs shook uncontrollably, but her embrace steadied me.
Zach was next in line. I stepped aside and watched as Laurie held him. She pulled back and looked up at him.
“Just live, Zach,” she said. “Just live your life.”
As we drove home from the funeral on that gorgeous fall day, I couldn’t get over how beautiful the leaves were on the trees. They were obnoxious with showy, contrasting color, and it was glorious to see. I’d been obsessed with the fall colors for the past few weeks and found myself distracted by them as I drove through the countryside.
Why? I wondered. Why was I so entranced? The colors were pretty much the same every year, so what was different this year? I realized that it wasn’t the colors that had changed; it was me. The years of fighting cancer and the struggles that came with it had a way of winnowing the chaff of life away and revealing the good kernels left behind. The beauty in life is more visible when the clutter is gone, the colors of life more vibrant against the backdrop of death.
I reveled in the wonder at this strange and unexpected phenomena. I realized as I turned memories of the past years over in my mind how often I saw this effect. There were so many times that the sorrow and agony of a particular moment was punctuated by something intensely wonderful and beautiful. Laughter was always sweeter through tears, and joy was more potent when born out of suffering. It was like a rope that had been dropped from heaven. I prayed that Zach, his friends, all of us would be able to grab on.
After we’d dropped the kids off at their homes and Rob at work, Zach and I headed for home. We made small talk about the Stillwater Area High School Ponies homecoming game a few weeks earlier, and we discussed the upcoming annual Friedrich Family Booya, a family tradition that involved camping at my parents’ house with aunts, uncles, and cousins and making a huge cauldron of soup that would be served to guests the fo
llowing day. Both subjects were lighthearted, normal things to discuss. But the obvious topic, the one we were avoiding, lingered in the space between us. I pulled the car into the garage, and we walked in the front door.
“How are you doing?” I finally asked as I pulled off my pumps and tossed them into the closet. “That had to be hard for you.” It was easier to keep emotions in check when we weren’t face-to-face. It was best to keep it casual.
He paused and thought for a moment as he took off his coat, then turned to me, a far-off look in his eyes, and said, “Yeah. It was.” He took a seat at the kitchen counter and crossed his hands in front of him. “But I really realized I need to live life to the fullest. I don’t want to just hang out downstairs and burn my time away. I want to do as much as I can with the time I have left. I just want to live the best life I can, and I really want it to count for something.”
“You’re right. I think that’s really the only way to do it.” I pulled a loaf of bread out of the cupboard and sandwich meat from the refrigerator. “What do you have in mind?” I asked.
“I don’t know yet. I guess I just want to experience things I’ve never experienced before. I just feel like I’m supposed to leave the world better than it is now,” he said. “I just want to get out there and do some crazy stuff.”
He had come away from Lance’s funeral with a solid understanding of the limits of time, and rather than fall into despair, he had chosen to be inspired. It freed him to see the worth and beauty in his life and to be ready for something big.
Nineteen
October 2012
ZACH WAS POPPING NINETEEN PILLS A DAY, A TASK HE WAS QUITE proud to have mastered; he would show anyone who was willing to watch how he could swallow nine pills at a time . . . with no water. It made me gag. Part of the regimen included massive doses of a drug that is also used for controlling acne—his face never looked better! But it had the unfortunate side effect of making his hands peel, and thick callouses formed between his fingers. It drove him crazy, especially when he was playing the guitar. He was constantly slathering on lotion.
It was a couple of weeks after Lance’s funeral. Zach was scheduled for another CT scan of his chest to see if the therapy he’d been on since July was holding the cancer at bay. We checked in for the CT and took our usual place in the waiting room. Zach was playing with his phone and I was engrossed in a book when Zach started to laugh. I looked up to find out what he was laughing about, but he just shook his head and lifted his phone up in front of him. I realized he was taking pictures of me. So, to fight back, I pulled out my phone and started taking a video of him.
He began laughing so hard he doubled over and had to wipe the tears from his eyes. He’d been doing his best to take the most unflattering pictures he could of me and then used a Fat Booth app to make me look hundreds of pounds heavier. It was horrifying, but he was very pleased with himself and couldn’t stop laughing.
He had a way of bringing joy into everything, even the scary times when we were waiting to find out how much closer death had come.
After the CT, we headed up to the clinic where the doctors would view the scan and deliver the news. It was a busy day in the pediatric wing. Kids played at the computer station, watched the obnoxiously loud cartoons on the television (why do we have to have televisions everywhere?), and played in the little playhouse kitchen.
In the middle of the room was a small, round table with little chairs to match. A mother and father sat there with their child who was maybe ten or eleven years old. The mother had spread out a variety of foods on the table, despite the signs that said “No Food Allowed in Waiting Area.” She didn’t care about signs; she was attempting to entice her child to eat. It became clear rather quickly that the child was not well mentally; he was angry, was easily agitated, and began to yell obscenities at his mother, then started to throw the food.
I sat there feeling uncomfortable as I watched the chaos of this poor family’s life unfold, and I just wanted to get away. I looked over at Zach who was sitting quietly flipping through screens on his phone with his thumb. He didn’t seem disturbed at all. After his name was called and we were walking down the hall, he tucked his phone in his pocket and said under his breath, “Things can always be worse.”
We took our seats in the exam room. The medical assistant took Zach’s vitals and entered updates in the computer. “I like your T-shirt,” she commented as she finished typing. The shirt read “Cure Childhood Cancer” with a yellow ribbon printed in the center. He’d purchased it online several months earlier along with some pink fabric dye. He had planned to wear it for the high school–sponsored breast cancer awareness day when everyone wore pink. It was his way of reminding everyone there are other cancers out there too. He was a little jealous of the breast cancer awareness success and wished there was more for pediatric cancer. He never did get around to dying the shirt pink.
As she finished up and left the room, she assured us the doctor would be in soon. We had learned over the years that the longer it takes for the doctor or nurse practitioner to come into the room, the worse the news is. Ten minutes went by. Then fifteen. Then twenty.
“You ready for bad news?” I asked, looking up from an article about the art of making homemade soap in a worn-out copy of Real Simple magazine.
“Yep,” he responded without looking up from his Car and Driver magazine. He loved fast cars; they looked cool and could get you where you wanted to go in style and quickly. He adored the engineering, a trait he got from his grandfather, the mechanic. Researching them was one of his favorite pastimes and had kept him occupied for many hours in the hospital after visitors had gone home.
After several more long minutes, the doctor and nurse practitioner walked in together. They wore forced smiles as they greeted us, but their eyes were full of apology and sadness. And they were teaming up—a sign of bad news.
“Well, things don’t look good,” the doctor dove right in. We were seasoned veterans; there was no need for pleasantries. “There are several new lesions in both lungs, around ten on each side, and the old ones have grown significantly. I’m afraid the treatment you’ve been on doesn’t seem to be doing much good.”
And there it was. We’d made a huge leap closer to that point on the horizon. It seemed it would take less time than we’d expected to reach it, and the road was revealing itself to be pretty straight and narrow, with not much left to slow us down. The cancer would fill up Zach’s lungs, and he would die. Both Zach and I nodded our heads as the doctor delivered the news. The cancer bully took another shove, but this time it wasn’t as effective at knocking us down. The surprise factor was no longer part of its reliable tactics. We continued on with the appointment and discussed the next treatment option, the next rock we would pick up and throw at our tormentor.
We wrapped things up, a new plan of action in place to slow the cancer, and said our good-byes to the team of caregivers who had learned to love Zach over the years. As Zach and I walked down the hall toward the waiting room, he looked over at me and, with a smirk on his lips and in his eyes, said, “Well, I guess I won’t be doing homework anymore.”
We both burst out laughing as we made our way past the waiting area and check-in desk. People looked up at us and smiled as we passed by. Those people probably thought we just got great news. Seeing ourselves through their eyes, it made me happy to know the outside was reflecting what was going on in the inside: we were okay. As the valet driver pulled our car up, Zach turned to me and said, “Let’s start planning that party. It’s time to have some fun.”
Cancer was still a bully, but we’d learned to live with it, and we were stronger because of it.
A FEW DAYS LATER, ON ONE OF OUR GORGEOUS MINNESOTA OCTOBER days, I sat downstairs in the family room with a rumpled piece of paper spread out on my lap. The lyrics to a beautiful and heartbreaking song scribbled in Zach’s crazy, chicken-scratch handwriting spilled across the page. I’d found it a few minutes earlier and was quietly st
aring at the page with tears spilling down my cheeks.
I heard Zach come in the front door of the house, set his backpack down, and make his way into the kitchen. I wiped away the tears and waited for him to come down. I didn’t want him to know I’d been crying. He rustled around in the snack cabinet a bit and thumped down the stairs, doing his best to keep pressure off his left leg.
“Hey,” he said as he pushed the door open. “What’s up?”
I held up the sheet of paper. “Zach,” I said, “this is really good.”
He looked at the paper, opened a bag of chips, and popped one in his mouth.
“I didn’t know you were writing songs. Have you got others? Do you have music?”
“Yeah. I’m working on some other stuff too. I couldn’t really write letters like you said I should. I tried it, but nothing really came out right, so I thought I’d try writing songs.” He leaned back on the couch and pulled the phone from his front pocket. “I recorded ‘Clouds’ on my phone.” He placed the phone on the old painted chest that served as a coffee table between us and tapped the screen.
For the first time ever, I heard Zach play and sing a song that he had written.
Well I fell down, down, down
Into this dark and lonely hole
There was no one there to care about me anymore
And I needed a way to climb and grab a hold of the edge
You were sitting there holding a rope
And we’ll go up, up, up
But I’ll fly a little higher
We’ll go up in the clouds because the view is a little nicer
Up here, my dear
It won’t be long now, it won’t be long now
Fly a Little Higher Page 14