This government policy exacted an awful toll from Nolan’s family. He can remember as a seven-year-old sitting with his uncles, listening to their horrific stories of how racial intolerance and bigotry had affected them. They drank, to cope with their grief and feelings of estrangement and worthlessness. When they died from alcohol poisoning, Ted resolved to make a difference among his native people. To him it seemed clear that respecting people and their traditions and treating them with compassion counted more than any official government policy.
Nolan’s parents instilled values that helped him deal with his anger and determination to make a difference. Be respectful. Be proud of who you are. Never quit. Don’t focus on what happened. Don’t blame. Work with what you’ve got. Be happy with what you have. Be fair. Fight for justice.
While the Nolans shared the rich traditions of the Ojibway and strong family values, they were hard pressed to put food on the table every day. Some days all they had to eat was a little Indian fried bread. The old expression, “We didn’t have a pot to piss in,” in some ways applied to the Nolans; except that they did have a pot that Ted and his siblings employed at night. They used the same one during the day to carry water to make an ice rink in the backyard. It would take them half a day to get enough water carried from the nearby pump, but they got the job done and loved to play hockey.
On that home-constructed pond, Ted Nolan learned to skate. The equipment was shabby but he made it work. Ted’s first skates were a size six; he wore a size two shoe. Padding was the ingredient that helped everything fit. The hockey was spirited, and eventually Ted, along with his brothers, began playing competitively in a house league.
They did well, but they could never play on the same shift because they had to share gloves. The lack of equipment didn’t bother them but the taunting about the color of their skin did. Because Ted’s mom and dad had taught him to be fair but to stand up for himself, he became a fierce competitor and fighter—qualities that have served him well as a coach and a person.
When Ted was fifteen, his father, Stan Nolan, a lumberman and welfare administrator, died of a heart attack. As Rose and the Nolan kids pulled together, she continued to encourage Ted to pursue his dream of playing professional hockey. At sixteen, Ted went to Kenora, Ontario, an eighteen-hour drive from home, to play for the Kenora Thistles in the Manitoba Junior Hockey League. But he was torn because he didn’t want to leave his family in a financial lurch and because he got homesick. He cried himself to sleep every night, hoping his coach would send him home.
Phil Stafford knew Ted was struggling and encouraged him in every way possible. There was no way he was going to send him home. In spite of the difficulties, or maybe because of them, Ted excelled. A year later the Detroit Red Wings drafted him and sent him to their minor-league affiliate in Kansas City.
He stayed one night and went back home. When he walked in the house, delighted to be back, his mother looked at him and turned her back for several seconds. Then she turned and hugged him. It was her way of disapproving of his coming home. Ted headed back to Kansas City the following day.
He would return home again in 1981, not to greet his mother but to bury her. Killed by a drunk driver, she lived on for Ted as an inspiration, a source of wisdom. He would live by her credo: Be respectful. Be proud of who you are. Never quit.
Two years after his mother’s death, Nolan took the ice for the Detroit Red Wings in his first NHL game.
A back injury cut short his playing days but also sent the unsuspecting Nolan bounding toward a coaching career. He’d gone home again, planning to attend college and get a business degree. The Sault Sainte Marie Greyhounds needed coaching help, and Ted reluctantly agreed to assist the current coach. A month later the owner asked Ted to coach the team.
The Greyhounds suffered through a terrible season and the town wanted Ted fired. He didn’t know if he should stay or go, but something stuck in his head—the not-uncommon fan rant that “he can’t coach.”
Can’t? Oh, Ted could hear his parents saying, “Don’t quit. Can’t won’t work.” He threw himself into becoming a coach. He contacted the six coaches he had played for; he listened; he watched; he learned how to structure practices and how to set up a game plan. The next year the Greyhounds won the league title and Ted Nolan’s coaching reputation blossomed.
He won the Memorial Cup as the Greyhounds’ coach, and then in 1997 the highest honor a coach can receive: NHL Coach of the Year.
Yet his defining moment came that same year when he was caught in an unfortunate power struggle among the administrative staff of the Buffalo Sabres. Several months after Ted Nolan knew he wouldn’t be back as the Sabres’ coach, he and I got together. I’ll never forget his words.
“Pat,’’ he said, “hockey is what I do. It’s not who I am. Yes, I’m disappointed and I hope to be able to coach in the NHL again. However, in another way the Buffalo experience has turned out to be one of the best things that has ever happened to me. It has reminded me of what is important—family is more important than the power play. Taking my sons, Brandon and Jordan, to school and being a part of their lives is very special. Sandra and I are celebrating twenty years of marriage. My family continues to teach me that compassion—for myself, for my family, and for others—is the bottom line.”
SECTION 5
The Fight
of Their Lives
19
Erik Fanara
Hockey, while the passion of my youth and the career of my choice, is nonetheless a game. Life in the cancer ward of any children’s hospital is not. The children’s hospital is the “rink” where I met the special people who have contributed so much to my life. I was the spectator to their fight with a disease in order to win life. I shared in their face-off in the struggle to overcome what at times seemed to be unfair odds. I watched the “coaches and general managers” of medicine, professional and caring doctors and nurses, set a game plan to keep the enemy from advancing. I saw the action of the nurses’ station, moving throughout the ward as a team using their own strategies: chemotherapy, medication, radiation, and personal love and support, to win the battle. As a parent, I joined those who loved and cherished their children as deeply as I did my own. I ached with them and their pain and yet I learned from their hope and courage. The challenges of the ward and the rink are similar; the lessons are the same; but the consequences of victory or defeat are quite different.
Erik Fanara was five when he got cancer. He had been in and out of the hospital numerous times to be treated and evaluated. He reminded me of a seasoned hockey veteran—his courage was a constant inspiration to me. He was articulate, observant, vibrant. And, of course, he loved hockey. After I recovered from my knee surgery and started playing again, we would go over the details of every game. While on the road, I would call him and get his feedback on the game and my performance. I looked forward to his enthusiasm and fresh perspectives.
We first met when Elsie Dawe of the hospital staff came up with a fund-raising idea. The children designed ties, and Erik’s carried my autograph, and we sold them to help finance a variety of programs.
Eventually, there were occasions when Erik was able to come to a Sabres practice. He became the team’s good-luck charm. All the players knew him. As our friendship grew, my admiration for Erik’s perseverance increased as well. The love he and his parents shared with one another was incredible to me. They didn’t focus on being victimized by the terrible disease that afflicted their family. Erik’s parents were loving and supportive of anything that would be a positive and hopeful experience for the one they treasured so much and felt so helpless to heal. Erik continued to be an integral part of my life.
Little did I know that my journey to give back would result in being given so much. I was so touched by his life and attitude that when I was awarded the Masterton Trophy, I spoke to Erik over the television. I dedicated the award to him because athletes were chosen for perseverance, courage, and dedication. I told him that he
embodied all three.
Erik lost his battle to cancer on January 16, 1996. While all of us who had known Erik grieved his passing, we had all been strengthened and inspired by his courageous battle. His funeral was a powerful experience. Erik would hug us all one more time before his funeral was over.
January 20 was a gray, cold day. The somber weather matched our collective mood as we sat and listened to the music at the beginning of Erik’s funeral service. After a number of people eulogized him, his mother stood and asked us to stand and hold hands in remembrance of her son. She called him her “little angel” and said the song he liked to sing to her, and for her to hear, was “You Are My Sunshine.” Then she started singing, and in a moment all of us joined her in tribute to Erik. As we sang, the sun started pouring through the stained-glass window in the front of the church. Embraced by its warmth, there was not a person who wasn’t crying, singing, and feeling that Erik was there with us. When I looked down at the tie that Erik had designed and then looked back toward the window, the light shined through stained-glass images of rainbows, stars, clouds, and animals. They were the same images that Erik put on the tie. The sunlit faces of Jesus and Mary gave me the sensation that Erik had gathered all of heaven together to be with us as we said good-bye to his earthly existence.
In the game of life, there are wins and losses. This relationship of strength and courage centered on a very special tie.
20
Aaron Graves
It’s not how long a person lives that determines the quality of his life. It’s how he lives. Since my initial experience with death, when my junior high school friend John Brown died, I have grown in my admiration for how creative and powerful people can be when facing death. They’ve showed me that while the human body perishes, the spirit of the person never dies. The story of Aaron Graves is proof of our eternal nature.
Aaron was a young man who lived his life full measure, even though he was just seventeen when he died on December 22, 1999. Stricken with a rare form of cancer, Aaron showed us in death how to live.
When Aaron was diagnosed, the doctor told his parents he would be their source of strength. You would think it would be the other way around, but the doctor was right. When it became apparent that Aaron wasn’t going to make it, his parents tried their best to be strong and positive and to keep their devastation and grief to themselves. Who helped them with the reality that he would soon be saying good-bye? Aaron.
“He is our hero. His strength and courage enable my husband and I and Aaron’s brother, Johnny, to get through this together,” was what his mom, Michele, said. “It seemed like the whole world was his friend. He never complained about his pain and he was always happy.”
Aaron spent three months at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. After that stay, he and his family made monthly trips to continue his care. Even though those treatments left him disoriented and weak, his primary concern was getting back on the basketball court with the St. Joseph’s team in Buffalo.
Aaron loved and thrived on athletic competition. He started playing soccer when he was four years old, in the Delaware Soccer League. He was captain of the St. Joe’s freshman soccer team. In 1998 he played guard on the St. Joe’s junior varsity basketball team. The last year of Aaron’s life, he would come back from his treatments in New York and head for practice with the varsity. He was so weak he could hardly get up and down the court, but his presence and determination inspired his teammates and the whole St. Joe’s community.
Aaron Graves was not only an athlete, he was a scholar. He made the honor roll at the first marking period a few months before he passed away. Aaron loved art and music. He attended the Western New York Academy of Dance for ten years and became an excellent tap dancer. Before and after his treatment, Aaron painted an acrylic reproduction of Monet’s Regatta at Sainte-Addresse. After his death Aaron’s family donated his painting to St. Joe’s to raise scholarship money for the school. His father, Eugene Graves, was the highest bidder, and the painting now hangs in the Graveses’ living room.
In addition to athletics, academics, and his extracurricular activities, Aaron made his mark in his community. When he wasn’t delivering the Buffalo News to his neighborhood, he volunteered with the Buffalo Police Department, where his mom works, the Kiwanis Club, and the Parkside Community Association, or counseled kids at the Parkside Summer Arts Program. He did his counseling despite a broken arm, the result of bones made brittle by his cancer treatment.
Even though Aaron was fighting for his own life, he never stopped reaching out to help those around him. “He was a courageous young man who never complained and was always polite and respectful. He was one of a kind. He had a drive for life,” says Police Commissioner Rocco Diina.
Aaron died as he lived—giving life and energy to those around him. Eighteen hundred people attended Aaron’s funeral to celebrate his life. The police department in parade dress, the singers from St. Joseph Collegiate Institute, his church, and his family and friends said good-bye to a young man whose influence touched the lives of many people.
His family still mourns his loss. The Buffalo community and the student body of St. Joe’s miss his energy and up-beat take on life and death. Yet they feel his presence, they see his smile, they hear his words, and they remember his attitude. An anonymous scholarship has been established at St. Joe’s in Aaron’s honor.
The two stipulations: academic achievement and community service. That’s Aaron’s legacy. It connects us with him and his memory, and those thoughts and feelings will never die.
21
Kathy Waldo
Kathy Waldo might have spent her days staring at the walls and wondering what an active life is all about.
But no walls hemmed her in. If she observed any boundaries, respected any barriers, they were the ones a hockey rink provides naturally. Kathy Waldo crashed into the boards many a time but never hit the wall.
She was the first girl to play on her high school’s boys’ hockey team and the first to be named captain. She went on to star at Northeastern University. She’s one of my Companions in Courage, but her ever-present companion was, and is, cystic fibrosis.
Two months after she was born in Cross Plains, Wisconsin, some twenty years ago, her parents, Joe and Maureen Waldo, brought their little girl to the doctor’s office because of lingering congestion in her chest. Neither the diagnosis nor the prognosis raised anyone’s spirits.
“Kathy would have to spend her life in and out of hospitals,” her mother remembers the doctors saying. “They told us our daughter would live until she was eighteen, maybe twenty, and that would be that.”
The symptoms were ugly. People with CF suffer from chronic lung infections and digestive disorders. A sticky, thick mucus, which is difficult to remove and promotes bacterial infection, eats away at the lung tissue. Excessive appetite along with poor weight gain often adds to the frailty of an already vulnerable immune system. The coughing spells, frightening infections, and just plain exhaustion often lead to frequent hospitalizations and continuous use of antibiotics, enzyme supplements, and other medications.
Joe and Maureen spent many nights considering possible courses of action. They elected to take a risk and be different. “We decided to take our own approach. She was not going to grow up as a patient,” Maureen says. “She deserved more.”
They figured a sedentary existence in a hospital room wouldn’t help the breathing. They believed that running and playing and literally gulping in the fresh air would be so much more natural and healing. So whenever one of those deep, racking spells of coughing hit, Joe would make Kathy go out and run around the block. They encouraged David, her older brother, to include Kathy in football, baseball, and basketball.
Maybe, just maybe, there was something in the air. At three years of age, Kathy followed David onto the ice to play hockey. Picture this little tyke strapping on skates and joining a boys’ Midget team for four- to seven-year-olds. Guess what? She was
great. And so was this self-developed therapy.
“Nothing’s better for me than hockey,” Kathy says. “The skating makes you work really hard, and then you take in the cold air from the ice. It opens your lungs up and keeps things moving in your body.”
Remember those warnings of a short life marred by hospital stays? Kathy was only hospitalized twice by the time she was eighteen.
Maybe it sounds easy because it worked so well. But I call Kathy a Companion in Courage because all of this was so much harder and more treacherous than it seems. Every time she coughs or gets a cold, or is even near someone with a cold, a warning light flashes in her mind. She must be scrupulous in safeguarding her precious health. She must maintain her regimen of medication to continually break down the mucus buildup in her lungs. Infection still comes all too easily.
After her freshman year at Northeastern, surgery to repair a shoulder injury went well, but complications—a lung infection—followed. She had to fight off more severe consequences with intravenous fluids and constant trips back and forth from the hospital.
“It reminds me of what can happen,” says Kathy. “It was horrible.”
And yet it also puts her in mind of how awful a quiet, inactive existence would be. Her motto is simple: Be tough. She has a life. She’s going to live it.
“People who sit around and complain about life—that sucks,” Kathy says. “I know I have a disease that’s technically supposed to give me a shorter life span. But why should I think about dying? I’ve beaten the odds, and I’ll continue to beat the odds.”
That’s why Kathy Waldo is not only a Companion in Courage but a breath of fresh air.
Companions in Courage Page 8