The Closet, The Picture and Preferring to Live. (From the Archives.)

As we go through Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, I am continuing to feature posts written (and posted) back in Sarah’s cancer days.

These posts were both written in the summer of 2002.

The Closet and the Picture

Even though there’s certainly plenty of pain in a hospital, with someone as perky as Sarah around there’s also plenty of perkiness!

One day when she was inpatient for an infection, she got bored and was roaming around her room looking for something to do. When she opened the door to the closet, she realized that there was room enough for her to crawl in there. So maneuvering her pole and wires and cords, she climbed in and closed the door. I heard her chortling to herself as a great “Sarah Idea” hit.

She yelled through the door, “Mommy, call Miss Kelly (one of her favorite nurses) and tell her to come in here. I’m going to hide from her!” Kelly wasn’t real busy at the moment so she came right in. 

I winked at her and said, “Kelly, something terrible has happened. We’ve lost Sarah and we can’t find her anywhere!”

Of course there was a medicine pole by the closet with tubes leading in through the closed door so there wasn’t any real mystery involved. We looked for Sarah for a while, being very dramatic and finally “found” her in the closet. Oh boy, did she ever love that! She had put one over on her nurse!! She giggled to herself all evening over her great trick!

Her sense of humor at home is usually in full bloom, too. Wednesday night it was raining and we were about to go over to the church. Sarah quipped, “I don’t want to go out in that rain; it might mess up my ‘do!” (hairdo)

She arched what used to be her eyebrows at us and guffawed.  (You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a cheery, bald child guffaw.)

In all of Sarah’s sickness, in all of her all of her ups and downs and her setbacks and joys, she has been so blessed to have had a wonderful brother that has walked along that path with her.  He’s always been able to make her smile at even the worst of times.

Of course, trying on his sister’s hairpiece got a smile from ALL of us!

Nathan was in Minnesota this summer, visiting one of his best friends and while he was there, he attended his friend’s church. The church was selling our CD’s as a fund-raiser for our family and had one of our newsletters containing a picture of Sarah laid out at the CD table. A friend of ours was behind the table and she said she saw Nathan come to the table and look at the picture a long time. He finally reached out and caressed his sister’s cheek before turning away.  Of course, when the friend related the story to me later, it brought tears to my eyes. 

To bring it full circle, last night in our hospital room I was over on my little sleeping couch writing in my journal when I happened to glance up at Sarah. She had stuck one of our family pictures in the rail of the bed and as I watched her, she stared at it for a full minute, very serious, very intent, her eyes taking in each face one at a time.

All of a sudden, a wave of joy hit–her brilliant smile set like a diamond in a face that looked like it had been illuminated by angels. Still smiling, she reached out her small fingers and lovingly touched the picture. Then she caught my glance, held it for a long while, and went peacefully to sleep. 

Although our family is more physically separated this year than we have ever been, our hearts are tied together with the threads of a precious love made stronger in the furnace of suffering. Cancer can never take that away.

(This was a separate blog post.)

I’d Prefer to Live

In between Sarah’s chemo treatments and hospitalizations, we went over to Steve’s parent’s house for a cookout. Nathan went outside to shoot some hoops and when I glanced out the window and saw him I thought to myself, “I should go out there and play some basketball with him.”

Unfortunately, a shower hit right  about then and I was tempted to change my mind. However, one of the lessons I’ve learned from Sarah about living each moment to the fullest propelled me out of the basement and into the rain. As I jogged over to the hoop, I yelled at Nathan, “Hey, throw me the ball!”

If Michael Jordan himself had appeared in the driveway and offered to shoot hoops with him, I don’t think Nathan’s face could have been any more shocked. (I am not widely known for my athletic prowess.)

I spent the next ten minutes with him, frantically dribbling the ball through the rain and launching wild, lofty shots that (occasionally) went through the hoop. Nathan gave me a few pointers and we cheerfully chased each other around until my 40-year old body told my overly youthful mind to cut it out. As I turned to go back indoors, Nathan said very solemnly, “Thanks for playing with me, Mom.”

Times like that are especially important to us both since so much of my energy is focused on his sister.  As I left the court I thought, “This moment was brought to you by Sarah Smith as her life and her battle with cancer reminded me once more to seize the day.

Sarah and I went to Walmart last week and had a great time ambling through the store and talking. Every few minutes, she’d stop, sigh happily and say, “Isn’t it just so great to be here?”

Her face was aglow with contentment and peace; she was out of the hospital, out of pain, not throwing up–life was good, indeed.

On the way home from the store she was quiet for a while in the back seat of the van and then, with no preamble or warning she said, “Mom, do you think I’m going to die when I’m a kid?”

I held hard to the steering wheel as a wave of grief and sorrow crashed through my heart. Trying to gather my emotional resources and come up with some sort of answer that would make sense to a child, I was only able to say, “Why do ask that, Sarah?”

She replied, “Well, I just wonder if my cancer will go too far and kill me and God won’t answer our prayers for healing.”

The passing landscape blurred through my tears and I thought, “Dear Lord, I have absolutely no words or assurances to give this child.”

Trying to keep my voice from quavering I asked, “Sarah, how do you feel about that?”

There was a long silence and then her small voice emerged from the back seat, “I’d prefer to live.”

Those half-whispered, soul-shaking words of a child, spoken in the silence of a beautiful Thursday twilight were nothing less than a prayer. She was not whining or screaming about having a hideous disease spread throughout her body. She was not dictating to God what he should or should not do with her life. She was simply allowing the evening hush to carry her trusting, wistful words to heaven, “I’d prefer to live.”

I knew I was in a holy place as I sat in the presence of a precious 6-year old theologian who, instead of thinking about Barbies and sleepovers and dress up clothes, was grappling with eternity and death and the question of whether or not God could be trusted with her very life.

None of us know how this chapter will end. We don’t know if God will dip His pen in tears or joy when He writes the final words.

In the meantime, though, life is too short for us to live in fear and depression. Instead, we spend precious time with friends and family, we wander companionably through the aisles at Walmart, we laugh, and we play basketball in the rain.

We prefer to live.