The Battle We Lost

It can make you feel that you're sinking or suffocating, or going through a little of both.

Eighteen years have passed and you'd think the damage would be over. Battle complete. Troops moved out. Rebuild. On to business as usual.

If only we were made that way.

As the holiday weekend approaches, I watch the men and women in uniform being honored, the waving Red, White, and Blue, read the grocery store specials on ground beef and chips, and feel this overwhelming ache. There stands what only I can fully see---a little boy in a Barney T-shirt and a pair of shorts. The boy needs a hair cut. His Mama wishes she'd taken care of that.

But in one second, a hair cut is forgotten. Because the boy needs so much more. He needs immediate surgery, a Broviac catheter inserted into his back running to his heart for chemo. Later he will need radiation. And stronger chemo. And prayers.

After the first week of chemo, hair falls out in clumps, sprawled out on the back seat of the dusty green van. A hair cut is not needed. His five-year-old sister cries when she sees his blond strands and balding head. "It's so sad," she whispers. We buy him a red ball cap to wear, one with dinosaurs. We buy him a blue one, too. He wears them for a few days, but when his head is smooth and shiny, he goes cap-less.



I recall how friends from church were driving in their van and passed us. I saw their smiles and knew that they were on their way to the Memorial Day church picnic. They turned right; we veered left toward the hospital. That image remains.

Every year for me, Memorial Day marks the beginning of the end. Eighteen years later and it feels just like yesterday when I sat on the sofa the Friday of Memorial Day weekend in 1996. The cordless phone was in my hand. The pediatrician told me that my son had a malignant tumor in his neck. The war raged from that day on, and on February 2, 1997, it ceased. All the surgeries, the chemo, the fight, the hope, the prayers-----over.

There was no victory; we lost.

Every year on Memorial Day weekend I am reminded of how much we lost.

Pushing it aside does no good. I have to acknowledge my heartache-----own it, for it is mine.

That's how we mamas are made.

And so I write on my blog and for some reason, that helps. Writing unleashes some of the ache so I can go to the picnics, hear the bands play, watch the fireworks. Writing keeps me from shattering like a bullet fired in the dark night.

For me, Memorial Day honors all of our soldiers---those here and those here only in the delicate arms of memory.





[This post first appeared at my Patchwork Quilt Blog.]

The Quest for the Seed-Spitting Watermelon

The Fourth of July always makes me think of freedom, patriotism, fireworks, and battles. Food plays a large role, too. Actually, I have my own battle with food.

No, I'm not talking about overeating and trying to cut back. Or attempting to make the perfect hamburger or apple pie and not succeeding. I'm talking about my quest to find something that used to be simple to find. A watermelon. And not just any watermelon, but one with seeds. Shiny, black seed-spitting seeds.

You see, I've always had a fondness for watermelon. As a child growing up in Japan, watermelons were as round as basketballs. When I went to the grocery store in Virginia---either the Safeway or the A and P---with my grandma Patsie, I saw watermelons were oblong and big. (Everything seemed bigger to me in America.) The shape didn't matter; as long as I got to experience the joy of watermelon-eating.

My own children liked watermelon, too. We had seed-spitting contests on the driveway. The sun would be setting on another hot Fourth of July, our bellies would be full of potato salad, hamburgers and soda, and the crickets and bullfrogs would start serenading one another. Right before fireworks crackled into the night sky, we'd see how far we could spit those black seeds. With air in our lungs, we'd aim and shoot, trying to get that seed to sail the farthest. After everyone had a turn, with sticks, we'd mark our success. My mother always seemed to be the winner, even though Daniel tried, and yes, cheated.

The Fourth of July in 1996, we weren't picnicking in the backyard, but rather, at the hospital. Three-year-old Daniel was finishing up another round of chemo. Friends brought a watermelon over to his room. Daniel was excited to get his slice and ate it down to the rind, the juice running along the top of his Looney-Tune pajamas and slipping onto the sheets. With a seed in his mouth, he spit it near the thirteen-year-old girl who'd brought the watermelon over. We all laughed. Later, she told me she couldn't find it in her heart to spit seeds at a little bald-headed boy with cancer.

After consuming as much of the watermelon as we could, Daniel claimed he was full. "I've had enough watermelon," he said. With a little help, he stored the watermelon in the bath tub next to his hospital room.

Next Fourth of July, I thought, we'll be having our traditional cook-out at our home. Next year, we'll be back to spitting seeds in the driveway.

But Daniel didn't make it to the next July 4th. He died in my arms on a cold winter night long before the annual watermelon harvest.

Now, in his memory, we eat watermelon. We still spit seeds. In fact, word got around, and over the years, people have sent me watermelon mementoes. I have key chains, cards, photos, wind chimes, dishes, candles, and even a rug decorated with the red and green fruit. Many of the special pieces in my current collection were sent to me from friends in Japan.

But before long, I grew aggravated. I started to see that grocery stores were selling (and proud to advertise) seedless watermelons. Seedless! What is the point of seedless watermelons when the desire is to be able to spit seeds? Are stores trying to take away my memories? To me, seedless watermelons seem unpatriotic.

Each year, I'm on a quest to find a store that sells watermelons with seeds. I look through all the flyers that come in the mail and plot my shopping trips, determined to win this seed-filled battle.

But you know what? Even if I never find another watermelon grown like I think it should be---fully equipped---I've learned something. No one can steal my memories. They will always be with me, right there, in the core of my heart. All I have to do is close my eyes to see that face covered in red juice, those cheeks puffing out, ready to shoot a black seed across the driveway. Those bright blue eyes, laughing with us all.

Happy Fourth of July, friends! And whether the melon be round or oblong, the important thing is that you spit those seeds happily and forcefully in every seed-spitting contest.

One Brave Cookie

By Alice J. Wisler

In 1996 we had tickets for a three-week trip to Japan. As I packed for our trip, excitement filled me. I couldn’t wait to experience the reactions of my three kids as we flew to Japan where I grew up as a missionary kid. My picnic-plaid journal would record their words and their vacation memories.

My husband and I hoped three-year-old Daniel would be fully recovered from his surgery and back to his energetic self by the date of our June departure. It sure looked promising because the night of his surgery he did cartwheels in our grassy lawn, laughing with friends who stopped by to check in on him.

Right before Memorial Day when people were getting their coolers stocked for picnics, the pediatrician called with news. The lump on Daniel’s neck was not Cat Scratch Fever or TB as earlier presumed. The surgery from the previous day showed that my son had a mass that consisted of small round blue cells.

That weekend I became familiar with a childhood cancer called Neuroblastoma. At UNC Hospitals in Chapel Hill, NC, Daniel had another surgery, a Broviac catheter inserted through his body—into the right side of his neck and out his back— and the start of his first round of chemotherapy. The catheter was the line used to dispense his chemo. Nurses taught us how to flush the line, clean the area of skin it was near, and tape the catheter to his back for safety purposes. We also learned the names of chemo drugs and found out that the narrow cot placed alongside Daniel’s bed was not as comfortable as it looked. It didn’t really matter; hospitals are not known for places of rest, regardless of the type of bed provided.

Daniel’s prognosis looked good—for a kid with cancer. Over the months of week-long hospital stays, the tumor responded to the harsh medications. He lost his hair, he hated being bald. He made friends with the oncologists and nurses, teasing and laughing with them. He threw up and felt weak and tried to be brave. I recorded each day in my picnic-plaid journal.

In the hospital chapel he asked God to heal him. “Please God, take away my boo-boo.” He liked to hear how people around the world were praying for his health.

But on a balmy day in January after his chemo and radiation treatments ended, he felt weak. I took him to a scheduled check-up at the oncology clinic.

At nine his blood pressure was fine, but there was some concern about his blood counts. His hematocrit was dangerously low. The nurse was ready to take another blood sample to test again when Daniel complained of not being able to breathe. “I just wanna go home,” he told me. The doctor was called in; no pulse could be found.

Daniel was wheeled to the ER. He coded once he arrived, was resuscitated, and coded again. A staph infection was discovered to be the culprit.

Daniel lived on the ventilator in the PICU for five days. When the EEG showed he had no brain activity except for voluntary, I asked for another. But the second results matched the first, so we removed him from the ventilator, saying our good-byes. Yet Daniel’s heart and lungs continued to function.

Since the staff in the PICU could do nothing more for him, his oncologist asked that we consider moving him to a room on the cancer ward. “We want to take care of him and of you,” he said. “Daniel is our patient. We remember when he walked down the corridors swinging off his infusion pole.” I looked at my son, a calm figure with his eyes shut, morphine pumping into him. Surely, God would provide a miracle and Daniel would wake from his comatose state and jump on the bed as he had before.

When Daniel breathed his last in my arms on a cold night at the beginning of February, I was six months pregnant. My baby within kicked with life as my bloated and compromised child ceased to move.

I felt abandoned by God. I didn’t care to live. During the next days, I didn’t want another casserole or vase of flowers brought to my front door. I wanted my son back in my arms—a chance for him to live life outside hospital walls with a new crop of hair as he played with his siblings.

Instead, I would have to learn to survive his death. It would mold me, push me, shape me, and change me. I would feel God’s presence again. In time, I would walk with a new faith, one harbored within a broken heart.