Crazy Weekend
“So… how are you guys doing?” people ask, somewhat tentatively, as if they’re anticipating a really bad answer.
They know the Chastains have a gloomy cloud floating overhead, one that is dark and threatening to drop a nasty storm on us at any time. And as a result they think we’re much sadder than we are.
Truth is, however, we’re doing well. We’re not walking around with our heads down, kicking rocks and stepping on spiders. We’re not all sad and gloomy, obsessing on the future.
Maddye doesn’t wake up and think, “Oh no, Dad!” LeAnn isn’t, I assure you, overwhelmed with thoughts of ”poor Jim.” Ford isn’t writing melancholy tunes with overtones of death or metaphors of a disintegrating father figure.
I’m not thinking about ”it” all the time. For where does that get me, really?
For now, we’re happy. We have each other. We have today. We have a crazy busy weekend, packed with fun things. And that’s more than enough.
Tonight, Ford will play an acoustic set or two at the Second Wind Coffee House on Buchanan Street in Norman, starting at 8 p.m.
On Saturday, LeAnn will be coaching Whittier’s Math Counts team at the State Finals, held at the Embassy Suites in Norman. Once again, she has one of the best teams in the state, and she’s very excited about their chances.
I’ll be speaking to a writer’s group on Saturday morning, then heading to Dallas to do a big house concert on Saturday night. It will be a night of music and poetry with my friends Billy Crockett and Nathan Brown. Several of my friends are heading that way, and I can’t wait to see them!
Maddye’s weekend looks a little less exciting. She’s got a senior paper to work on. But Maddye has a way of finding fun.
So the Chastains are not sad. We are doing well, thank you. And we hope you are too.
Regarding Me
Due to my lousy health, my life as a writer, and this “Life is Real” series, I’ve been fortunate to hear from many people I knew long ago. Within the last month, I’ve probably exchanged messages with at least thirty ”blasts from the past,” people I hadn’t heard from for way-too-many years (and likely wouldn’t have heard from again if it weren’t for my situation). They found out about my story somehow and wanted to reconnect.
I love this part of my life, talking to old friends. It’s so interesting to hear how their lives turned out and how they’ve diverged from mine. And it’s surprising to see what they’re up to now, how many kids they have, where they work, what they’re reading, what their religious and political points of view are, etc.
But in doing all of this reconnecting, it occurred to me that many who are following this series (or beginning to follow it) do not know me at all.
“Who is this guy?” you’re probably thinking. “And why is The Oklahoman following him?
I guess it’s Ken Raymond’s job to tackle those questions in his newspaper articles. But I thought I should probably help him out a bit. I mean, it couldn’t hurt to give you a bio, at least a fairly brief sketch. Besides, I need to start practicing on my obituary.
I was born in Tahlequah, Oklahoma on December 9, 1963 to Jim and Sharon Chastain. I was their second child, the only boy out of four children. My sisters are, in order of their births, Lori, Cindy, and Karyn, who died tragically in a car accident at age twenty-one.
My family moved to Bartlesville when I was one, and we stayed there throughout my childhood. In fact my parents still live in “B-ville” to this day, in the same house we lived in since I was in fourth grade. I attended Will Rogers Elementary (about fifty steps from our back door), Madison Junior High, and Sooner High School. I graduated from Sooner High in 1982, the last year of its existence.
While I was growing up, my father worked for Phillips Petroleum Company in the computing division. Phillips employed about half the town it seems, and prospered as a result of having one of America’s great corporations located there. However, during my high school years, we went through those same job-related concerns so many people are having today, as Phillips seemed to have a new round of layoffs every Christmas.
My mother was, for the most part, a housewife, although she had a side job selling Luzier (a lesser-known brand of cosmetics). She also volunteered a lot at Highland Park Baptist Church where we attended services. But beyond that, she chased four kids around the house, took care of Dad, and did the sort of hard work moms do. I know for a fact that she made a heck of a lot of French toast for me over eighteen years.
Bartlesville was a pretty wealthy town, but my family lived in modest homes and drove unspectacular cars. My dad was what you might politely call ‘thrifty.” We were your typical middle income family, I suppose. We weren’t particularly churchy, but we did attend church regularly. Like most kids, I tried my best to avoid it.
I was a sweet kid, they tell me, with a kind heart. I got along well with people for the most part, and I made friends easily. I believed strongly in fairness, so it bothered me when somebody was wronged. I had a soft spot for the underdog, still do, and I loved animals (the movie Bambi nearly killed me). I especially loved dogs, and therefore we always had a dog at the house.
Sweet or not, I was also a stinker. That’s true of lots of boys I guess, but I seemed to consider stinkering a fine art. I loved pestering my sisters. I got spanked a lot at home and in elementary school, and, even though we don’t do that anymore, I usually deserved it. In junior high, I was too busy trying to keep my butt from getting whipped to get into too much trouble, but in high school I returned to my prankster ways. Whenever anything happened or went wrong, I was one of the “usual suspects” who was called to the principal’s office for questioning. Some of my high school exploits became rather notorious, I’m afraid to say.
I was a competitive kid when it came to games, grades, and sports. As most kids growing up in a fairly small town, I played sports throughout my youth. What else was there to do? I was pretty good during the early years, but less so during high school when it really counted. I was fast, but I didn’t particularly care for running. At Sooner High, I lettered in baseball, basketball, and football, but I only played football as a senior, choosing instead to work (first at Braums, then at Barlow Interiors) and put gas in my car.
I was a reader from the beginning and spent a lot of time at the Bartlesville Public Library. I was one of those kids who was always reading a new book. One of my earliest memories was having my picture in the local newspaper for being a first grade “bookworm,” meaning I’d read something like one hundred books. Some of my favorites were My Side of the Mountain, Mr. Pudgins, the Henry Huggins series, the Hardy Boys mysteries, The Last of the Mohicans, Tom Sawyer, The Chronicles of Narnia, and anything by Shel Silverstein or Dr. Seuss, who continue to be two of my heroes to this day.
I also loved the movies. In fact from a very young age, I used to pretend my life was a movie. (Perhaps this explains all the troublemaking–I was searching for conflict to move the film along.) I remember walking down the street to the local theater regularly for Saturday matinees. I loved eating a giant green apple Jolly Rancher while watching a film.
I’ve always been a social person and a firm believer that friendships are key to happiness. Fortunately, I was blessed with a great group of friends in junior high and high school. I hung around with about twenty guys and several girls from my class, along with some notables from the cool class ahead of me. On most weekends you’d find me with Greg, Kevin, Ghent, Terry, Gary, Sheldon, Polly, or whoever else happened to be tagging along with us. Meanwhile, I joined as many clubs as would have me. I went to every party I could find. I dated as much as the next guy, but I only had a few “girlfriends.”
After high school I went to Oklahoma State University. I spent my freshman year in the dorms with several high school buddies. I made straight A’s that year, but met almost nobody and spent way too much time at Eskimo Joes. By the end of the year, I was so frustrated that I packed bags and went to live with my grandmother in Tahlequah. I attended summer school at Northeastern State, watched the Chicago Cubs on TV and contemplated staying in Tahlequah for good. But I decided instead to return to OSU for my sophomore year.
On a whim I joined Delta Tau Delta fraternity, and after that my college experience improved dramatically. I began meeting people, including… girls! I became president of my pledge class and later of the entire fraternity. I met some of the greatest guys in the world, several of whom are still my best friends to this day. I still hung around at Eskimo Joes too much and for a time tried setting a world record for having the most fun. But overall I remained fairly balanced in my approach to school and life beyond college. I always took my grades seriously. And I worked at a video store during the last two years at school, which was no surprise to anyone, as one of my nicknames was Mr. Movie.
As far as my post-college plans were concerned, I decided I wanted to be one of three things: a film critic; a writer; or a lawyer. (I’m reminded of the SCTV episode where Martin Short plays a college freshman who wants to be a “hockey player or a circuit court judge.”) As I knew no writers and film critic is not really a career path in Oklahoma, I began steering toward the law.
During my junior year, I met LeAnn when we were both participating in Varsity Review, a singing and dancing show. She was a member of Chi Omega sorority, and I knew several girls there. LeAnn was dating someone at the time, and I was dating someone else. But I noticed her. Later, after we’d both had breakups, we began dating. And as my senior year rolled around we became inseparable.
I was somehow accepted into OU law school and moved to Norman in 1986. LeAnn was still a senior and in the midst of completing her studies to become a teacher, so she remained in Stillwater for a semester. After that, she obtained a student teaching position at Norman High and joined me in Norman, where she lived with two of our dear friends. We married in the summer after my first year in law school and moved into our first apartment, along with Winston, our beloved cocker spaniel.
While I was busy at law school, LeAnn decided to pursue a Masters Degree at the University of Oklahoma in Mathematics. Meanwhile, we also got involved with a local church and made many new friends, as most of our college friends had moved. After obtaining our degrees, we decided to make Norman our home. We had our first child, Madison, in 1991, followed by a son, Ford, in 1994.
I began my legal career working at a small, upstart law firm that relied entirely on one client. My job was to write title opinions and to do most of the research and writing, as well as help out with litigation now and then. But that job ended when we lost our main client and my boss closed up shop, before killing himself, accidentally or not.
During this period of time, LeAnn decided to forego a full time job to focus on raising our kids. She did, however, teach math classes at night at various colleges in the Oklahoma City metro. Being a people person, she was always ready to go, go, go when I got home, while I was ready to relax.
I moved on to a medium-sized law firm in downtown Oklahoma City. It was a good job for the most part, and I made some lifelong friends. We had twenty lawyers at one point, but the firm relied a lot on the oil and gas industry and eventually ran into hard times. I was working downtown at this firm when the Murrah bombing occurred, just a few blocks away. Not long after that, my boss and good friend Doyle Bunch died in a scuba diving accident. The firm began splitting up soon afterward and was never quite the same.
As the kids began getting older and were attending school, LeAnn increased her work load. She continued teaching college math classes, but she eventually took a job at our church, where she helped with adult education and organized various small group studies. I also became involved at church, teaching adult classes and serving in several key positions, including, if you can believe it, deacon! (”What in the world was the staff thinking?” I’m sure you’re asking.)
I took a tumultuous job at the Oklahoma Insurance Department in 1996. A year and a half later, I moved on, accepting a position in 1997 as a Judicial Assistant to Judge Gary Lumpkin at the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals, the same job I have today. There I help determine whether or not criminal defendants have received a fair trial in the state district court system.
While holding down a full time job, I began working on my writing career. I’d been writing poetry for a long time, but became more earnest about it after my sister died in 1992. I wrote more, read more, and began submitting poems here and there. I also became interested in screenplays. I took several classes and read all the right books. My second attempt at a screenplay finished in the top ten percent at the Austin Film Festival one year.
I began writing film reviews for The Norman Transcript in 1996 and have continued to do so ever since, although I’ve slowed down quite a bit recently. My reviews have appeared in numerous publications, and at one point I was writing close to one hundred reviews a year. I’ve also been a freelance contributor to the Oklahoma Gazette, Oklahoma Today, and numerous magazines.
In 2001, at the age of thirty-seven, I found a tiny little lump in the triceps muscle of my right arm. That lump turned out to be a very aggressive and rare type of cancer, and it eventually cost me my right arm in 2004. I chronicled my crazy battle with cancer in a memoir entitled, I Survived Cancer, but Never Won the Tour de France, which was published in 2006. That same year my first book of poems, Like Some First Human Being, was published.
In September of 2007, cancer, which had been out of my life for three years, came roaring back. I was diagnosed with colon cancer that had spread to my, gulp, liver. The outlook was not good. After many rounds of chemo we have been unable to shrink the tumors enough to give me a shot at a possibly life-saving surgery. Cancer has now spread to my lungs, and I’ve been told that my life expectancy is “months” rather than years.
In the midst of these challenges, I’ve continued writing. In the summer of 2008, Antidotes & Home Remedies, my second book of poems, was published. The book is a combination of health related poems and some of my “greatest hits.” I’ve also been working a book of prose, some new poems, and this series.
I’ve spared you some of the gory details, but that’s basically it.
Thankful
I awake to a beautiful February morning. The sun is out and warming up the day. Ice from last week’s sleet storm is slowly melting on my back patio. Spring, a figment of my imagination just one week ago, now seems like it may be strolling our way.
On days like these, I can’t help but smile. Yes, I know, I’m terminally ill. But what does that matter today? Even though the future looks cloudy, I can still pause to be thankful for what I have right now.
So what am I thankful for today?
I’m thankful that we made it through another round of chemo last week. Chemo days are hard on our family, especially my wife, who must play the role of single parent, but we somehow managed once again. And now, a non-chemo week is awaiting with plenty of sun and opportunities to enjoy life.
I’m thankful we survived last week’s ice/sleet storm without any major catastrophes. No splintering trees. No power outages. No car accidents. No slip and falls. It could easily have been otherwise.
I’m thankful for my neighbors, the Hawleys, who brought my family a great meal last Wednesday despite all the ice and despite the fact that they’ve endured another loss in their family. Good neighbors (and friends like the Normiles who brought us a meal today) are such a blessing during hard times.
I’m thankful for my kids. Raising teenagers is far from easy, but these are pretty good days in that regard (knock on wood). Maddye is making plans to leave us soon. She’ll head to Stillwater in the summer for college. I’m proud of her, and I’m thankful for every second I get to spend with her. Ford will play at the Norman Music Festival this summer, and he’s in a good place right now with friends. He’s a good friend to me.
I’m thankful for a letter I received this week concerning this series. I won’t get into it here, but the letter encouraged me tremendously.
I’m thankful for my father-in-law, Terry Sims, who calls us every weekend with an offer to fix whatever has broken in the last week and then, after the call, follows through. That is one of the biggest blessings I can name.
And I’m thankful for three more months of life. (After my trip to Houston two weeks ago, I’m reasonably sure that I have at least that much time.) That’s ninety days of memories. Yes, some of that will include bad chemo days, but during the rest of the time who knows what wonders may come our way?
Chemo Today
I’m sitting in bed, having endured another round of chemo today in Oklahoma City. I’m barely hanging on. I have zero energy, my brain is fogged up (as Ray Davies might say), my stomach is churning, and I’m on the verge of barfing.
But I had a brief moment of semi-okayness, so I checked my email. Some wonderful notes were in there, and they cheered me up, despite how crappy I feel. I heard from two of my best friends, one who was best man in my wedding and another who is on the short list of the kindest, most giving people I know. A family who doesn’t know me, but knows LeAnn, wrote to praise her. A friend from college wrote to encourage me and to tell me how this series had helped her reconnect with someone dear. My sister sent some good news. Someone I don’t know offered a small act of kindness. Someone else wrote about Maddye. And I heard from a writer friend who wrote a moving note about making memories.
Chemo days are not the best ones for making memories. I’m challenged by my own words to remember that life is real and to do your best to make a memory every day.
But I’ve done pretty good with this today. For today my wife drove me through a sleet and ice storm so we could get chemo over with. And today I reminded my son of a song he started the other day, but never finished. He started working on it again and it has great potential. And today I received the notes I’ve mentioned, which were memories for me and hopefully for those who sent them.
The Calm After the Storm
Following our rather stressful trip to M.D. Anderson last week, I’ve spent the last few days in quiet reflection. I began by finishing up the last of four blog entries I’d been writing about my family (please go back and read them if you have the chance). But then I went into contemplative mode, pondering what had just happened.
The news from Houston could have been awful. I shudder to even think about how bad it might have been; it’s so unhealthy to let the mind go there.
But instead, much to my surprise, the news turned out to be pretty good. Although the tumors hadn’t shrunk in the last three months (during which I received five more chemo treatments, a total of twenty-five since this nightmare began), they hadn’t grown either. The treatments I had endured kept the cancer at bay, for a time at least. This can only last for so long, but for now my body is holding its own.
Of course our two-day trip to Houston was much more than just having tests and awaiting results. There were travel arrangements to make (this time we flew), hotels and restaurants from which to choose, and transportation options to consider. The Oklahoman team was there, and we had to coordinate their coverage with an M.D. Anderson publicist. In addition, representatives from the hospital’s survivorship group wanted to meet with us, because their magazine is doing a story on me.
And then there were the complicating stresses. LeAnn spent a lot of her time on the phone attempting to work through numerous crises back home. Maddye, our high school senior who plans on going to Oklahoma State next year, was enrolling in a math class at OU in order to make next year a little easier. My wife wanted so much to be there to help Maddye through that process (you know how difficult finding your way around a college campus can be), but alas she was stuck in Houston with me. Then Maddye got sick. That meant getting medicine to her and finding a way for Ford to get home from school.
This is how it is for LeAnn. When she goes with me to Houston, responsibilities back home are always calling. When she stays home, she can’t help but worry about me, miles away. It’s a lose/lose situation.
So even with good news, it was an exhausting trip, both mentally and physically. I was glad, upon our return, to see the kids, along with our dog Gracie and our fat cat Ginger. I was thrilled to climb into my own bed, turn on the tv, and fall to sleep. I was thankful to wake up to a good cup of coffee and the Today Show.
This was the beginning of the calm after the storm. A time when you quietly consider what has just passed, knowing that you were lucky, knowing that another storm will soon be heading your way.
Ford
Ford was only seven when I was first diagnosed with cancer. At the time he was still involved with sports–soccer, basketball, baseball. But soon after the bad news came our way, Ford picked up a guitar. After that, sports were done. He never looked back.
I’m not saying my illness had anything to do with Ford’s decision to choose music over muscle. But I’m not saying it didn’t either. Ford is a creative soul, that’s for sure, and cancer had little to do with that. But adversity can surely take creativity on great new adventures, and Ford has seen more adversity than most kids I know.
When he was only eight or nine, Ford formed the band Refuje. He began writing songs for the band soon afterward, and he sang and played guitar too. The band often surprised people by their mature sound. Thinking they were hearing a college band, strangers would stop and ask, “How old are those kids?” “Ten,” we’d say, or “eleven,” while watching their jaws drop.
Refuje was together for five years, longer than most bands, and it was an incredible ride. Ford and his three bandmates played some of the state’s best gigs: Dfest, Opening Night, Toby Keith’s, The Opolis, Festival of the Arts, the Norman Music Festival, Midsummer Night’s Fair, etc. They shared the stage with some great bands, and they were on t.v. and radio numerous times. At the peak of their popularity, they were averaging a gig a week and were flown to Hollywood to audition for The Next Great American Band television show. (Thankfully, they didn’t make the show.)
Ever wonder why so many bands break up? There’s a good reason: it’s incredibly hard to keep a band together, something like maintaining four simultaneous marriages. Refuje finally gave up the ghost in July of 2008.
Since that time, Ford has recorded “If I Leave,” his own solo EP (six songs) at Bell Labs Recording Studio in Norman. He had an amazing group of musicians join him on that project, including Allan Vest of the Starlight Mints, Matt Duckworth of Stardeath and White Dwarfs, Dave Spindle of the Rounders, and Trent Bell of the Chainsaw Kittens. Ford wrote the songs, sang the lead vocals, and played guitar on the record, which has been praised by music critics from the Fort Worth Star Telegram, The Oklahoma Gazette, and The Norman Transcript.
These are amazing accomplishments for someone who has yet to turn fifteen. But I think I’m even more amazed at what Ford has done in the last three months, in the time after we were told that I am a terminal case and that there is little or no hope for recovery.
My family was still in a state of shock over that news, which hit in October 2008, when Ford disappeared into his room. This is not uncommon, because Ford requires more than his share of alone time. He heads off regularly to his bedroom to write songs. Writing music seems to be his way of processing life, just as writing poetry is mine.
But on this particular occasion, Ford was “missing from us” for longer than usual–several days in fact. We’d hear him in his room or upstairs strumming the guitar, banging the drums, trying out a new bass line, singing. This is good, I thought. He’s working through these trying times.
On the third day, when I returned home from who knows where, Ford met me at the door. He was a bit perkier than he had been lately, anxious to let me in on some big news.
“Dad,” he said. “I’ve been working on some new songs.”
“Oh really?” I said, as if this was new information.
“Yeah. I’m in a really good writing groove right now. Anyway, I’ve recorded the new ones, and I’ve been working real hard on the mixes.”
Whenever Ford writes a new song (at least one he likes), he immediately records it and saves it to his computer. The recordings used to be guitar and vocals only, but lately he’d been using his computer to do full mixes of some of his favorites. The songs would include backing vocals, a cool bass line, a catchy drum beat, and at times, keyboards, harmonica, synthesizer, or tambourine. Mixing (that is, blending the vocals and instruments so they sound the best) is difficult work, but Ford had been getting better at it lately.
“After that, I put the new songs and a few of my best mixes of other songs and burned them on to a CD, seven altogether. Want to go here them?”
“Sure,” I said. This is our favorite and most regular father/son activity. Ford records a new song, burns it onto a CD, then we grab a Pepsi and drive around town, listening to his latest creation. I’m always amazed when I hear the birth of a new song.
As I listened to Ford’s first homemade CD, which he calls “Night Mumbling,” I had to fight to keep myself composed. Many of the songs had lyrics, a line or two here or there, that were clearly about our family’s crappy situation. (”forget all of my troubles now,” “one by one you know we’re gonna die,” “the things I feel inside won’t go away.”) Overall, the songs weren’t “about me.” Rather, they were about living a stressful, complicated life, which for Ford includes having a very sick father.
The songs were catchy. The lyrics were good. The instruments, which were all performed by Ford, sounded great. And the mixes were much better than Ford have ever done before. I told him I loved it.
“I was thinking… maybe I could get some blank CD sleeves and markers and make a cover and back for the CD. Then I could sell ‘em for something like, uh, five bucks. What do you think?”
“Sounds like a great idea to me,” I said.
“Do you think you could sell any?” he asked.
“Probably,” I said. “I know I’d buy one.”
Ford and LeAnn went that night and bought all the supplies, and by morning I had the first three copies of “Night Mumbling” in my hand. Each had been elaborately decorated with Ford’s own artwork. It took him about thirty minutes to create each one. I headed off to work that day, promising Ford I would do my best to sell the CDs.
I met with two friends that day, and each of them asked me if there was anything they could do for my family.
“Yes,” I said. “How would you like to make a young boy happy?”
I proceeded to tell them the story of how Ford had thrown positive energy at our family’s grief by using his pain to create a brand new CD. I told them how much work he’d put into it, not the least of which was the art he’d painstakingly drawn by hand.
One of my friends bought four copies. The other bought two.
“What should we do with it?” they asked.
“Listen to it, or pass it along to someone you know who likes indie rock. Or you might just put one in the safety box, because if Ford ever ‘makes it’ in music, these will be worth a fortune.”
When I got home that night, Ford happened to be out front, taking out the trash as per his mother’s directive. His demeanor was noticeably sulky, as if he had a black cloud overhead, following him everywhere.
“Hey, I sold six CDs today,” I announced.
“Cool,” he said in a rather unimpressed way. He thought I was talking about his studio EP, “If I Leave,” not his new creation. (Proceeds from his studio EP went into the bank to pay LeAnn and I back for the money we’d sunk into that project. So Ford rarely got excited about those sales.)
“Did you sell any copies of my homemade CD?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said. “Six.” Then I handed him thirty bucks.
He seemed confused. “But I only gave you three,” he reminded me.
“Yes,” I said. ”So you need to go make me three more right away.”
At that moment a smile broke across Ford’s face that I’ll never forget. It was a smile that seemed much lighter than his normal smile, as though some heavy burden had been lifted from his shoulders. It was the smile of an artist, one who suddenly realizes that his hard work might actually payoff or that someone out there believes he has something worthwhile to offer.
LeAnn
I met my wife LeAnn while we were attending college at Oklahoma State University. She was a sophomore, and I was a junior. We had both signed up to be part of Varsity Review, which is a singing and dancing show, and her sorority (Chi Omega) was paired up with my fraternity (Delta Tau Delta). I was there to meet girls, and she was there, I assume, to meet guys, bond with girls in her house, and have fun.
I asked her out a couple of months later when the opportunity arose. She hesitated at first (her friends said I “wasn’t her type”), but she eventually agreed. Our first date was for coffee in March of 1985, almost twenty-four years ago. We began dating steadily a few months later. During my senior year, we were inseparable.
Upon completing my degree, I was accepted into law school at the University of Oklahoma. LeAnn still had one year to go. So I headed off to Norman, while she stayed behind in Stillwater. This “long-distance” relationship (a one hour and fifteen minute drive) was tough, but it only lasted one semester. I asked her to marry me during Christmas break, December, 1986, and, incredibly, she said yes.
LeAnn joined me in Norman after Christmas. She completed her degree by doing her student teaching at Norman High. That semester she lived in an apartment with our friends Polly and Shellie. We married in the summer, on July 25, 1987, and have lived in Norman ever since. I was twenty three years old at the time, and LeAnn was twenty-two.
We spent the remainder of our twenties like most other young marrieds do: getting used to married life; completing our education (I received my law degree in 1989, while LeAnn obtained her Master’s Degree in Mathematics at OU that same year, earning straight A’s); scrambling to find jobs; getting established in our community; and starting a family. Our daughter Maddye was born in 1991, and Ford was born three years later, in 1994.
As we hit our thirties, LeAnn and I were still living a fairly normal life. It was a crazy time, of course, as we were busy raising kids while balancing marriage, work, friendships, church, and our personal interests. I was working as a lawyer at various places and attempting to establish myself as a writer. LeAnn was multitasking, as wives/mothers tend to do. In addition to her mom responsibilities and volunteer duties, she taught night classes at several different colleges. And she worked for a time at a church, organizing women’s book studies.
But while we were in our middle thirties, during the hustle and bustle of life, cancer came and knocked on our door. I was thirty-seven years old. LeAnn was only thirty-six, which is way too young to be suddenly thrust into a new role, the wife of a seriously ill husband.
I have described those early years and how they affected me in my memoir, I Survived Cancer, but Never Won the Tour de France. But as with practically everyone who steps into the unenviable role of caretaker, LeAnn’s story is lesser known.
It would be nearly impossible for me to tell you that story. I’m too close to it, to be honest, and I’m pretty sure LeAnn wouldn’t want me to anyway. But I can tell you this: it’s as heroic as any story I know, much more so than mine.
I can give you a brief sketch of LeAnn, however. That is, I can tell you about some of her best qualities and a few of her primary interests, the stuff that helps make her the incredible person she is.
In addition to being easy on the eyes, LeAnn is smart. She’s hardworking and tough. She’s adventurous and fun. She’s generous and kind-hearted. She loves people deeply. She’s a devoted wife and a wonderful mom. She’s my best friend and has been for nearly a quarter of a century. I don’t know who or where I would be without her.
LeAnn enjoys book clubs, for she reads dozens of books each year. She’s genuinely interested in other cultures. She’s a certified scuba diver and loves to go diving in Mexico. She’s the Math Counts coach at her middle school, and her team is one of the best in the state. She’s also a runner, having completed her first half marathon last year.
And as for the cancer years, those years that have stretched from her mid-thirties to the age of forty-three, well, what can I say? She’s been severely tested, that’s for sure. No one steps into a marriage expecting to deal with the kinds of issues LeAnn has had to deal with at such a young age. In addition to all the craziness that comes with being a mother, teacher, friend, and human being with dreams of her own, LeAnn has had to drop everything in her life, time after time, in order to help me.
It’s a lonely, thankless job, being the “caretaker,” a job that’s so big and exhausting and overlooked that it’s nearly impossible to describe it in words. The best I can do is to give you a sense of it from a poem I wrote in 2007.
The Caretaker
If I told you how many needles
they’ve stuck in me
in the name of making me well
you’d probably never believe it.
If I told you of the drugs
I’ve ingested or the poisons
they’ve pumped through my veins,
you’d wonder if it was possible.
If I told you of the radiation
that had seeped through my body,
via x-rays, scans and “therapies,”
you’d call me a monster.
If I told you of the surgeries
I’ve endured and the scars I wear,
you might question God
or, more likely, your faith.
If I detailed the vomiting, the bills,
and how often I’ve been told,
“I’m sorry, it’s cancer,”
you’d call me a hopeless cause.
If I told you of the conversations
I’ve had with my wife, my kids,
my parents, family and friends,
you’d walk away.
If I told you these things,
if I counted them all up
and then disclosed the final tally
you’d give me up
because life wouldn’t make sense anymore.
So I’ll keep all the counting to myself,
because I need you to hang in there
with me, playing that major
or minor role in the screenplay.
But if you wanted to know more,
if you somehow convinced me
to reveal the things I’ve seen,
to divulge those horrible numbers,
and then if you needed confirmation,
you could fact-check with my wife,
who witnessed and endured
these same things.
She brought the cold rags
for my forehead, the pans
to throw up in, the pills
I was to take with my meals.
She bandaged my wounds,
emptied my drains,
made impossible phone calls
and arrangements for the kids.
She cried over the bills,
set up impractical payment plans,
drove me to my appointments
and slept by my hospital bed.
Ask her. She’ll tell you.
She was the one who remained
ever-so-patient when people asked,
“So how’s Jim?”
Family
Two years ago my memoir, I Survived Cancer, but Never Won the Tour de France, was first published.
In the book, which is kind of a common man’s introduction/guide to the absolute craziness that is cancer, I included poems between each chapter. The poems were written during the thick of the battle. One of those poems is a favorite of mine, but it is also one of my most difficult. During the few times I have tried to read it out loud to audiences, I have choked up every time.
Anyway, for what it’s worth, here it is.
family
four will be
three
three will be
two
two will be
one
three bury
one
two bury
two
one buries
three
cruel world where
four
can’t just be
four
and always be
four
That’s a pretty painful poem, because almost all of us have experienced it in some way, and all of us will experience it eventually. That is, the loss of someone in our immediate family. My family, growing up, consisted of six of us: dad, mom, my three sisters, and me. We lost my sister Karyn to a car accident at the age of twenty. So six has become five. If I leave, five will become four.
My other family (the one in which I’m the husband and father) consists of four people: my wife LeAnn, my seventeen year old daughter Maddye, and my fourteen year old son Ford. I wrote the poem “family” while thinking of them, along with my own mortality and the loss of my sister.
It is sad when one of us has to leave. But it may be even sadder for those left behind, especially for that last person, the one who buries all the rest of his or her family.
Although this “Life is Real” series has primarily been about me up to this point, I want you to know that there are three others who are just as much a part of the story as I am. They are, in fact, up to their necks in it. Those people are, of course, LeAnn, Maddye, and Ford. They are my inner circle, the three people I love the most in the world.
Over the next week, I will be writing a tribute to each of them. I want to show you a glimpse of the incredible people that they are. And I want you to know that they too are doing their best to find hope and meaning and guidance during these difficult days.
A New Calendar
I bought a new calendar last week, the 2009 month at a glance version. I prefer this version because I’m a month at a glance type of guy. I tend to get so focused on the tasks staring me directly in the face that I need a bigger picture to remind me visually of the road ahead. Even a week at a glance won’t do the trick.
Anyway, as I open the new calendar, I admit having mixed feelings, most of them falling on the negative side. I can’t help but wonder if there’s a particular day with my name on it, the day my body gives up what has been, I think, a good fight. There’s a time and a place for every purpose under heaven, it has been said, so I find myself thinking about certain months and seasons. Will I see another spring or summer? Will I make it past April to see Maddye’s 18th birthday or to May to see her graduate high school?
Plus, the new calendar is too open-ended. If I were to show you my last calendar, you’d see my chicken-scratch written all over it–notations about upcoming trips to Houston, poetry readings, writing deadlines, lunch and breakfast meetings, concerts by my son, vacations, etc. But the new calendar is strangely free of writing. Why? Well, because of the holidays and uncertainties regarding my health, I’ve done very little planning beyond this point. For two months now I’ve been saying, “I’ll decide that after the holidays.” So guess what? As of today, the holidays have officially ended.
On the other hand, in some ways I’m glad to say goodbye to the old calendar, for I can’t in all honesty say I’m sorry to see 2008 go. I’ve made it this far, which is good, but 2008 was in so many ways an awful year. Gas prices soared. Our economy tanked. Home values plunged. Many people lost their life savings due to banking blunders and sheer greed. My family was hit by bad news numerous times.
Yes, 2008 was tough, but it wasn’t all bad. Our country had an incredible presidential election, one that gives me hope. I celebrated my 21st wedding anniversary and published a new collection of poems. LeAnn and I went on some incredible vacations with friends and family. Ford finished a terrific six-song CD and played for his third time at Opening Night. Maddye became a high school senior. I gave two dozen public readings, saw some great plays and shows (Spamalot, Jersey Boys, Billy Elliot, Tom Waits, Beatles Love, and Jerry Seinfeld), read some great books (The Brothers Karamazov, Death Be Not Proud), and even saw a few good films (Frost/Nixon, Doubt, Slumdog Millionaire). I deepened old friendships and made some new ones. Plus we embarked on this series, with hopes that it would be helpful to others.
So I close the 2008 calendar and open the new one with relief and regret. Thank you for your prayers and may you all have a happy new year.
Christmas Thoughts
Here’s a question I get fairly often: Does it make you sad when a holiday (like Christmas) is over, because it might be your last?The answer is yes, it’s inevitable for the holidays to take on a bittersweet edge. I can’t help but think back upon all the great Christmases I’ve had. I remember how my sisters and I would stay up all night waiting for Santa to come. I remember getting presents like a new bicycle and a racecar track. I remember driving in the early morning to Tahlequah, where my extended family gathered to open presents. I remember trying to pick out the right gift for my wife. And I remember the days, not-so-long-ago, when my kids were little, how they’d walk into the living room with wonder in their eyes as they saw the stockings and presents waiting.
I love Christmas, so it hurts, terribly, to think this could be it.
But we cannot dwell on such things. For when we do, we trade away the potential for joy. The sadness is always there, waiting to sweep me away if I would allow it. Today it is Christmas. Tomorrow it will be something else.
Yes, trying times bring about inevitable moments of sadness. So when they do, we should take a little time to let that grief out in some positive way. And then we must put it away and move on.
As I’ve told my friends and family, now’s not the time for being sad. That time may be coming, but today isn’t it. Today, I’m alive and getting the wonderful gift of spending an entire day with my family.
Who knows what will happen down the road?
