Thursday, July 18, 2013

A teenager's story of life, death and hope

Here’s a story about a girl I knew briefly, and who has been on my mind this week. She lived at the intersection of faith and life.
The first time I saw a teenager I’ll call Roxie, she was curled up in a bed at Children’s Mercy Hospital, crying in pain, as her mother sat helplessly by her side.

The next time I saw Roxie was at her house about a year later. She was twirling a pretty black dress in front of me, the dress she planned to wear to her senior prom. Then she showed me the pair of sneakers she was going to wear with the dress. Roxie wasn’t making a fashion statement. She was making a cancer statement. Cancer surgery had left behind a long jagged scar the length of her leg. The cancer that continued to lurk in her bones made it difficult to walk at times, and impossible to walk in a pair of stylish high heels.
Nevertheless, this was going to be her night. A boy she called her best friend, who planned to continue sticking by her as she battled a killer, was her date. She hoped to dance at least one dance with him, and maybe even mingle with a few of her classmates. Roxie said that she had missed so much school the past couple of years that she had lost touch with classmates. Not just in a physical sense, but in an emotional sense. Roxie said it was hard to relate with her peers whose interests centered on what makeup to wear, what shoes to buy, how to style their hair, with which purse to accessorize.
Her priorities had been drastically and forcefully rearranged with the diagnosis of bone cancer. Her main concern, she said, was how her mother and brother would fare, if she were to die today, tomorrow, next year. The family had already been through a tragedy when her father died suddenly a few years prior. Roxie was concerned that they would completely fall apart if she were to lose her battle with cancer. Her other concern was for the upcoming summer. She really wanted to go to camp again, the camp for children with cancer, not as a camper but as a counselor. She wanted to give back some of the joy she had received from her past experiences at the camp. But while she was planning her immediate future, she was also planning her funeral.
Roxie had a strong faith. She said that’s what got her through the bad days, and it’s what she focused on when she had good days. She gave the teacher who taught sick kids at the hospital a hand-printed banner that said, “Courage is the art of being the only one to know you’re scared to death.”
My faith was somewhat tenuous at that time. I touched base with God on Sundays, even taught Sunday School. But I didn’t necessarily live my faith. Still, I prayed on Roxie’s behalf. I told God that this was a girl who could be a strong witness for him, were she to live. I pleaded for her, and for her family. And I felt a sense of peace as I prayed.
Then Roxie died. Her death left me with a lot of mixed emotions. Why did someone so young, and with such a strong faith, have to die? How would her brother and mother be able to deal with this pain? Why is life so horribly unfair?
I was also confused about the sense of peace I had felt, thinking it meant that Roxie would survive. She could have touched so many lives, and taught others about God, had she only had the chance, couldn’t she? Wasn’t that worth a miracle?
And yet, maybe even today Roxie is touching lives, witnessing for God. Maybe each time I or someone else tells her story, at least one more heart is touched with the love that is God. Therein lies hope. And while I will never understand tragic death, I know that we can eventually move through tragedy into light. Maybe I'll get a little more understanding when I meet next week with a woman whose son died. She said she has something about hope to share. And I'll in turn share her story in this space.

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If you have a story idea, please send it to sherriarmel@holycross-elca.org.