“I’m afraid, Mom. It’s going to be really loud, isn’t it?” Chase, cuddled on the couch this chill December afternoon, voices his worries…
Three quarters of a century ago today, terrible things happened half a world away and boats sank and people died and the country went to war again. December 7.
Six years ago, late in the evening, as the sounds of the Christmas music barely faded in the halls of the church, I rushed to the hospital and Aidan was born and there was joy and a new baby son. December 7.
And now, we sit on the couch under the shadow of the almost-winter clouds and there’s another shadow too. Tomorrow comes the MRI and we sit and talk because today, on December 7 – day of all sorts of remembrance – we sit and look ahead and not back because tomorrow they’ll peer inside his white head again and see if there’s been any change in six weeks.
It’s poetic and strange how life weaves the beauty and pain in every memory of each moment and they’re all mixed together in a life symphony that requires unending grace.
Chase is scared and rightfully so. Tomorrow will mark his first “awake” MRI in two years. It’ll be mercifully short, but for 5-10 minutes, he will have to face one of his worst fears. The noise. It will surround him and he knows it and he’s frightened. He can’t escape it and this child who is never still must lay perfectly quiet in his terror for 5-10 minutes or an eternity – whichever comes first – yet another time in his little cancer life when the only way out is through. And how our hearts wish to cover him from this, but we cannot. So, through it, he goes. And he says “Jesus will be with me…and Daddy too.”
As you think of Chase tonight and tomorrow, will you please pray for him? Pray for peace to surround him as he goes into this very hard place and does this very hard thing? …and then, pray for us as our challenge comes moments after the MRI when we speak and decide over the pictures with his neurosurgeon.
Moment by moment…
“You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.” Isaiah 26:3
Last year and this year too, we take a moment to reflect…
This Wednesday in 2012, Chase was deep into radiation in addition to his chemo therapy and was staying in the hospital. He was weak and his counts were very low, but he was stable and so, late in the afternoon of this Wednesday, I held his weak and white body by the window and stared out at the lake, shielding his face – his eyelids covered in scabs from where daily anesthesia tape had ripped the tender skin – and prayed that they would let us go home for Thanksgiving. And then Dr. Goldman entered the room (as only he can enter a room) and told us to go. And we went.
Two years later, we are thankful for so many things and our darling Chase is still with us to celebrate.
Giving thanks… Moment by moment.
“My heart is filled with thankfulness To Him who walks beside; Who floods my weaknesses with strength And causes fears to fly; Whose ev’ry promise is enough For ev’ry step I take, Sustaining me with arms of love And crowning me with grace.” [Getty, Townend]
Most of you know about Chase’s wonderful wish: his “park” in the back yard. However, our connection to Make A Wish led to one other amazing thing…a thing we didn’t even know to wish for, but a thing that can only be described as an amazing dream. Chase was invited to come to the Macy’s on State Street, to the famed Walnut Room, and help light the three-story tree to kick off the holiday season in the store and start Macy’s “Believe” campaign. We would find out less than 24 hours before this occurred that he would be alongside Ryan Seacrest and American Idol winner Lee Dewyze.
How I wish that each of you could have been there with us and experienced this day!
The great tree
Being ushered past long lines to our complimentary tables (I mean, like that isn’t a dream in and of itself!)…
Meeting staff, servers, people in marketing, store managers, corporate leaders: all so passionate about what they do in the world of Macy’s and how Macy’s affects the world…
Writing letters to Santa and mailing them with Lee Dewyze…
Right before the 12 high-fives… [credit: Ryan Blackburn, Make A Wish]
Watching Lee be super cool as Chase wanted to give him twelve high-fives one after the other… (That’s not an exaggeration. We counted.)
Having the Macy’s photographer take pictures of our family in front of the great tree and Karsten (in an elf’s hat, no less) sulking on the floor and refusing to smile…
How we roll when it comes to family pictures
Being told that Ryan Seacrest wanted to meet our family before the tree-lighting ceremony…
Being ushered into a media-filled room waiting to hear from Ryan Seacrest and watching him hunker down and focus on Chase…
[photo credit: Ryan Blackburn, Make A Wish]
Hearing Chase ask Ryan (there to launch a very classy line of menswear) if he liked his dirty, beat-up, favorite Spider-Man shoes…and hearing Ryan answer “Yes, I do!”…
Having to utter the phrase “Boys, remember that time when I told you that we don’t wrestle in front of Ryan Seacrest?”…
“Mom, I just ate Olaf’s head!”
Our amazing server, Stephanie, who put up with our crazy table full of small children and saw to our every need…
Aidan falling off his dining chair…(more than once)
The beautiful store manager, Kim, who spoke of children like Chase with tears in her eyes…
Seeing people stacked several deep, lining the balconies that look down into the Walnut Room…and the bank of cameras and media personnel and very bright lights down in front…waiting…
Chase’s view of the room
Hearing the introductions from stage: “…Ryan Seacrest, American Idol winner, Lee Dewyze, and our special celebrity… Chase Ewoldt!”…and knowing they honored his fight with their words…
Listening to Lee dedicate his song to children like Chase and then sing the words: “I can’t stand up on my own don’t need to stand alone lift me up so I can see the light…Don’t be afraid…”…
Seeing our other children being invited on stage and knowing that their own often difficult lives as the siblings of a fighter were being honored…
This IS my happy face
Hearing Bob and myself being invited as well and not accepting as our fourth child, aka: “the grumpy elf”, refused to go anywhere near a stage…
Watching Ryan call “Five… Four… Three… Two…” and hearing the crowd chant the count, getting louder and louder with him…
Watching my children, surrounded by special people and so much love, start to depress the giant novelty tree-lighting button right around “Two…”…because it was too hard to wait…
Hearing Ryan’s voice call “One!” as the room transformed and the light shot up to the ceiling, three stories above us…
The cheering of the crowd…
Aidan running over to me with the guitar pick from Lee’s performance and his voice saying “Mom! Look what I got from my new friend!”…
Watching Ryan lift Chase to stand on the button (the size of a small column) and Chase’s arms going into the air, triumphant, as he watched the lights and heard the sounds… He’d pushed the button and he knew it. And the ceiling said “Believe”.
[photo credit: Alyssa Horrall, Macy’s]
A truly precious day.
Moment by moment.
~Our family’s heartfelt thanks to Dana Kuhman Whitty, Ryan Blackburn and every beautiful soul at Make A Wish, Alyssa Horrall, Kim Groth, Martine Reardon and the entire Macy’s team who made us feel like cherished family, the beautiful Starr Royal-Burrell of Build-A-Bear who invited our children to come build bears (or dogs, or Olaf the snowman), the incomparable Ryan Seacrest and the Ryan Seacrest Foundation, and the wonderfully talented Lee Dewyze and his high-five skills.~
Note: We eagerly await (and look forward to sharing with you!) the official photographs from Macy’s at a later date…please, stay tuned.
We took the scarf off and he saw for the first time…
Wednesday
Chase crouched and fingered the mulch in the yard, “Mom, I know what my surprise is… You’re going to put a park in the yard. I know because parks have cheese like this.” Sometimes when Chase can’t think of a word like “mulch”, he says words like “cheese”. And some days, he’s just too smart for his own good.
Saturday
The man said that some installations go quickly and others don’t. Seven hours after the start, right before the sun went down, we walked Chase outside with one of my scarves tied around his eyes and revealed his special surprise… a huge play set with a fort. A big smile crossed his face and he sighed “A park…”, and then, “Can I play on it?”
Just like that.
Because, why wouldn’t we put a park in the back yard for him? He smiled as if he’d known all along. And then he and his siblings explored every aspect until it was too dark to see…the swings, the tornado slide, the fort, the climbing wall, the place where the sand will be delivered next week… Their giggles were contagious and the wonder in their eyes…the wonder that this was their own, forever, drew us in like warmth in a chill.
So thankful for all our Make A Wish friends and helpers who put together this moment of joy for Chase and our whole family.
I got a call from the freight company delivering the wish earlier today. They said the wish was on a huge tractor trailer and that the driver most likely wouldn’t be able to make it down our narrow street. They said that I’d receive a call to reschedule delivery on a different day when they could put it on a smaller truck.
Around 2:30 this afternoon, I heard the sound of a truck outside the house and peered out the window to see a MASSIVE semi parked in front of the house! The driver got out of the cab and told me that when he’d read the shipping manifest and seen that this was for Make A Wish, he knew he had to try and get down our street. Can you believe that?
Look at the size of this truck! Can you see Aidan standing at the back?
The wish was so large that he couldn’t use the regular unloading equipment and so he called someone else (who works for the corporate office of the freight company) to come help him and the two gentlemen made about 5 trips unloading all the supplies for the wish from the truck into our garage.
I wasn’t kidding when I said that you meet amazing people!
Also, this kind of craziness and waiting is so much more fun than waiting for a delayed operating room…
Installation is scheduled for tomorrow!
-MbM-
Stacy and Chris (the amazing driver) our angels from Old Dominion Freight Lines
