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May 2008 Issue
By Lori Nawyn
Since last December, I have celebrated the seventeenth day of each month with gusto. It is a time to remember, reflect, and, most importantly, enjoy life’s journey to the fullest. It is my Stacy Day.
The day before Thanksgiving, my friend, Stacy Eyre, discovered she had only a few weeks to live. She wanted to see another Christmas with her children but the leukemia which had wreaked havoc with her body for four years refused to grant her wish. After the initial diagnosis, chemo, various drugs, and a bone marrow transplant bought time. Then, as suddenly as it appeared, the disease took full control. No option remained but death.
I remember the surreal setting in the days preceding Stacy’s passing: kids ran in and out of the house, the family dog barked in the backyard, TVs and stereos blared in competition in various rooms in the house. Play Station games were underway in the family room beneath the second story master bedroom. Basketball shorts required a run through the washer and dryer before the big game. There were backpacks, tennis shoes, and homework papers lost that needed to be found. Such was life in a family with three teenagers and an active nine-year-old who were so accustomed to their mother being ill that life and death danced an awkward Tango day by too-short day.
Amid the chaos, Stacy sat propped on her bed, a captain attempting to ensure the hatches were battened and all hands were accounted for as the ship steered headlong into an unavoidable storm of anguish. “Don’t forget that note to your teacher! Did someone go to the store? Is the dryer still on?” Now and then, she slumped back onto her pillows. Exhaustion painted her delicate features, tears moistened her eyes. “They say I have only two weeks to live. Two weeks! I…I don’t want to die. I want to be with my kids.”
“It’s going to be okay,” I tried to console, though at the time, I wasn’t sure how it ever would be. We both knew she would one day be reunited with her family but in the interim how could things be “okay” for four children who would shortly watch their mother die in her own bed?
Still, I smiled and put on a brave face, at least when she was looking. Soon Stacy would square her shoulders and resume her sentinel post; devoted mother, stalwart friend, daughter of God endeavoring to endure to the end with faithful determination.
One afternoon as she barked orders to the kids, we (three of her closest friends and her teenage daughter) sat huddled with her on the bed. “I like that one, except for the neckline,” she said. We were picking out a new temple dress for her burial.
“Mom, don’t worry. I’ll go to Ogden and find another one.” Her daughter had already carted one home that Stacy didn’t quite like.
“We’ll just find one I like on the internet.”
“No, mom, really. I’ll take this one back and get another one. Just tell me what you want.”
“Well, I like the neck on this but…”
“How about a two-piece set?” Someone suggested.
“Yes,” said Stacey thoughtfully, “I think I’d like a two-piece set, with a skirt.”
A two-piece set? Now we were splitting hairs! I looked at everyone involved in the exchange in amazement. Didn’t anyone understand the ship was going down? Woman falling overboard — sound the alarm! We weren’t talking prom dress. How dare things be so casual when the perils of death surged so near? I bit my lip. Emotion churned in my stomach like an angry whirlpool, sucking me downward.
A short while later, everyone departed. Stacy’s eyes began to flutter shut. Suddenly, she sat bolt upright and struggled to reach the side of the bed.
“What’s wrong? What is it? Let me help you.”
She pushed aside my hand and struggled to the master bath, unassisted. “I remembered that you like this Bath and Body lotion…”
I couldn’t believe it. She lowered herself to the floor and sat pawing through the underside of the vanity in search of a bottle of lotion!
“Here,” she shoved a green bottle in my direction, then a blue. “Take this one, too. I know they’re your favorites.”
I swallowed, hard. We hadn’t talked about lotion for well over a year yet she remembered my preferences. And, despite her own suffering, it was important to her to continue to nurture our friendship and let me know I was valued, just as she had always done.
All at once the woman who had grown to be my hero through chemo, and a gastrointestinal blockage that nearly killed her, losing her hair, and coming back repeatedly from the brink of death during the harrowing course of both disease and treatment, cemented something in my thick head: whether you’re living or dying, life is what you make of it. I returned her smile and accepted the lotion. She died four days later.
This past March 17 – the three month anniversary of Stacy’s death — I joined those around me in celebrating St. Patrick’s day, my oldest daughter’s birthday, and Stacy Day. I laughed out loud, ate lots of pasta, and gave lots of hugs. I looked at each member of my family. Some were headed for stormy seas, some were swamped and didn’t even know it yet. Once, I would have sounded a shrill SOS and darted below deck. No more. Rain or shine, I wanted to stand at the helm for as long as I was allowed, enjoying the wonderful journey called life.
