One Lousy Friday Before Easter

What sense would it make to take Marilyn away from her boys, especially from Chris, who benefitted so much more from her presence than would an average child? What kind of cosmic logic would there be in ending the blooming relationship developing between a committed teacher and her new junior high students? Marilyn showed signs of being one of those teachers who have a positive impact on the lives of countless students, about whom students talk positively, even in adulthood. How could one make sense of removing her from this picture? When Marilyn went into the hospital, her students began flooding her with cards, calls and visits. Her room was filled constantly with people laughing, at least for the first few weeks. Then chemotherapy started. Quickly, it was clear that the cancer had progressed much farther than any of us realized. I never heard Marilyn’s personal conversations with her doctor. However, I spent several nights in a chair in a corner of her room and did hear bits of their interactions. I came away believing there was time to deal with her illness and that her early rounds of chemo wouldn’t be that debilitating. But they were. As the first rounds of chemo began, I took Marilyn’s two youngest boys, Patrick and John, on a tour of an air and space museum in a nearby city. I could tell that they needed to get their minds off the problems they were facing. When we left, Marilyn was happy and joking, admonishing the boys to be “good.” When we returned, the change was alarming. Marilyn looked exhausted. Her usually thick hair was thinning, her mouth was sore, and her speech was slow and forced. There was little of the old spark in her eyes. She worked hard to keep her usual upbeat spirit and tried to tease Patrick about how sharp he looked in some new school clothing. I stayed a couple more nights in Marilyn’s hospital room. The first night she could respond to me and we talked briefly. I mentioned to her that Easter weekend was approaching. She responded, “We had some great Easters, didn’t we?” I could tell she was remembering Easters of our childhood. Our mother loved Easter. Mom would start planning days in advance, and on Easter Sunday would begin very early waking the girls, Marilyn and our second-born sister Susan, to cover them in petticoats, lacey dresses, patent leather shoes and purses, and sometimes even hats and gloves. I got off easy with common boys styles of the day, but I resented the ties, sometimes clip-on bow ties, that were mandatory on Easter. We would all have to sit, supposedly quietly, in our Easter Sunday best, while Mom and Dad got ready for Church. “Those were good days,” she said. “You know what I think is happening here?” I said emphatically, almost shouting. I surprised myself with this. “I believe God is going to raise you up for Easter. Think what a testimony that will be to those kids in Claremore when you get healed at Easter.” Marilyn smiled up at me. “That’s what I’ve been counting on,” she said. I could tell that she had been thinking about this too. I prayed with her. She perked up noticeably, but that night was a rough one. The next day, Wednesday, April 11, Marilyn was drugged to the point that she couldn’t communicate, though I thought I felt her squeeze my hand when I told her I was driving back home to take care of some pressing business. I told her I would return before Easter. Marilyn’s husband, Wil LaPointe, assured me that in his conversations with the doctors, the physicians didn’t think there was any reason Marilyn’s condition would change over the next couple of days. I prayed almost continuously on my way back to Kansas City. I concentrated on my sister and her health. I prayed especially for her healing and complete renewal. After about an hour of driving and praying into the four-hour trip I felt a kind of deep peace come over me. “This is all going to work out okay,” I thought. I was almost jubilant by the time I reached my house on the Kansas side of the KC metro area. I had been in Tulsa or traveling with the boys for several days and there were a number of unfinished projects waiting for me. It seemed to help to work, so I started in. I stayed busy and forgot about Marilyn’s illness for a time. Then Good Friday rolled around. Good Friday, the day Christians commemorate Jesus Christ’s death on the Cross, the culmination of Holy Week. It is followed two days later by Easter Sunday and together those two days represent to Christians the act that brought salvation and healing to a dying world. I had high expectations for that approaching Sunday. I intentionally overslept that morning and was still drinking coffee when the call came. It was Marilyn’s husband Wil. I’m sure the reader knows what happened next, so more for my benefit than for the reader’s I won’t belabor this. It was a cosmic gut punch that took my breath away. I fell to my knees in the living room. Not to pray, just to try to get my wits back. If I allow myself, I can conjure up that feeling even now, more than a decade later.