The first close friendship I ever had began when I was fifteen years old. Chuck
and I went through high school and college together, we double-dated together
(and got rejected together); we were confidants and counselors and chums through
every important event of life.
Several years ago Chuck called to tell me he had cancer. The initial prognosis
was very good, although he did have to undergo difficult treatment. In typical
fashion Chuck shaved his head before the chemotherapy began, covered it with
glue, sprinkled it with gold glitter, and walked around the house in his
underwear, calling himself "Chemo-Man."
Chuck and I lived more than two thousand miles apart at this time, but we talked
every Saturday morning during the time he was undergoing treatment. The
chemotherapy destroyed his appetite; he was unable to keep food down; he became
so gaunt and emaciated that he was almost unrecognizable even to his children.
At one point an infection set in, and his condition was briefly touch-and-go
because the chemotherapy had so weakened his immune system. But Chuck pulled
through, and eventually he completed treatment. Chemo-Man had prevailed.
A month later, Chuck had his first posttreatment checkup. He called me that
night: The cancer was back, the doctor told him, at levels as high as they had
been before treatment. Being a doctor himself, he knew that the return of the
cancer this strongly, this quickly, meant that he was going to die. It was a
death sentence.
I was numb. When I went to bed that night, I couldn't even pray. "It's some
mistake," I protested. "They'll find out it's okay." I marveled at how quickly
denial sets in.
At 6:30 the next morning, Chuck called again. "You won't believe this," he said.
Someone in the lab had mistakenly switched his results with those of another
patient, who had not yet even been through treatment. It turned out that Chuck's
cancer was gone and has not reappeared, these many years later.
"I'm going to live, " my friend said. "I'm going to see my kids grow up. I'm
going to grow old with my wife. I'm going to live." For a few, moments we just
wept on the phone like a couple of characters out of a Hallmark commercial.
Chuck told me he was filled with a gratitude he had never known. He couldn't
stop touching his kids or hugging his wife. Things that had bothered him before
faded into utter insignificance. He was going to live-and suddenly he did not
just know intellectually but actually experienced the truth that life is a gift.
We don't earn it, can't control it, can't take a moment of it for granted. Every
tick of the clock is a gift from God. Every day is a Dee Dah Day.
Ortberg, John. Life You've Always Wanted. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002, p.
64-65.
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