“I don’t feel like I’m dying,” she tells me. “I’m at peace with this.”
June is 81, and the doctors tell her she has pancreatic cancer. She was diagnosed something over a year ago and the cancer cells have moved from her pancreas to her arteries to her lungs. She has a pretty aggressive chemo treatment – 6 hours in the hospital, every other week for six months. This new regimen is the fifth such treatment in her battle.
And it is a battle. Her feet hurt, her arms tire, her back aches. Fatigue is a constant problem for her, the hardest symptom for a woman used to keeping up with women half her age or younger. But June hasn’t given in yet, or given up.
She’s sitting at her kitchen table with her husband of 61 years, Al. It’s a good Saturday morning. No pain, no fatigue yet. The remains of breakfast (blueberry and banana nut muffins) sit in pans on the table. A half-full blue ceramic coffee mug sits next to her Bible.
“‘Do not worry about your life’,” she quotes to me. “‘Or about what you will eat or drink, or about your body’. That’s my favorite verse now. I’m still worry-free and depression-free.”
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June was a high school teacher, once. She did English, journalism, Spanish, even art and math one particularly interesting semester. She enjoyed it. She taught young adults about grammar and Shakespeare and how boys should treat girls and how (and why) to be polite to others. Preparing other people’s children for lives of their own.
Al and June had their own kids, who grew and were taught similar lessons. How to cook. How to ride horses. How to drive a stick shift (in a pasture, of course). Later, June retired from the classroom and her husband left coaching football and they started a small family business. They never made a lot of money at it, but they made a good life. June’s legacy is tied up in teaching others about living well.
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June has to move to her cushy blue recliner. Her back can’t take sitting in the kitchen chairs for long anymore.
“The doctor told me it’s moved into my lungs. I told him it was okay. He just looked at me like I’d said something strange. I said, ‘It’s okay. I’m okay with this.’ It’s like I was having to comfort him!” June laughs at this. But the truth is, she’s comforted many over the years. She’s been teaching them how to live, how to have faith, in difficult times. And now, in her own difficult time, she’s teaching those who love her how to live with this pain.
“I’ve been reading this book. It’s written by a cancer survivor. I’ve gotten some great stuff from here about dealing with pain, with emotional pain. I’ve already shared it with some friends.”
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The family business was a picture framing shop, begun in her mother’s garage all those many years ago. It eventually grew into a thriving and well-respected establishment in their adopted home town.
Years ago, when they still ran the shop, they used to hire young college students to come work for them. Some of those college student employees grew into lifelong family friends. Two young couples got their start in that picture framing shop. June made sure the boys knew how to treat the young ladies.
She and Al were there for both weddings, and still get pictures of the kids at Christmastime.
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June still has enough energy to play catch with a four year old. It’s a small plush football, and the four year old is doing all the running while she sits in her cushy blue recliner. But she’s playing. She smiles fondly at her great-grandson. “I wish I had half that much energy,” she says. “I’ve still got lots of things I want to do today.” Even in this, she’s teaching: Family is important. Relationships matter. Be present in the lives of your loved ones, no matter what else is going on. Take time to stop and enjoy the simple pleasures of the day. It’s a life-long lesson for June, both learned and taught. It’s her legacy.
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June is a teacher, by training, by personality. She’s taught lessons in life and love and faith (and English) to her kids, other people’s kids, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, friends, co-workers, people at church and World Bible School and nursing homes and the supermarket. And she feels like God has lessons still to teach her, too.
“Because of God, in my mind I don’t think of myself as a cancer victim,” she says, sipping from her blue ceramic coffee mug. “I think of myself as a child of God who just happens to have cancer. I know that someday I will lose this battle, but by the grace of God I still will win this war.”
June is 81, and the doctors tell her she has pancreatic cancer. But that is not what defines her. Her legacy is her family, her friends. What defines her are the intangible things, the things you can’t buy. The lessons taught, and learned. The faith as strong as a rock and old as the sky. Her heritage is the story she’s a part of – the one she’s leaving to the next generation, and the one after that.
Next week: some thoughts on repaying debts owed by deceased family members.
My email address is chris.sargent (at) acu.edu. Our toll-free phone number is 1-800-979-1906. The services of The ACU Foundation are completely confidential and completely free of obligation or monetary cost.
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