• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

My siblings and I had never intended to carry the torch of St. Jude. In fact, Dad had been quite clear to us that the work of the hospital would not be our burden to carry after he was gone. We accepted that, and I think each of us was relieved. St. Jude had taken the second half of Dad’s life to build and maintain, and with him gone, the responsibility would be even greater.

Friendship endures. “The Boys”—Milton, Sid, George and Jan—continued to attend St. Jude dinners even after Dad was gone.

Terre, Tony and I followed Dad’s heart to St. Jude.

But soon after he died, Terre, Tony and I thought we should go to Memphis to talk to everyone at the hospital, and let them know that we would be there if they needed us. They had all worked so closely with Dad, been inspired by him, and his death was as much of a shock to them as it was to us. He hadn’t been ill, and had just been with them two days before, celebrating the hospital’s 29th anniversary.

When I got to the driveway at the hospital, with the fifteen-foot statue of St. Jude standing tall at the entrance, I sat in the car, paralyzed. I didn’t want to go inside. It was all too fresh. I also didn’t want to cry in front of the children or their parents. They had enough of their own heartache.

So I pulled myself together and went inside. In the lobby, a party was going on. There was ice cream and cake. Confetti. Balloons. And the happy clamor of children running around in party hats.

“Whose birthday is it?” I asked the nurse.

“Oh, it’s not a birthday party,” she said. “It’s an off-chemo party.”

I had never seen anything like this before. Here were all these little children celebrating and deriving strength from one child’s turn for the better, with their parents and grandparents standing by with tears in their eyes. If this child could make it, maybe their beloved child would, too.

In that moment, I breathed in what my father had been holding in his heart for so many years. I had walked into a place, a community, where hope lived. A place that families had traveled to from all over the country, terrified, carrying death sentences for their babies. I looked around at the fairy-tale murals painted on the walls, at the red wagons, instead of wheelchairs, carrying children down the hallways.

I saw a part of my father that hadn’t been as clear to me before. I had always thought of him as a good man, a philanthropist, but I hadn’t truly understood how deeply personal this was to him. How thoroughly he had given his heart to this place, to these people.

And I knew now that his spirit would always live here.

A few minutes later, a mom brought her little girl over to me.

“Do you know who this lady’s Daddy is?” the mother said to her daughter.

“Yes,” the little girl said.

“Who?” the mom asked.

The little girl proudly answered, “St. Jude.”

In the background I heard the children singing.

“Pack up your bag, get out the door, you don’t need chemo anymore.”

Then I cried.

Epilogue

A few months after my father died, two of the grandkids were graduating from high school—Jason, Terre’s son, and Tracy, Tony’s daughter—and they had asked me to be the commencement speaker. Like all things with us, it was a family affair.

But we weren’t yet ready for a big celebration. Mother certainly wasn’t up to it. So after the ceremony, we all went to Hillcrest Country Club for lunch. Hillcrest had always been a favorite haven for our family, so it seemed fitting that we should gather there for Jason and Tracy’s big day.

We took a private room away from the lunch crowd. Given Mom’s emotional state, we were all still treating her as if she were made of glass that might shatter if we moved it the wrong way.

Suddenly, the door swung open and in walked George Burns. We were all so happy to see him, but he barely acknowledged us. He walked straight to Mother.

“Hey Rosie,” he said with a mischievous smile. “I hear you’re single again!”

We all froze in terror, almost afraid to look at Mom.

She threw her head back and roared.

And then we all