#withkeith

My friend Keith has been counting the days to his son’s graduation for years. Michael will speak at his graduation from the College of Engineering at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. tomorrow, on Friday, May 19, 2023. On Sunday, he will graduate with the Class of 2023 in a commencement ceremony on the National Mall.

Keith had hoped to be there to celebrate with his wife, Elena.

Keith received his pancreatic cancer diagnosis in July 2020. He set his goal: live to see his son graduate from university, almost three years in the future. It was a big ask with this viscious, unrelenting disease.

A man with a deep Catholic faith, Keith set his eyes on the prize.

After nearly a hundred rounds of chemo, multiple procedures and a surgery to remove a tumor, he’s still with us.

During Holy Week, I learned Keith had been admitted to the hospital. On April 5, I went to visit him. He had an infection. They pulled his chemo port. “That was my lifeline,” Keith said, knowing his son’s graduation was still six weeks away.

“Cheryl, I don’t want to die in a hospital,” he said.

You don’t have to, Keith. Let’s get you home first, then we will get you to Michael’s graduation. I told him he could always ask to go home.

I told him how both my dad and my sister rallied when they came home. Dad started quietly putting things in order, still trying to eat some of his favorite foods. He would sit on the tailgate of his pickup truck and look at all the green and blooming things he’d planted. He’d watch the sunset. Eventually he had to watch from a wheelchair in the doorway.

My sister got her diagnosis not long after our father died at home in August 2020. She traveled similar and different paths as Dad and Keith. Dad did not choose chemo. My sister chose multiple interventions. Surgeries. A chemo port. They told her after two rounds of chemo that the cancer had spread and there was nothing more they could do.

My sister came home from the hospital in December 2020. She immediately began repairing some of the beautiful jewelry pieces she’d made over the years, a combination of precious stones nestled in her silver work or macrame. A gifted artist, she began selecting pieces of jewelry to gift to friends and family. She also tried to continue eating her favorite foods. She died at home. January 2021.

Keith made it home on Good Friday, April 7, 2023.

On April 29, 2023, a team of friends and fellow swimmers gathered to participate in the PanCAN Purple Stride event, a fundraiser for Keith’s chosen charity that pursues pancreatic cancer research and offers advocacy and support for families of those who have lived with and died of the brutal disease. Keith and Elena had joined us on the walk in April 2022. This year, he couldn’t make it. The weather was too chilly; he couldn’t risk it. Three weeks to Michael’s graduation.

Keith invited us to his house for a brief visit after we finished the walk. Ten of us stayed an hour. Gathered around Keith on sofas, in chairs and on the floor, we shared stories and memories, then hugs. Keith said he was down to 114 pounds on his 6’2″ frame. He was being fed through a tube. He missed eating food.

I make videos of ocean waves breaking on rocks and beaches, audio recordings of the sounds on my morning run and photos of gorgeous sunrises and sunsets. I send them to Keith.

I know he gets outside on some of these spring days to breathe the fresh air, hear the birds and feel the warmth of the sun on his face.

He’s a day away now from Michael’s graduation. He cannot make the journey to D.C. He’s in too much pain. Things that were once easy for him are now nearly unbearable.

He will watch his son from the only home he’s lived in with his wife of 25 years, the house where they raised Michael.

Faith and love have carried Keith this far. One day, they will carry him home.

On May 21, I will be at a cousin’s wedding, watching two young people celebrate the blessing that they found one another and want to share their lives and build one together.

On May 21, the boats in The Ocean Race will receive a blessing for the fleet and sail into the big waters and across the Atlantic to the finish line.

On May 21, Michael will graduate with his Class of 2023. His father will watch from an armchair in Rhode Island; his faith, determination and the support of loved ones have helped make the seemingly impossible possible.

#withkeith

Always.

Copyright 2023 Cheryl Hatch/All Rights Reserved