We’ve read the standard graduation quips on congratulatory cards: “Be strong.” “Be courageous.” “Life is before you: walk into it.” Then others take place within a story.
“Don’t let her know we want to surprise her after her last treatment.” And so I went along with the scheme. Some of Lori’s friends planned to show up at our house after Lori’s last radiation treatment. “We’ll knock on the door right after she gets home,” one said with an uplifted voice. Lori had completed 33 treatments, five each week.
“Let’s go out to eat breakfast after your last treatment,” I fibbed, so she would be ready for her friends when they arrived.
Lori had been brave, but most of all, she had kept her smile, despite some of the uncomfortable side effects of radiation. But her smile couldn’t disguise the weight she carried for others: “I hurt for those who suffer from chemotherapy,” Lori frequently said when she returned home from treatment. Then she would pray for them daily: morning and evening.
Augustine of Hippo once said, “What does love look like? It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That is what love looks like.”
I think the great theologian would also agree that love looks like a person kneeling in prayer, interceding for those who suffer, praying not just once but consistently, persistently, as a way of life.
With every treatment, I saw in my wife what love looks like, for her heart of compassion lifted the names or, if not the specific name—a description— of someone who suffered more than she did. And in her prayers, Lori included those healthcare professionals who helped the cancer patients.
Before we left the cancer treatment center that last day, we took pictures with all those who had been so essential in the treatments: Paula, Deetra, Marie, and Tammy, and of course, the doctor who directed the therapy. They all had gently walked Lori through her treatments, each person a little oasis of encouragement and hope in the desert of fear.
And then Lori was done. We were all smiles, high-fiving, like it was graduation day so long ago, with Lori posing alongside her teachers and friends for pictures.
The last one we met with was the doctor, who congratulated Lori and shook her hand like he was giving her a diploma. “But you know we don’t consider you cancer-free unless your tests are clear for five years,” he said.
“Five years,” I thought, “that’s a long time, about the time it could take to earn a graduate degree.”
“That’s what I’ll do, “I said to myself while Lori was still unaware that her friends were waiting to surprise her. “I’ll call the same people together for another graduation after five years and present Lori a diploma that certifies she is cancer-free.”
As Lori and I walked from the doctor’s consultation room to the exit, I noticed another patient with signs of advanced sickness, apparently far from completing treatments. The whites of his eyes were yellow, his face tired, his demeanor beaten down. And yet he looked up, struggling to smile, a silent congratulation to us, the ones who had made it through.
It was his graduation quote for us, spoken without words.
And I walked my radiation graduate out the door with my arms clasped around hers. It was as if we both were holding on to an imaginary diploma, signed, as it were, with the sighs and sorrows of others who were still hurting, some with terminal illnesses. Aware of their pain, we walked with a renewed determination to wear graduation caps of love and mercy, practicing prayer as only fellow sufferers can, never to let them go.