The thing about it is that we told her, I told her, that there
wasn’t anything to this little procedure. I said specifically that they’d put
her to sleep and when she woke up it’d be over, and our family would be there,
and then she was going to get to spend the night in one of the awesome rooms at
St. Jude with the video games and movies. We’d have balloons and music and
dancing. A Stellabration is what we called it. Her name is Stella, see. We’d
have a party. I said that.
We were going downtown to St. Jude because my niece, my
godchild, was diagnosed with something called papillary thyroid carcinoma.
Cancer. The doctors needed to remove her thyroid altogether, but that was ok
because you don’t really need one as long as you take your meds, see.
My niece is eight. She does gymnastics and plays soccer and
likes to go to the farm to visit her grandparents. She rides horses there. She
makes straight A’s in school. She knows the two-deep for the Grizzlies.
What I want to tell you is that I love my niece very much.
She has lived her entire life within a few blocks of me in Midtown Memphis.
When she was a baby I would jog the three blocks over there and fall out on the
couch and put her on my chest and she could fit entirely upon it and she would
sleep there – softly wheeze-snoring on her belly. I remember that.
My niece Stella loves sports. She wakes up every morning and
watches SportsCenter with her dad. Last year I took her to an Ole Miss football
game with me. It was the day Mississippi State had upset Texas A&M. Being
Ole Miss fans, some friends and I were downplaying that win. “I think A&M’s
quarterback went out early,” I said. “He’s an All-SEC guy. What’s his name?” I
struggled to remember it. So did my friends. My first-grader niece leaned into
our conversation. “Trevor Knight got hurt?” Yes, Stella. That’s correct. Trevor
Knight. Thanks.
Anyway as it turns out there was something to this surgery. A complication. The tumor was bigger
than they thought. It had poked a hole in her trachea, which required
reparative work, which resulted in her being intubated. She was sedated and on
a breathing machine for two days.
Hospitals use a drug called propofol to sedate children, in
part because it can be turned on and off very quickly, effectively like a light
switch. For Stella’s doctors this was convenient,
because they occasionally needed to see how well she was breathing on her own.
They would restrict the flow of propofol, and she would wake up minutes later
unable to talk because of the intubation. Her eyes would shift quickly around
the room as she came to, trying to make sense of the situation. Frantic,
confused, scared. This isn’t right. There
was going to be a party. Her parents tried quickly to explain what was
going on, but things were foggy. It was unclear how much she understood. Then,
minutes later, the doctors would put her back under. It would be hours before
they’d get another chance to explain.
This, of course, crushed my sister and brother-in-law. They
would sink back to the waiting room where we sat, giving us updates on the slow
progress. I wanted to scream. I wanted to run down into the Diagnostic Imaging
waiting room and slam a chair through the aquarium glass. I wanted to see the
spotted goby flopping around on the floor.
This is my fault. I said there’d be a Stellabration, see.
And now there wasn’t, and she didn’t know why, and there was no real chance to
explain it. This is on me.
***
Yet man is born unto trouble;
As surely as the
sparks fly upward.
-
Job 5:7
Memphis is, among other things, a Kierkegaardian wonderland.
In the early 19th century, the Danish government and the church were
one and the same. Kierkegaard believed this eroded the true nature of faith
among Christians.
We believe, in short, that a man was born of a virgin mother
and that he lived for 33 years performing a whole host of other miracles, and
then died and then was resurrected and then ascended into heaven. This is, of
course, absurd. I believe in an absurdity. But when this absurdity is so
ubiquitous that it is literal state policy (as in Kierkegaard’s Denmark), there
is no choice other than to believe it without question. And that renders void
the act of conscious belief, according to Kierkegaard.
What then would he make of Memphis, roasting under the
Southern sun on the banks of the Mississippi? When that sun goes down across
the river, the shadows of St. Jude expand eastward, covering the entire city
and the mega-churches that dot the countryside in the exurbs beyond the I-240
loop.
People from across the world send their sick and dying
children to St. Jude, often with little to no hope. Once, when I was tabbed to
be Stella’s godfather, I was asked to attend a short meeting regarding her
baptism at St. Mary’s in downtown Memphis – a small Catholic church literally
in St. Jude’s shadow. That session was cut short when the priest was called
away for an emergency at the hospital next door. Last Rites, no doubt. I think
of the St. Mary’s priest often. You should keep him in your prayers.
St. Mary’s is but one of a thousand churches in Memphis – a
city famous for lifting Gospel in the air. The non-denominational evangelical
community bustles at the seams here. So do Catholicism and protestant
denominations of every stripe. Nestled off I-40 East, the gargantuan Bellevue
Baptist boasts a membership of some 30,000. The shadows of St. Jude touch each
of these.
Walker Percy was a student of Kierkegaard, and understood
the next logical step in this absurdity of Christianity. How, as Christians,
are we to maintain our belief in a loving God in a world so full of pain and
mud and shit? The most fertile ground of expression for this logical
crossroads, for Percy, lies in the suffering of children.
In the epilogue of his 1962 National Book Award winning The
Moviegoer, his lead character
Binx Bolling describes plainly, to a car-full of sullen children, the death of
their long-suffering young cousin, Lonnie.
Mathilde sobs in my
neck and Therese eyes me shrewdly. “Was he anointed?” she asks in her mama-bee
drone.
“Yes.”
“Very good.”
Only the two girls are
sad, but they are also secretly proud of having caught on to the tragedy.
Donice casts about.
“Binx,” he says, and then appears to forget. “When Our Lord raises us up on the
last day, will Lonnie still be in a wheelchair or will he be like us?”
“He’ll be like you.”
“You mean he’ll be able
to ski?’ The children cock their heads and listen like old men.
“Yes.”
As readers, we’re supposed to know here, in the epilogue of
this book, that Binx is not one to sugarcoat. This is important. Largely the
message of the whole book hinges on that answer – yes, Lonnie can ski in
heaven. Binx believes this, plainly. He answers an absurdity with further absurdity.
This world is beautiful and terrible, per our protagonist
here. We do not know why the innocent suffer as the sparks fly upward. We
should consider it thoroughly. We should acknowledge the improbability of our
belief – that we don’t know why but that there is something beyond that
suffering.
Memphis, in the shadow of St. Jude, grapples with this. In
this city we are forced to. I believe that Lonnie skis, too.
***
Offense is an
organized hope. Not an unguarded hope, but one designed to take care of something,
to carry it forward. Offense is measured in terms of moving forward or
backwards, with the goal being to move forward, live for another series. Offense
is the art of solving for hope against endless variations on despair.
As far as sporting days have gone for me recently, October
14 was about as good of a salve as I could ask for. Ole Miss was coming off of
two blowout losses, and the U.S. Men’s National Team had just been eliminated
from the 2018 World Cup.
So that Saturday, as Manchester City blew out Stoke 7-2, and
Ole Miss exploded for 57 points in a 22-point win over Vanderbilt, it felt like
more of a release than anything else. Two absurdly large score lines for two utterly
ridiculous games.
I believe in my heart that there is no such thing as secular
art. As long as it is honest, all art is evidence that we are ensouled. All
earnest art is spiritual to behold.
Thus is the nature of watching Kevin De Bruyne run at
defenders on Saturday mornings from the comfort of my living room. In sports,
as in art, there are only creators and destroyers. Just like Spencer Hall, I
have always been drawn to the creators.
There was a moment that morning, shortly after halftime of
the City game, when Stoke had closed the lead to 3-2. Under normal
circumstances in that scenario, the team that is leading is tempted to go into
a defensive shell. They’ll settle in, pack 9 defenders behind the ball, and be
content to thwart away any oncoming attacks.
But, remarkably, the Citizens opted for the
counterintuitive. Instead they warped into a hyper-offensive mode, pressing
high up the field. KDB forced a turnover and immediately found Gaby Jesus in
full-stride with a sublime pass into the heart of the box. The lead expanded
repeatedly. Four goals, five goals, six then seven. Manchester left themselves
exposed repeatedly, but it didn’t matter. The concentrated forward pressure
relieved any need for defense. They could’ve played without a goalkeeper.
The forward pressure is its own defense. Absurd positivity.
Carrying something forward at risk of appearing naïve while relieving tension
at the back – this is the option. We have this plan and we are capable. There
ain’t nothing else to think about.
***
Eventually Stella woke up. She spent more than two days in
the ICU, and by the time she moved to one of those fun rooms at St. Jude, she
was in no mood to enjoy it. She wanted to go home. Even then, when they
released her from the hospital, she wasn’t much for talking.
This is ok for now. She is only 8. There will be time to
teach lessons about what it means to be tough. There will be time to learn how
to ride out the darkness. For now, I am content to hold that line for her. To
remain in light. To continue to push the idea that there will be a
Stellabration. I do not regret that sentiment.
St. Jude is a funny place. It’ll put a lump in your throat
the first time you walk through it. It is also, as my brother in law told me,
somehow his favorite place on this planet. The staff are warm and intuitive.
The atmosphere is bright and colorful. It is a place for children to enjoy. It
does not feel like a hospital.
And this is to say nothing about the research arm of the
hospital – the forward pressure. Since its founding 50 years ago, St. Jude has
helped to improve childhood cancer survival rates from 20% to over 80% today.
For thousands of families – just like my own – there is indeed something beyond
the suffering in this life. That is due to the researchers within these walls,
as well as every single person who has ever given a single nickel to this
place. They all share in the joy of those families who walk out of these doors
with a clean bill of health. They all share in the joy of the silence of the
St. Mary’s pastor’s phone.
If you would like to contribute to that end, I encourage you
to do so. In December I will drag this increasingly pudgy body through the St.
Jude 10K marathon. Here is one place you can support St. Jude in conjunction
with this run. The idea that day, and every day from here on, will be to press
forward.
