|
Why Not Me won the Angel of Excellence
Award for inspirational writing.
I may have composed it, but it is really Nancy's story.
I had a big crush on Nancy
when she and I were students at Baylor University a private Baptist
college in Waco, Texas. She had spunk and style that went beyond
that of most young ladies in the mid 197Os. Even then, I must have
realized that all people are special. But Nancy was more special
than most. For some indefinable reason, I know that she was a
winner. In every college trial, she proved it over and over again.
She was not a person to just play a game; she always played to win.
I remember the way she would bite her bottom lip when she was hurt
or mad. This would happen if she made a bad grade on a test, struck
out in a softball game, or had a fight with a boyfriend. When she
stuck that lip out, I always knew that she would bounce back and
Nancy was no more talented or gifted than other people I knew. She
just had more guts, more spirit. In a room filled with people, she
stood out. When other people sparkled, she glowed! Yet, whenever you
were with her, even in a large group, she always made you feel like
you were the most important person there. When I graduated from
Baylor in 1975, Nancy was the one person I knew would take the world
by storm. Whatever wall she faced, this five-foot-one-inch dynamo
would climb. Whatever goal she set her bright blue eyes on, she
would reach. I never had a doubt.
As is so often the case when graduation takes you away to the real
world, I lost track of this spunky little lady from Houston. One
college homecoming, my wife and I saw Nancy for a few minutes at an
alumni coffee. I remember thinking she looked thin. But the moment
she turned my way, greeted me with a fire in her eyes and that huge
smile, I knew that my college predictions about Nancy must have been
right on track.
As we talked, I discovered that she was teaching first graders. I
couldn’t help thinking that those six year olds would learn more
from Nancy than just how to read: she would make them feel special
and teach them how to he winners.
Were it not for a chance meeting with her father in the summer of
1985, I might never have made contact with Nancy again. Listening to
her father, I began to understand just how high life’s walls had
been for my college classmate. It was at this point that she began
to teach me a profound lesson about living.
I discovered that Nancy had spent several weeks at Houston’s M.D.
Anderson Hospital having a cancerous tumor and infected kidney
removed. Weeks of intensive radiation therapy followed. A mental
picture came into my mind of her biting that bottom lip, gritting
her teeth, and facing this painful ordeal with the same
determination she had exhibited in college. I could sec her
encouraging the doctors, telling her mother not to worry, and asking
her brothers if they didn’t have something better to do than hang
around a hospital. Then I found out that there was more to her story
than one surgery.
Seven years earlier, Nancy and cancer had battled. That war had not
been an easy one. Cancer had taken from her an opportunity to have
children, but it had proved no match for her strength and spirit.
She beat it, knocked it down for the ten count. Cancer had tucked
its tail and run to find a safe hiding place.
Cancer hid for more than six years, long enough for Nancy to get the
all clear from her doctors. During this time she fell in love,
married a wonderful guy, continued to teach, and settled into an
active life in Ennis, Texas. Her energy and enthusiasm for life
filled her classroom, her church, and her home. And then, just
months before she and her husband, Joe, were to adopt a child,
cancer cruelly hit her again.
It was after this attack, after that chance meeting with her father,
that I once again began to visit with this remarkable lady. Lots of
our visits were by phone. But on those rare occasions when we
weren’t running in five different directions at the same time, we
would get together face to face. During the course of rebuilding our
friendship, Nancy lost weight and gained maturity. In personality
and determination, she was still the same as she had always been,
ready to fight the odds to win. She simply knew she would. To her,
there was never any question. She seemed unimpressed with the
courage she had shown.
She seemed much more concerned about being at her best when the
school year rolled around. She didn’t care if she was weak, she had
a job to do, and nothing was going to stop her. As she told me,
"I’ve got kids to teach, so I have to get well fast." Teaching those
kids and starting the school year were her goals.
Nancy achieved those goals. She was weak, frail, and probably
constantly worn out, but no one would have guessed it. She had
energy in her step and an enthusiasm in her voice. In the other
teachers’ minds, she was simply unstoppable Nancy. Knowing that she
was battling so much more without as much as a single complaint,
none of them could complain about sinus conditions or late hours of
grading papers. In this way, she inspired her coworkers to do better
than they had ever done before. Never had the Ennis school system
worked so well.
Nancy was able to teach for only a few months when she received
another round of bad news. The radiation treatments that had stopped
the cancer had damaged some of her internal organs. More operations
were needed, surgery that would alter her diet forever. Most of the
foods she loved, she would never get to taste again. Yet she just
tossed it all off, and readjusted her lifestyle. "No big deal!" she
would say. And even though all of us should have known better, we
tended to believe her words because she said them with such
authority.
I once asked her if she ever wondered, "Why me Lord?" Her simple
reply will serve as an inspiration to me for as long as I live:
"I used to ask that, but then I began to take stock of my situation
and began to ask. Why not me? If this hadn’t happened to me, it
might have happened to someone I love. I wouldn’t want anyone I know
to have to deal with this. God made me strong, so I’ll take it. I’ll
fight it. And I’ll beat it:"
I immediately began applying Nancy’s faith and hope to my own small
problems and challenges. I quickly discovered that life doesn’t
really have any bad breaks, only opportunities for growth and
learning. The more I took this philosophy to heart, the more success
I had.
I stayed in touch with Nancy. During one visit, she asked me, "Do
you remember in college all those times you asked me out and I
always had other plans?" I laughed and said yes. "Well:" she
continued, "if I die before you do, I’ll make you one of my
pallbearers. Then you’ll finally get to take me out!" We both
laughed.
I believed that after this battle Nancy would bounce back and assume
the breakneck pace she had always maintained. She almost did. In
late 1986, she took a new test required by the state of Texas for
the recertification of teachers. She passed with flying colors. But
her celebration was short lived. She was forced to put off her
dreams of teaching for a while longer. Cancer had come calling for a
third time. This time it hit her liver.
Late last March. I telephoned Nancy. As always, she made me feel
like I was the most important person in the world. It was a gift she
still had. Nancy and I joked for a while on that visit, talked about
how much we looked forward to things that were coming up. I ended
our conversation by telling her how much my wife and I loved her.
She just quietly giggled.
A week later, on a beautiful spring like day, my college crush kept
her promise: She allowed me to take her out as a pallbearer at her
funeral. As I looked around at those in attendance, I felt, not
sadness, but joy. Maybe it as because her life of 33 years showed me
how to live. Her funeral was a wonderful celebration of her wit, her
love, and her faith. Because Nancy had made each of us feel
singularly special, she had passed on to us the secret of her
winning edge.
Not long before she died Nancy had shared with a young person
battling cancer these words:
Take advantage of everything that cancer has to offer you. It will
give you a chance to challenge yourself and find the limits of your
strengths and your faith. You will have an opportunity to get to
know a whole new group of people whose lives are filled with trauma
and sadness, and you can bring hope and joy to them by sharing your
Christian faith. By getting the chance to find this disease, you can
find out just how special each moment and each person is. Because
you will know firsthand what it is like to have it threatened, you
will come to a complete understanding of just how sweet life really
should, and can, be. Remember, you can carry the load you’ve been
given, and by doing so, you will help someone else carry his load.
You have been given the rare privilege, put in the wonderful
situation, of being an inspiration. Latch onto this responsibility,
and give it everything you’ve got. If you do, you will win!
Nancy was such a winner. She possessed more life, more heart, and
more soul than anyone I have ever met. But more importantly, she
didn’t selfishly hang onto these possessions; she freely gave them
all to everyone she touched. Each student, each friend, and each
family member felt like Nancy lived only for them, and so they gave
hack their best to her. She proved that a winner’s love never runs
out, and a winner’s touch never ends. Almost a year has gone by
since she died, and people are still remembering Nancy. But they are
not talking about the events of her life. Rather, they talk about
her spirit, and how it seems fresher and more alive with each
passing day. Nancy believed that everyone could touch every moment
of life in a good way or in a bad way. She chose the former. I now
realize that the sparkle in her eyes, the energy in her step, even
the glow of her personality, came not from within, but from on high.
As she once said. "I want everyone to be able to see a little bit of
God in me. And we all saw a lot.
Happily married as I am, I still have a crush on Nancy. I know I’m
not alone.
Home Bio
Book Sales
Links
Sample Chapters
Entertainment
Heroes Inspiration
Gallery
Nancy's Story Our Classic Cars |
