Fiji
In a few short days
my family and I will board a plane for ten days on a south pacific island
called Fiji. This was the wish granted
by the “Make a Wish “foundation of N.C. to my son Corson.
Two ladies came to
our home about eight months into a year of intense chemotherapy he was going
through. He weighed 128 lbs of what was 170 lbs when it started. He was bald,
had no eyebrows, dark all around his eyes and an angry, maroon scar a foot long
or more down the front of his now pole thin leg.
They asked him what
his wish was. He had told us it would be Fiji but I figured the idea would wan.
It had not. They were the type of folks that kindness shown in their eyes and
voices. I was uncomfortable. I suffer from pride. I knew that this was not
about me though. It was about Corson.
My wife knew that I
would try to dissuade him. It was too expensive to wish for. Before I had the
chance she admonished me, "They said don’t try to change his mind.” I understood that his fragile state was not
to trifle with so left it alone. It rested heavily on my heart.
He had to write an
essay. His usually sharp brain was muddled by the chemo. When I asked him, “Why
Fiji?” he would shrug his shoulders, as he was prone to do. Time moved on and
he never did really say.
I think he has at
times felt that I was disappointed that he was sick … somehow disappointed in
him. He has always been our warrior, the stalwart self sufficient one. It hurts
to consider yet as a father I can sense it. So we quietly marched through the
year of suffering … together.
It was a foggy
world of chemo pumps and IV bags. We watched him waste away until finally, one
day, it was over. It has been a year now. He has gained back most of the weight
but there is much that he can no longer do.
One of the ladies
is coming to the office today to give me the itinerary and all the necessary
documents. We leave next Saturday. They
gave us the news a couple of months ago. I was shocked. I had thought they
would not be able to do such a thing. After I had to ask just one more time …
“Why Fiji, Corson?”
“Well Dad, I’m
still not really sure. When they asked at the hospital that day what I would
wish all I could think of was that I wanted to get as far away from this
hospital as I possibly can.”
When your child
suffers there is an ever-present sense of heartbreak that you don’t think
you’re going to be able to withstand … and then it breaks some more.
So we will go to
Fiji and I’ll watch the waves of that vast ocean ebb and flow as I remember all
the faces.
The knee-high girl
with the remaining wisps of blonde hair and cowboy boots looking up at me as if
to ask “Will you be my friend?”
I will pray to the
scudding clouds for Justin who died after his year of chemo for the same
disease my son has.
I will remember the
mother sobbing on the elevator and all I could do was to hold her and mutter,
“It gets a little easier, somehow. Just hold on. It gets a little easier …”
And I will watch my
tall, lanky son stride loosely through the surf with his twin brother and I
will thank God for each breath that remains. You see it doesn’t matter to me
whether it’s Fiji or Charlotte or Bangladesh as long as he still walks with me,
free from that hospital … as far away as he can possibly get.
Thank you; “Make a
Wish” because, you see, I know that it does matter to a youth who is becoming a
man. One thing is for sure no matter what happens,
he has this. For the rest of his life … however long that is
… you have given him this. We will be forever grateful.
scott hicks
Corson Hick’s father.
