Long, painful struggle over for SamPosted: Wednesday, Mar 19, 2008 - 11:13:28 pm EDT
BY SHIRLEY BLACKBURN
We buried my cousin Sam on a gray and windy afternoon this past Saturday. He is at rest - finally - in a little country cemetery surrounded by corn and soybean fields in the middle of nowhere.
Actually, it is somewhere to those of us with history in the area. We gave Sam over to the earth in rural Southern Illinois, not far from where our moms grew up together. His battered body lies within a few miles of a surviving aunt and numerous cousins, within a bicycle's ride of the place where he grew up, within steps of his brother's own grave.
Why is it, do you think, that some people - some families - have a more difficult walk in this life than others? I have pondered this before. I have questioned whether it is a quirk of fate. I have wondered if some of us are just stronger than others and are given greater challenges. I do not know the answer, but I can tell you that Sam was among the challenged in this life.
My first memories of Sam are from our large, extended-family gatherings at Thanksgiving. In my mind's eye, I see him running off to play somewhere with my brother. Sam was five years younger than me, and I couldn't be much bothered with a - yuck! - boy.
When Sam was about eight, a strange and unusual tragedy befell his family, which included three children, all boys. The middle son, Billy Jo, was struck by lightning while driving a tractor out in the field. It killed him instantly. By all recollections, it was a sunny, blue-sky day when the lightning came out of literally nowhere. My Uncle Burt, Billy Jo's dad, was working in another part of the field when he saw the driverless tractor rolling along. He stopped the tractor, found his son and ran a quarter of a mile down the deserted country road for help. Billy Jo was 18 years old and two months away from leaving for his freshman year at Southern Illinois University.
Around 10 years later, when Sam was in his late teens, he became very ill, and it took a while to figure out what was wrong with him. Turns out he was born with only one kidney, which no one ever knew, and that kidney was failing. He needed a transplant.
As it happened, his remaining brother, Rex, was a match and wanted to give Sam a kidney. Imagine, if you can, the fears of my aunt and uncle, having lost one boy, as they sent both of their remaining sons into critical surgery.
The surgery was successful. Rex survives today, healthy, with one kidney, and Sam had the gift of about 15 years of a fairly normal life.
He followed Rex into the accounting field and became a CPA.
Somewhere in his later 30s, the donor kidney began to fail for Sam. Eventually, it was clear he needed another transplant. With not enough donors and great demand for kidneys, Sam was put on a waiting list. His call for a transplant came in the middle of the night, and his parents and he rushed to St. Louis for the transplant. Something happened, however, that caused damage to Sam's heart, and it was determined that he could not have the kidney.
In fact, he was never able to get another kidney.
Sam lived, by receiving dialysis, for many years. The dialysis certainly provided much more time on this earth for him, but it also tied him forever to the procedure, which cleansed his blood 6-7 hours a day every Monday, Wednesday and Friday of each and every week. He did okay with the dialysis, though it hampered his ability to work and severely restricted his social life. Sam never married.
As the years passed, Sam's situation deteriorated. There were severe dental problems as a result of drugs taken to counteract rejection of the kidney. Circulation became a problem, and the veins in his body became weak. We knew he was failing, but we did not know we would lose him last week.
My Aunt Becky was sitting beside Sam's casket when I arrived at the funeral home in the small town of 700. “Oh Shirley,” she cried, “He suffered so much the last two weeks. You can't imagine.”
She struggled between the tears to tell me that Sam had hurt his toe somehow, and it would not quit throbbing. A doctor told them it was a compressed injury and would go away. Soon enough, though, the toe started to turn black, followed by the foot and then the toes and foot of his other leg. Doctors said they could not operate because he would not heal properly from the surgery. They tried to deal with blood clots in both legs. It was a desperate situation and very painful for Sam. He lost his 35-year fight to stay with us last Thursday. He was 55 years old.
Sam is one of so many who have fought for ‘quality of life' and suffered a lot. It is a difficult thing to reconcile all that physical pain and understand why. Ultimately, I think, we must wrap it in our faith and remember that God has promised He will never leave us but will deliver us to a better place than we can imagine.
Rest now, Sam. The long, painful struggle is over, and you are delivered.
http://www.tristate-media.com/articles/2008/03/19/pdclarion/editorials/shirleycol.txt
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