Ron
That Deborah would get cancer made no more sense than a drive-by shooting. She was the most health-conscious person I had ever known. She didn’t eat junk food or smoke. She stayed fit and took vitamins. There was no history of cancer in her family. Zero risk factors.
What Denver had said three weeks earlier haunted me: Those precious to God become important to Satan. Watch your back, Mr. Ron! Somethin bad fixin to happen to Miss Debbie.
Just before midnight she stirred. I stood and leaned over her bed, my face pressed close to hers. Her eyes opened, drowsy with narcotics. “Is it in my liver?”
“Yes.” I paused and looked down at her, trying vainly to drive sadness from my face. “But there’s still hope.”
She closed her eyes again, and the moment I had dreaded for hours passed quickly without a single tear. My own dry eyes didn’t surprise me—I had never really learned how to cry. But now life had presented a reason to learn, and I yearned for a river of tears, a biblical flood. Maybe my broken heart would teach my eyes what to do.
At age seventy-five, my daddy was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Even though the doctors said it was slow-growing and that he would probably die of something else, he called us all together to say good-byes and give him last rites, even though he wasn’t Catholic. I guess he reasoned he was entitled since he’d voted for Kennedy. My brother led him in the sinner’s prayer. Daddy repeated it after John and said he understood that he was praying Christ would forgive him of his sins.
I was skeptical. And it made Daddy mad when I reminded him that his doctors weren’t at all worried that he was at death’s door. No doubt he was feeling his mortality and begging for the attention that I had spent a lifetime withholding.
Four years later, in April 1999, Deborah was diagnosed with a very aggressive form of colon and liver cancer. Some doctors thought she might only live three months; others thought a year. Though her prognosis was catastrophic, we were not going down without a fight, and she began a very aggressive chemotherapy regimen, sometimes alternating different treatments within the same week. The drugs took her down swiftly, but she fought like the last warrior left standing at Troy. Deborah had a lot to live for, like seeing her dream of revival coming to our city through Denver. She also longed to see Regan and Carson get married and to be a grandmother to the grandchildren she had prayed for since our children became our own.
On Christmas Day of that year, Deborah did something heroic. She cooked a gourmet dinner at Rocky Top, the 350acre ranch we had bought in 1990, and she decorated it in the style of the authentic Old West. Don’t ask how she did it. No one can explain that. But with her elegance and style, all Deborah’s special dinners were fit for royalty, and they usually included an invitation to Denver and to the ungrateful “Earl of Haltom,” a noble title I had bestowed on my dad as a joke. (We had moved to the Fort Worth suburb of Haltom City when I was seven.)
As we took our places at the table, we blessed the food and praised God for the strength he had given Deborah to prepare it. And, of course, we asked for healings. I’m sure he meant no malice, but before the first bite, Dad commented, “Cancer ain’t no big deal. I’ve had prostate cancer for four years, and it don’t bother me a bit. Y’all are making a big deal about nothin!”
Deborah left the table in tears. Daddy was angry that she left the table. He looked at my mother and said, “Let’s go home Tommye. We’re not welcome here!”
They left. Denver walked them to their car. The meal went into the refrigerator. Carson, Regan, and I crawled into bed with Deborah.
Denver acted as though he was very uncomfortable but avoided taking sides. It was his second Christmas with us, and he was confused. He took a walk down by the river to gather his thoughts, then returned to the house and knocked on our door.
“Bless him,” he told me when I answered it.
“Who?”
“Your daddy. He meant no wrong, and I praise God for your father and his life. He’s a good man, and he’s a part of my blessin. If it hadn’t been for your father, there wouldn’t be no Mr. Ron. And if it hadn’t been for you and Miss Debbie, I’d still be in the bushes instead of havin Christmas with you.
“I want you to hear me real good on this, Mr. Ron. Just bless him.”
I listened to what Denver had to say and acted as though I planned to take his advice. But the truth was, I thought his advice was ill informed at best and possibly tainted by the fact that he was used to living around all manner of addicts and alcoholics. Besides, Denver had no idea of the hell and embarrassment Earl Hall had put my family through over the years. And even if Denver had a small point—that there was more to the man than the “Earl in the bottle”—I wasn’t ready to let him out.