By Linda Wegner
The Interim
Lance Campbell was forty-seven when his body began to fail.
“I couldn’t run,” said the resident of Prince Albert, Sask., “and when I fell, I was unable to balance my fall – I just flopped.”
Today, Lance is confined to a wheelchair with Lou Gerhrig’s disease. Three months ago that same disease claimed his wife of less than a year.
Ken and Rita Wolfe of Saskatoon know the pain of losing two children; siblings Erin, Kathleen and Aidan grieve over the loss of their sisters.
Megan Wolfe was eight years old, her sister, Shivawn, six, when they were both diagnosed with Niemann-Pick-Type C. Megan passed away in March, 1997, two days after her fifteenth birthday. Shivawn died in April, 1999, three months after her fifteenth birthday.
How do people cope with such pain and chaos?
For Lance, news of his diagnosis triggered an initial sense of desperation.
“I remember sitting in my van telling God I was angry, disappointed, and devastated.”
After a time of weeping, he said, it was gospel music that focused his mind on God and brought a sense of peace.
Along with peace, Lance speaks of a different attitude.
“It’s changed my whole perspective,” he says. “I’m not taking things for granted now – I can still get up, I can still see, I can still pray.”
He freely admits, however, that when feelings of despair and discouragement come back, it would be easy to give way to them.
“If I let them, they would take hold,” he says.
Lance’s methods of preventing a slide into despair include phoning a friend, putting on inspiring music, praying either for himself or for someone else in their difficulties.
For Rita and her family, healing is also an on-going process.
“We didn’t attempt to avoid the sense of grief and loss,” she said. “We speak to each other about missing Megan and Shivawn.”
Learning to live each moment to the fullest, returning to the responsibilities of a normal routine, remembering the good times and reaching out to others are secrets the Wolfe family have learned
“As we lived with Megan and Shivawn in their illness,” she said, “we learned to live in the moment, to appreciate life as it came to us each day.”
Rita spoke of the “insecurity that we might not have them the next day.” In contemplating the future, she explained, “we didn’t get stuck there. In the same sense we try to live in the moment right now – we remember the past but we don’t live in the past. There were so many losses along the way – we learned a little bit about not running away.”
After such agonizing losses, returning to a pattern of regular schedules demanded discipline.
“We did have a few months where it was difficult to get back to routines. We made ourselves go ahead with the things that had to be done.” Looking ahead was made a little easier by the memory of good times the family had shared together.
“One analogy that came to me is of a very prominent person coming to Saskatoon and gracing our doorstep with a short visit. It would be such an honour to be in their presence for any amount of time – you wouldn’t dare to ask them to stay on for dinner or to continue overnight. Megan and Shivawn were very special, very whole people and we were fortunate to have had them in our lives for whatever time was possible.”
The anniversaries of the girls’ birthdays or deaths are particularly difficult, says Rita.
“You begin reliving each moment because they are so burned in one’s memory.”
Initially the family would share a special cake or meal together, a time of prayer and a visit to the graveyard. Rita says they have now discovered an even richer way.
“We remember how people responded to our need for help. We really wanted to do something special for them.”
This year, in addition to attending Mass together, the memory of two special children is kept alive through special acts of love and kindness to others.
So, as Rita looks back at death, Lance deals with its prospect. Neither understands all the reasons but both have learned to walk in the strength of God.
