Cameron's Story
Illustration
Stories
Cameron's Story
by Todd Chrisler (as told to John Sumwalt)
"Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken."
Isaiah 40:5
I met Todd and Dawn at a wedding reception in the fall of 1999. They disclosed, very cautiously, that they had lost a child to cancer in 1998. The following day was to be the anniversary of their eight-month-old son's death at a nearby hospital. Todd told me about the anguish of their last 24 hours with Cameron: of chemotherapy, numerous tubes, blood transfusions, and endless tests. The doctors had told them there wasn't much hope. They were in a small sleeping room next to the intensive care unit, trying in vain to sleep. Todd said he was praying for God to be with Cameron, to end his ordeal and to give him peace, when he noticed thoughts coming into his mind that were clearly not his own. "Cameron is going to be with me. He is going to be cared for. I will take Cameron at 5:38."
Todd wondered if he was having a dream, if what he was being told was real or only his imagination. He reached over and roused Dawn, who was dozing, and whispered, "5:38, 5:38, remember 5:38." She asked, "What?" and he told her to just remember that number. Dawn told him later that she had understood exactly what he meant. Then, Todd said, a feeling of calm came over him. The overwhelming stress and anxiety he had been feeling were gone. It was like a burden had been lifted off his chest. The next morning he awoke, rested, at about 9:30 a.m. When he realized that 5:38 had passed, he felt let down again, thinking he must have imagined the whole thing. Todd and Dawn continued the vigil with heavy hearts.
Late in the afternoon, their beloved child, who had been unresponsive for days, opened his eyes, looked at them, and then closed his eyes for the last time. After consulting with the doctors, they made the decision to disconnect Cameron from all of the machines. They held him in their arms and said their good-byes as he died. Then Todd and Dawn went back into the sleeping room to collect their things. Suddenly they realized that they had been holding Cameron at 5:38 p.m. when he died, just as God had told them. They left the hospital with a feeling of peace, knowing that God had been with them and had blessed them in their hour of need.
From Vision Stories: True Accounts Of Visions, Angels, And Healing Miracles, compiled and edited by John E. Sumwalt (CSS Publishing Company, 2002), pp. 18-19.
Good Stories
Patient Waiting
by Jo Perry-Sumwalt
Since all these things are to be dissolved this way, what sort of persons ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness, waiting and hastening the coming of the day of God...
2 Peter 3:11-12a
Herb Milton stepped into the whirlpool at the YMCA where several of his friends were already soaking in the hot, steamy water and conversing, as men do, about the deep, ultimate existential concerns of mankind -- like the point spread on the coming Monday night football game, the ridiculously high salaries of professional baseball players (they were about evenly divided on that one), and the price of American cars compared to German and Japanese models. The conversation flowed from one topic to another -- family matters, how difficult it is to raise kids today, high taxes, national politics, local gossip, the differences between men and women -- 'til finally they got to talking about human nature. That was when the conversation became quite heated, almost as hot as the water. One man expressed very loudly, and in language he wouldn't have used in church, that most people he knew only looked out for themselves. "When it comes right down to it," he said, "we are all basically selfish. Take care of number one and to heck with everyone else."
That was when Herb pulled himself up out of the water to cool off, and said in a quiet voice, "I don't agree with you, and I'll tell you why. I saw something recently that I have not been able to get out of my mind. As you all know, I am a jogger. Every afternoon, when I get off work at the plant, I jog about a mile and a half to the convenience store on the corner to pick up my daily paper, and then I turn around and jog home. I run slowly, so it is enough to keep my heart aerobically fit.
"One day when I went into the store, the man behind the counter who saves my paper for me, and whom I've known for years, was standing at the window with tears in his eyes, staring out at the bus stop across the street. He turned to me after a bit and said, 'Herb, do you see that bench over there?' I nodded and he went on. 'There's an old woman who comes there every day around this time. She sits there for about an hour, knitting and waiting. Buses come and go, but she never boards one and she never meets anyone who is getting off. She just knits and waits. I took a cup of coffee over to her one day and sat with her for a while. She told me that her son is in the navy. She last saw him two years ago when he left town on one of the buses right out there. He's married now, and he and his wife have a baby daughter. The woman has never met her daughter-in-law or seen her grandchild, and they're the only family she has. She told me, "It helps to come here and wait. I pray for them, knit little things for the baby, and I imagine them in their tiny apartment on the base. They are saving money to come home on the bus next Christmas. I can't wait to see them." '
"My friend behind the counter took a deep breath, and then he said, 'I looked out there just now, and there they were getting off the bus. You should have seen the look on her face when they fell into her arms and when she laid eyes on her little granddaughter for the first time. It was the nearest thing to pure joy that I ever hope to see. I'll never forget that look for as long as I live.' "
Herb sat down in the hot water again and paused for a moment before he said, "When I went back the next day my friend was in his usual place behind the counter. Before he could say anything, or even hand me my paper, I looked him in the eye and I said to him, 'You sent her son the money for the bus tickets, didn't you?' He looked at me with eyes full of love and a smile that was the nearest thing to complete joy that I have ever seen, and said, 'Yes, I sent him the money.'
"I'll never forget that look for as long as I live."
It was quiet in the whirlpool for a long time after that. No one wanted to be the first to speak.
John's Scrap Pile
Longing for the "Holy Day"
As I meditate on these Advent texts, we are in the midst of Thanksgiving preparations at our house. It is our turn to host the extended Sumwalt family. We are counting heads and planning menus. The Thanksgiving cactus is in full bloom with glorious pink and white blossoms which, alas, will probably not last until turkey day. The plant is early and Thanksgiving is late.
Jo has been busy deep cleaning and stenciling, a decorating obsession that escapes me but which I must admit looks quite lovely. We have apples and leaves dancing around the kitchen walls, and hearts and stuff in the dining room. I am not sure where it will all end. I warned her that if she stencils the dog I am calling for an intervention.
What a joy it will be to have all of our family together, my two brothers and sister and their families, our daughter and her new fiance, our youngest back from his first semester of college, and my Mom to beam over all of her loved ones. The empty nest and our hearts will be full for a little while. I now understand better the longing and the joy my late father used to express around this time of year when we all gathered at the farm.
Such longing is the theme of Advent, joyful anticipation of what is to come. We look forward to the holidays when we are all together around the table, when every last loved one is accounted for and safe under the family roof. Like the early Christians who longed for the return of the Christ they loved, we long for these moments of holy reunion with our dear ones. It is a longing, indeed a yearning, that goes beyond and is much deeper than the feelings we have around our annual cycle of holidays. It is "the holy day" we long for, the great homecoming, what the author of 2 Peter calls "the day of God," which he says we may hasten by "leading lives of holiness and godliness." And, he adds, while we are waiting we should "strive to be found by him at peace without spot or blemish..."
My dear wife Jo has found that stenciling helps to the hasten the coming of the "holy day." I have no doubt that she will be found on that day with paintbrush and stencils in hand, creating spotless apples and hearts. I hope to be found at peace on the couch, with remote control in hand beside an unblemished, unstenciled West Highland terrier.
Jo's Yarn Basket
Prepare the Way
How does one help little children understand "preparing" for Jesus' birth? That was my focus as I planned my first-ever Advent Celebration for the Sunday school children. How could we help them think about Jesus' birth as well as Santa and presents?
I am extremely fortunate to be a member of the Wisconsin chapter of the Christian Educators Fellowship. Our group is a wealth of ideas, inspirations, and supportive cheerleading! With their help, I narrowed my goal to three workshops -- an Advent wreath for each family, an Advent calendar to mark the days until Christmas, and a personal nativity scene, meant to be played with, for each child.
I love doing crafts. It was no stretch for me to envision what I wanted for each project. And I consider it a perk of my job to go shopping for craft supplies. I found dozens of little wooden shapes in many sizes that could be turned into nativity figures. It is also no hardship for me to do preliminary prep work in front of the TV in the evenings. So, wooden doll pieces got painted hair, faces, and bodies (to save mess and drying time during our short hour of celebration), little headpieces and swaddling cloths were cut from felt and fabric scraps, and craft sticks were glued into manger beds. I couldn't resist turning some cute wooden gingerbread man cutouts into angels with a quick paint job. I prepared donkey and sheep pieces for children who worked faster, although Mary, Joseph, Jesus, the manger, and the angel were the key figures for the first year.
On the day of the celebration lots of middle school and high school helpers responded to my request for "many hands." Some parents stayed with their younger children, and my crew of teachers for each workshop was great. The dressing of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus was intense for the littlest fingers, so I stayed in that workshop. We talked about the Christmas story as we worked -- sometimes I told it to them, and sometimes they told it to me. Some kids did manage a sheep or donkey along with their people figures. The advent wreaths, with short services to go with lighting each candle, turned out very well, and most of the calendars, with activities for each day until Christmas, made it home. The tiny nativity figures went home in ziploc bags, and I pondered whether it had been "worth it." Then I talked to one of the moms who had been a helper.
"My girls have been playing 'Baby Jesus' every day since they brought their nativity figures home," she said. "The older one holds up the angel and flies it to Mary (the younger daughter) to tell her she's going to have a baby. She has Mary cry out 'Oh!' to show her surprise. Then Mary and Joseph walk to Bethlehem and find there's no room at the inn, and go to the stable, where Baby Jesus is born and put in the manger. Then the girls bring the sheep in to visit the baby. They've got the story down pretty good, and they play it again and again, trading roles."
I was ecstatic! Those little girls were 5 and 4 years old! How do we help little children understand "preparing" for Jesus' birth? Just give them the story and their own simple props. Their wonderful imaginations will do the rest!
by Todd Chrisler (as told to John Sumwalt)
"Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken."
Isaiah 40:5
I met Todd and Dawn at a wedding reception in the fall of 1999. They disclosed, very cautiously, that they had lost a child to cancer in 1998. The following day was to be the anniversary of their eight-month-old son's death at a nearby hospital. Todd told me about the anguish of their last 24 hours with Cameron: of chemotherapy, numerous tubes, blood transfusions, and endless tests. The doctors had told them there wasn't much hope. They were in a small sleeping room next to the intensive care unit, trying in vain to sleep. Todd said he was praying for God to be with Cameron, to end his ordeal and to give him peace, when he noticed thoughts coming into his mind that were clearly not his own. "Cameron is going to be with me. He is going to be cared for. I will take Cameron at 5:38."
Todd wondered if he was having a dream, if what he was being told was real or only his imagination. He reached over and roused Dawn, who was dozing, and whispered, "5:38, 5:38, remember 5:38." She asked, "What?" and he told her to just remember that number. Dawn told him later that she had understood exactly what he meant. Then, Todd said, a feeling of calm came over him. The overwhelming stress and anxiety he had been feeling were gone. It was like a burden had been lifted off his chest. The next morning he awoke, rested, at about 9:30 a.m. When he realized that 5:38 had passed, he felt let down again, thinking he must have imagined the whole thing. Todd and Dawn continued the vigil with heavy hearts.
Late in the afternoon, their beloved child, who had been unresponsive for days, opened his eyes, looked at them, and then closed his eyes for the last time. After consulting with the doctors, they made the decision to disconnect Cameron from all of the machines. They held him in their arms and said their good-byes as he died. Then Todd and Dawn went back into the sleeping room to collect their things. Suddenly they realized that they had been holding Cameron at 5:38 p.m. when he died, just as God had told them. They left the hospital with a feeling of peace, knowing that God had been with them and had blessed them in their hour of need.
From Vision Stories: True Accounts Of Visions, Angels, And Healing Miracles, compiled and edited by John E. Sumwalt (CSS Publishing Company, 2002), pp. 18-19.
Good Stories
Patient Waiting
by Jo Perry-Sumwalt
Since all these things are to be dissolved this way, what sort of persons ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness, waiting and hastening the coming of the day of God...
2 Peter 3:11-12a
Herb Milton stepped into the whirlpool at the YMCA where several of his friends were already soaking in the hot, steamy water and conversing, as men do, about the deep, ultimate existential concerns of mankind -- like the point spread on the coming Monday night football game, the ridiculously high salaries of professional baseball players (they were about evenly divided on that one), and the price of American cars compared to German and Japanese models. The conversation flowed from one topic to another -- family matters, how difficult it is to raise kids today, high taxes, national politics, local gossip, the differences between men and women -- 'til finally they got to talking about human nature. That was when the conversation became quite heated, almost as hot as the water. One man expressed very loudly, and in language he wouldn't have used in church, that most people he knew only looked out for themselves. "When it comes right down to it," he said, "we are all basically selfish. Take care of number one and to heck with everyone else."
That was when Herb pulled himself up out of the water to cool off, and said in a quiet voice, "I don't agree with you, and I'll tell you why. I saw something recently that I have not been able to get out of my mind. As you all know, I am a jogger. Every afternoon, when I get off work at the plant, I jog about a mile and a half to the convenience store on the corner to pick up my daily paper, and then I turn around and jog home. I run slowly, so it is enough to keep my heart aerobically fit.
"One day when I went into the store, the man behind the counter who saves my paper for me, and whom I've known for years, was standing at the window with tears in his eyes, staring out at the bus stop across the street. He turned to me after a bit and said, 'Herb, do you see that bench over there?' I nodded and he went on. 'There's an old woman who comes there every day around this time. She sits there for about an hour, knitting and waiting. Buses come and go, but she never boards one and she never meets anyone who is getting off. She just knits and waits. I took a cup of coffee over to her one day and sat with her for a while. She told me that her son is in the navy. She last saw him two years ago when he left town on one of the buses right out there. He's married now, and he and his wife have a baby daughter. The woman has never met her daughter-in-law or seen her grandchild, and they're the only family she has. She told me, "It helps to come here and wait. I pray for them, knit little things for the baby, and I imagine them in their tiny apartment on the base. They are saving money to come home on the bus next Christmas. I can't wait to see them." '
"My friend behind the counter took a deep breath, and then he said, 'I looked out there just now, and there they were getting off the bus. You should have seen the look on her face when they fell into her arms and when she laid eyes on her little granddaughter for the first time. It was the nearest thing to pure joy that I ever hope to see. I'll never forget that look for as long as I live.' "
Herb sat down in the hot water again and paused for a moment before he said, "When I went back the next day my friend was in his usual place behind the counter. Before he could say anything, or even hand me my paper, I looked him in the eye and I said to him, 'You sent her son the money for the bus tickets, didn't you?' He looked at me with eyes full of love and a smile that was the nearest thing to complete joy that I have ever seen, and said, 'Yes, I sent him the money.'
"I'll never forget that look for as long as I live."
It was quiet in the whirlpool for a long time after that. No one wanted to be the first to speak.
John's Scrap Pile
Longing for the "Holy Day"
As I meditate on these Advent texts, we are in the midst of Thanksgiving preparations at our house. It is our turn to host the extended Sumwalt family. We are counting heads and planning menus. The Thanksgiving cactus is in full bloom with glorious pink and white blossoms which, alas, will probably not last until turkey day. The plant is early and Thanksgiving is late.
Jo has been busy deep cleaning and stenciling, a decorating obsession that escapes me but which I must admit looks quite lovely. We have apples and leaves dancing around the kitchen walls, and hearts and stuff in the dining room. I am not sure where it will all end. I warned her that if she stencils the dog I am calling for an intervention.
What a joy it will be to have all of our family together, my two brothers and sister and their families, our daughter and her new fiance, our youngest back from his first semester of college, and my Mom to beam over all of her loved ones. The empty nest and our hearts will be full for a little while. I now understand better the longing and the joy my late father used to express around this time of year when we all gathered at the farm.
Such longing is the theme of Advent, joyful anticipation of what is to come. We look forward to the holidays when we are all together around the table, when every last loved one is accounted for and safe under the family roof. Like the early Christians who longed for the return of the Christ they loved, we long for these moments of holy reunion with our dear ones. It is a longing, indeed a yearning, that goes beyond and is much deeper than the feelings we have around our annual cycle of holidays. It is "the holy day" we long for, the great homecoming, what the author of 2 Peter calls "the day of God," which he says we may hasten by "leading lives of holiness and godliness." And, he adds, while we are waiting we should "strive to be found by him at peace without spot or blemish..."
My dear wife Jo has found that stenciling helps to the hasten the coming of the "holy day." I have no doubt that she will be found on that day with paintbrush and stencils in hand, creating spotless apples and hearts. I hope to be found at peace on the couch, with remote control in hand beside an unblemished, unstenciled West Highland terrier.
Jo's Yarn Basket
Prepare the Way
How does one help little children understand "preparing" for Jesus' birth? That was my focus as I planned my first-ever Advent Celebration for the Sunday school children. How could we help them think about Jesus' birth as well as Santa and presents?
I am extremely fortunate to be a member of the Wisconsin chapter of the Christian Educators Fellowship. Our group is a wealth of ideas, inspirations, and supportive cheerleading! With their help, I narrowed my goal to three workshops -- an Advent wreath for each family, an Advent calendar to mark the days until Christmas, and a personal nativity scene, meant to be played with, for each child.
I love doing crafts. It was no stretch for me to envision what I wanted for each project. And I consider it a perk of my job to go shopping for craft supplies. I found dozens of little wooden shapes in many sizes that could be turned into nativity figures. It is also no hardship for me to do preliminary prep work in front of the TV in the evenings. So, wooden doll pieces got painted hair, faces, and bodies (to save mess and drying time during our short hour of celebration), little headpieces and swaddling cloths were cut from felt and fabric scraps, and craft sticks were glued into manger beds. I couldn't resist turning some cute wooden gingerbread man cutouts into angels with a quick paint job. I prepared donkey and sheep pieces for children who worked faster, although Mary, Joseph, Jesus, the manger, and the angel were the key figures for the first year.
On the day of the celebration lots of middle school and high school helpers responded to my request for "many hands." Some parents stayed with their younger children, and my crew of teachers for each workshop was great. The dressing of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus was intense for the littlest fingers, so I stayed in that workshop. We talked about the Christmas story as we worked -- sometimes I told it to them, and sometimes they told it to me. Some kids did manage a sheep or donkey along with their people figures. The advent wreaths, with short services to go with lighting each candle, turned out very well, and most of the calendars, with activities for each day until Christmas, made it home. The tiny nativity figures went home in ziploc bags, and I pondered whether it had been "worth it." Then I talked to one of the moms who had been a helper.
"My girls have been playing 'Baby Jesus' every day since they brought their nativity figures home," she said. "The older one holds up the angel and flies it to Mary (the younger daughter) to tell her she's going to have a baby. She has Mary cry out 'Oh!' to show her surprise. Then Mary and Joseph walk to Bethlehem and find there's no room at the inn, and go to the stable, where Baby Jesus is born and put in the manger. Then the girls bring the sheep in to visit the baby. They've got the story down pretty good, and they play it again and again, trading roles."
I was ecstatic! Those little girls were 5 and 4 years old! How do we help little children understand "preparing" for Jesus' birth? Just give them the story and their own simple props. Their wonderful imaginations will do the rest!
