My wife and I, along with our three young children, attended a party over Mother’s Day weekend. The weather was so perfect that it brought to mind e.e. cummings’s line, “thank you god for most this amazing day.” While parents talked and maybe sipped adult beverages, kids played on the basketball hoop in the driveway and a tree swing in the front yard. There were balloons, snacks, and a big cake.
But this was no birthday party.
After an hour or so, the hosts asked everyone to gather beneath a large oak. A piñata was hung, but this piñata was not shaped like an animal. It looked like a ghost with beady eyes and a sinister snarl.
It was cancer.
About two years ago, the youngest child in this home had been diagnosed with leukemia. She began chemotherapy right away. In the days, weeks, and months that followed, her teacher created fun, at-home learning projects. Her classmates sent cards and told jokes on video calls. Neighbors and friends delivered meals and donated to Go Fund Me pages. She finished her treatments and was declared to be in remission! A lover of dogs, a special sign was made for her: Woof, woof, hooray! No More Chemo!
Last weekend, we gathered around that piñata and watched as the child’s father handed her a baseball bat decorated with festive orange streamers, her favorite color. There was no blindfold. The child fixed her eyes right on that piñata cancer and, with a mighty swing, split it open! Her mom filmed with her phone, simultaneously laughing and crying, crying and laughing as the candy rained down upon the scrambling, shrieking, joyous children.
Yes, thank you for this most amazing day.
The cake read, She Kicked Cancer’s Butt. Standing quietly off to the side, I watched her bounce on a pogo stick, seemingly a picture of health. I reflected on the other children I've known of whom you could not say the same thing. Cancer is an evil, and as far as treatments have come, there is no magic baseball bat that can hit it out of the park or kick its butt forever. Yet, we hope, we pray, and sometimes we get to celebrate.
As I was eating my slice of cake, an older gentleman introduced himself. I learned that he was a family friend from the time when the child’s mother was a girl. He had a small gift for the young honoree, wrapped in tissue paper. I asked about it, and he smiled.
“It’s a keychain,” he replied. “For all the keys she’ll need in her long life.”
The word amen can be translated as “may it be so.”
Andrew Taylor-Troutman is pastor of Chapel in the Pines Presbyterian Church as well as a writer, pizza maker, coffee drinker and student of joy.
