Radiate (43 page)

All around me, my teammates, the football players, and their families are cheering for me. Cheering... for me. I look around at the many smiling faces watching me as I make my way to the head table. And then I make eye contact with Daniel Delafield, of all people. The person who probably thought he had this award in the bag, he stands up at his table and claps his hands together harder than anyone else in the room. The others at his table, including Chloe, join him, and soon the room is one standing ovation.

For me?

Gabriel helps me up onto the riser, and I shakily walk to Coach Gaither, who hands me the biggest trophy I’ve ever seen in my life.

“Congratulations, Hayley. It was a no-brainer vote for the coaching staff.”

I can barely hold the trophy as I cover my mouth with my hand. “I’m speechless,” I say. “I don’t know what to say. Thank you.”

Mom and Dad encompass me, and I’ve never been more moved in my whole life. This was what I wanted. Attention. Popularity. That
something
more. And boy, did I get it.

Mr. Parish stands and takes the microphone. “Hayley, these past few months have truly been your shining moment. This entire school—and the entire community of Maxwell—is blessed for knowing you and seeing you through the cancer that attacked you. You certainly came out as our admirable star.

Okay, I cry for the sixth time.

However, these are tears of pride.

Tears of joy.

Tears of accomplishment.

Tears of humility.

Everyone surrounds me. Parents. Coaches. Football players. Cheerleaders.

Chloe pushes through the crowd and presses her hands into mine. “I’m proud of you, Hayley. I really am. All I wanted my whole life was to be the captain of the cheerleaders and have the best squad ever. I know I pushed you a lot... but I had my reasons. I see now that it’s not about the awards or camp or what have you. It’s about the people on the team. I just wanted what was best for our squad, and I didn’t realize at the time that
you
were the best thing for the squad. You made us, Hayley.”

I swallow hard, trying to dislodge the emotional lump in my throat.

I finally understand my captain after knowing her my whole life. I appreciate the trials she put me through to make me a better cheerleader. We hug, not awkwardly, like adversaries, but more like the warm embrace of friends who’ve shared lasting memories.

“Thanks so much, Chloe.”

She pulls away, and then the captain snaps into action. She deepens her voice and furrows her brows. “Don’t get too cocky, rookie. Basketball season is about to start. A whole new set of cheers and routines to learn. No slacking just ’cause you’re football’s MVP,” she says with a wink.

“Aye-aye, Cap’n,” I say, saluting.

Gabriel slides his arm around my waist and squeezes. “You good?”

“Super fantastic,” I say. Damn, this has been one hairy roller coaster ride of a senior year.

Well . . .

I got that attention I asked for... that
something more.

Boy howdy... did I get it.

I look at the amazing guy standing next to me, holding my hand and beaming down at me. I certainly couldn’t have gotten this far without him.

Or without my cheerleading.

The two of them
truly
saved my life.

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined.

—Henry David Thoreau

Two years later

I adjust my helmet and double-check the straps on my body harness. The guide next to me nods and helps assure I’m properly connected to the apparatus attached to the platform a hundred feet above the tree line of Walkes Spring Plantation, Jack-in-the-Box Gully in St. Thomas, Barbados.

“You ever done this before, little miss?” the Bajan guide asks.

I smile and adjust my sunglasses. “Nope, but there’s a first time for everything.”

Just like my first time snow skiing, my first time mountain biking, and my first time SCUBA diving—all things Ross Scott wasn’t afraid to do. And neither am I. I’m cancer free, limp free, and I have a healthy, thick, wavy head of hair. Go figure—a chemo perm. No one’s the wiser of what I went through my senior year in high school unless they notice that I have one leg smaller than the other.

The point is, I’ll never forget.

My dad, now CEO of Game On, sent me on a group adventure excursion on behalf of the company for my spring break vacation. A sophomore at The University of Alabama, I have decent grades, I’m on the spirit committee, and I’m a big part of my sorority. Gabriel’s on scholarship at Bama, too, and works as a student trainer for the Crimson Tide football team. I’m premed and he’s working on his engineering degree. Okay... I’ll admit it... I went to Bama because of the excitement of college football and one of the most successful programs of all time. On top of it, I’m getting a kick-ass education, and I get to be with Gabriel, too.

As I peer over the treetop canopy spread out before me, I remember how I got here. The little domino tumbles that life throws a person’s way may lead to one person influencing and helping another until both are all tangled in each other’s lives. That was how it was for me being partners with Lora Russell (a current cheerleader at Maxwell State University, engaged to Will Hopkins, and working toward her teaching certificate) and knowing her uncle who helped me with my rehab and gave my dad a job when times were hard. I learned through reading Kurt Vonnegut’s
Cat’s Cradle
that these are people who are all in my
karass,
all working together for the same collective greater good. And I’m okay with that.

My experiences in the hospital and dealing with my cancer truly made me want to pay it forward. With my skill in math and science, going into medical research is a no-brainer. I want to study cancer, its cause and effect, and help bring an end to it so that no other kid has to go through what I went through and so that no other person—period—has to suffer at the hands of a horrible cancer like leukemia that claimed Ross’s life so quickly and unapologetically. In my lifetime, I hope to see cancer totally obliterated off the map.

Oh, I also have a nonprofit charity that Mom helps me run. Called The Radiate Foundation, it sends cheer baskets—like the one I received—to cancer patients in the hospital undergoing treatment. Each cheer basket is ordered through us and shipped around the country to a local high school cheerleading group who delivers the cheers and good wishes to the patients.

I do this for all the people like me who’ve existed in a hospital bed wondering if anyone (other than family members) really cares or anyone truly gets what they’re dealing with. I do it for the memory of Ross and how we touched each other’s lives.

I do it because I didn’t know at the time why I got cancer... I suppose it was so I could share my story with others and give them hope.

Honestly, I do it because I
have
to.

“You’re up next, little miss,” the Bajan guide says to me.

He hooks me to the galvanized steel cable and pats me on the helmet.

I push off from the platform and hold my hands above my head as instructed. I squeal as I fly over the gully below and the lush green trees that appear to be mere stepping stones from this height. The Caribbean breeze blows against my cheeks as the brilliant March sun shines down on me. I’m flying through the treetops—like Gabriel who went before me and is now queuing up on the next platform. (Showoff!) I zip along at an incredible speed as the world whooshes by me. I’m living life adventurously with no regrets, no excuses, and no turning back.

Up here, zipping through the sky, I’m completely free.

I’ve got the rest of my life ahead of me, and I’m going to live it to the fullest.

Dream.

Discover.

Explore.

There are certain words a parent never wants to hear in reference to his or her child.

“Cancer” is right up there at the top of the list.

Imagine my horror when a doctor viewed an X-ray of my daughter’s sore leg and proclaimed, “It’s cancer, a malignant tumor, and her left leg has to come off.”

His harsh and quick diagnosis reverberated in my head, stabbing me to my very core until I could barely breathe. He said he’d never seen an X-ray such as this ever before. Cancer. Plain and simple.

I grabbed his arm and removed him from the examining room into the hallway. I put my finger in his face and said, “You can’t talk like that in front of my fifteen-year-old daughter.”

Immediately, I shot up a prayer to my Heavenly Father to block her ears and not let her hear the diagnosis. In later years, she’d tell me she didn’t remember his saying that.

We spent the summer of 1982 at the University of Alabama Birmingham (UAB) Hospital where my daughter underwent various tests, biopsies, X-rays, consultations, you name it. Whatever was growing inside her was unlike anything these doctors had previously seen. Only a few medical institutions in the United States were even able to treat such a rare cancerous growth. Thank heavens UAB was only three hours from us.

The cancer was a puzzle to the doctors, and the only known treatment at the time was amputation. My husband and I both insisted this was
not
an option.

During the final surgery, it was discovered that the tumor had wrapped itself around her fibula (small bone) and was dangerously close to her tibia (large bone). The lesion was removed, as well as the small bone and a good portion of her periosteal nerve, leaving her with a substantial scar from knee to ankle. She had follow-up treatments of both radical chemotherapy and ten days of radiation to be sure the doctors got every last one of the invading cells.

Her case was among a handful of firsts of its kind, and the procedure and treatment were eventually written up in the American Medical Association’s prestigious
Cancer
magazine.

UAB has tracked her progress since 1982, and today, she remains cancer free. There is no medical reason for her to be walking, but, praise God, thanks to surgery and treatment and our daughter’s own determination, attitude, true grit, family support, and physical exercise, she has been able to walk ever since without the aid of a crutch or a cane and without a limp.

This experience, as our daughter has freely admitted, was much tougher on her dad and me than it was on her. I’ll admit it was the absolute greatest trial my husband and I have ever experienced in our fifty-seven years of marriage—beyond his heart attacks, both of our bypass surgeries, and many other serious family illnesses. I don’t have the words to describe adequately the pain and hurt—beyond belief—when something like this invades and attacks your child and you cannot do
anything
about it except to pray and hope that God leads you to the right people who can bring about a positive outcome.

Years after her hospitalization, my daughter and I were on an airplane returning home to Alabama from her sister’s in Baltimore, Maryland. We were sitting together when she turned to me and said, “If I had never had cancer, I would have to have it.”

She blurted this out of nowhere, and it startled me because it had nothing to do with our current conversation.

“What did you say?” I asked.

Very succinctly she repeated, “If I had never had cancer, I would have to have it.”

“I don’t understand, Marley,” I replied, intrigued.

She continued. “I don’t know
why
I had cancer, but I know that I had it for a reason. It just hasn’t been revealed to me yet. I do know that I’m a better person for having had it. Maybe my case will help someone else.”

I could not have been more proud of her at that moment.

And I’m just as proud of her now as she shares this story with the world. Because she understands now that this was a story she had to tell.

We have always believed it isn’t
what
happens to you in life as much as
how
you handle what happens to you. Realistically, we cannot live life without trials and/or tribulations. But we are to be overcomers. Through our most trying times, we are to push through... and radiate.

While mostly a work of fiction, the core of this book is true and based on my daughter’s own experiences. It’s a showcase of how she never let anything hold her back from what she wanted. She was a varsity cheerleader who cheered every game, some with a bandage on her leg. She cheered with no hair on her head, even though I offered to buy her a wig. At the time, she told me, “They can take me as I am or not at all.” She continues to go through life as though nothing ever happened.

It is our desire and prayer that this work of fiction will not only entertain, but that it will be used to encourage others, young and old. To help them have hope when everything seems hopeless. To help them persevere when it would be so easy to give up. To have faith when it seems the world is against you. To overcome anything with a positive mental attitude. To hurdle the obstacles that life throws your way.

And like my daughter, to truly radiate.

—Elizabeth Ann Marley Harbuck

February 2011

This truly is a “book of my heart.” It’s written from memories of an experience I’d rather not relive, but it’s necessary to tell in the hopes of inspiring
just one
person dealing with his or her own battle with cancer or other life-threatening disease. If I were to thank everyone who helped me through that difficult time in my life, the acknowledgments page would be as extensive as the novel. I’ll do my best to keep it brief.

To my beloved parents, Joe and Lizanne Harbuck, who endured way more than any parents should ever have to, watching their daughter fight off a deadly disease. Your love, support, faith, and encouragement were the keystone to my recovery—and to every step I’ve taken since.