There’s an old oak tree, standing tall in the woods behind the house I grew up in.
It’s older than my sister and me and older than the neighborhood of Eastgate. It saw the turning of the 19th to the 20th century and grew all throughout those hundred years. It’s taken its fair share of beatings. It’s seen storms and droughts and cascades of ice weigh down upon it. Once, my sister and I were jumping on a patched-up rectangular trampoline, and a metallic snap and crack of wood signaled a rusty spring breaking off and shooting squarely into the bark of the old oak, where it remains to this day.
Twenty-six years later, I’m sitting in the side yard of my parents’ house on what can only be described as an idyllic Michigan summer day, a warm, soothing breeze blowing through the shimmering verdant greens of the woods, and through the many branches and arms of that same old oak. My dad closes his eyes, sitting back in the lawn chair, and feeling the breeze, arms spread, sun beating down on the same kind countenance I was blessed enough to grow up with, and blessed enough to have passed on to me.
You see, my father is David Allan Jones, and he’s something of a local Lowell legend, as these things go. Not simply because of his contribution to the joy in lives of so many through the years by way of his gift of music, nor his instrumental role (pun very much intended) in reviving the musical spirit of the Lowell Showboat through the ‘Rockin’ Reunion’ two and a half decades ago, alongside band mates and co-writers of days gone by, which would lead to the onset of the much-beloved ‘Summer Sizzlin’ Concert Series.’
Davy Jones, as I’ve heard some call him, is a far cry from the cursed, angry pirate of legend, dwelling in deep dark. He has always been defined by kindness and selflessness, which knows no bounds. From his gift of time and service to the Methodist Church to his simple way of listening in conversation, reacting with offers luminous congratulations or commiserating with true empathy. I’ve witnessed it my whole life. A calm and steady heart, who even in times of extreme stress, working two full-time jobs as a post office delivery man and a custodian, has always maintained who he is.
But this is no eulogy.
You see, this remains true of my dad today, and as I sit across from him under a benevolent summer sun, he’s more fully alive than he’s ever been. At every junction of his journey with cancer, he’s remained grateful, persevering, and putting others first, to the extent of, after getting more hard news, turning around and asking the doctor or nurse how they are doing. Without fail.
When I asked him what he’s done to stay positive throughout his initial diagnosis of colon cancer in December, two surgeries within four days with complications in February, and a resurgence of issues only a month ago in July adding up to at least three weeks this year in the hospital in total, his answer was simple, and what I should have expected from my dad, yet still caught me off guard.
“Just be grateful every day, for every day. Be grateful for an able body.” He turns to my mom, sitting just behind and to the right of him at the table in the yard, and reaches out a hand. “And I’m grateful for Pam. She’s been amazing through all of this.”
My mom, through tears, brushes this aside, but at the same time feeling it deeply, I can tell. It’s a strange, blessed and hard thing to see the people who raised you and loved you in such a vulnerable state. But what a privilege.
My mom has had no easy go of it these past two years either, being hospitalized with severe lung pneumonia in December of 2022, spending Christmas there, and ever since clawing her way back to regain her voice. It’s better than it’s ever been as we talk about the ups and downs that any walk through sickness will bring.
In April, our family received incredible news. In the thick of a conference for worship leaders I was putting on at Impact, my mom calls me and says she needs to come down and see me. Mind you, my dad has had cancer for months now, and she knew what I was in the midst of leading. She wouldn’t want to come down right away if it wasn’t something important, and likely given the circumstances, not good news. It turns out it was just the opposite. Through bleary eyes in the parking lot of the church, on a gorgeous spring day and portent of summer to come, she says she needs to wait for my dad, but when I press further, she shakes her head and, through what was at the time a still very weak, raspy, thin voice, says, “The cancer’s gone.”
And it was.
The scans, confirmed by multiple doctors and nurses, saw no trace of the cancer in the liver. With the colon cancer having been removed surgically, it was for all intents and purposes, gone.
We had witnessed a miracle. I felt the weight of joy and gratitude in that moment and throughout the next days as the best sort of heaviness a man can experience, like a lavish coat of furs graciously adorned upon me in the thick of long, bitter cold winter
And my dad, when he arrived, was nearly without words, save for “I’m just so grateful.”
And we were.
We are now, despite the cancer having come back, something we learned about a month ago. That doesn’t change the fact there was something sacred about sharing that moment together. Something holy. And even though hearing that you aren’t fully well, and maybe sicker than you were before, has to be one of the deepest gut punches that could be doled out, there is something about sharing in the heartbreak that too, that is sacred, holy and even a blessing. Mankind was made for relationship with each other. Community, and to love one another. It’s really the only thing that can make the deep pains of life bearable.
It speaks volumes of Dave and Pam Jones then, who I’m proud to call my parents, that their entire church family prayed over them in front of the showboat during Sunday service, three weeks ago. People deeply care about them because they have deeply cared about others.
Perseverance cannot be exemplified, nor experienced, apart from struggle. A push and pull. A giving of ground and a retaking of that ground, in cycles. My favorite definition of the word is this: Continuance in a state of grace, until it is succeeded by a state of glory.
My dad has lived that grace, and he lives it still. Just as the oak stood over our family home for all the days I’ve known and stands there still today, seeing children grow, grandchildren come to play, greeting with gladness and righteous defiance each wave of weather and new season the years bring.
I ask my dad, sitting beneath the sunshine and lingering in the perfection of the soft wind, what he would say to someone beginning to walk the winding path that is a journey with cancer, or maybe on the far end what feels like a years long journey through barren wasteland.
He looks to my mom and says, “If you’re blessed to have someone you love to care for you, a spouse, a friend or sibling, don’t be afraid to lean into them and accept the help they can offer you.” Then, looking up to the glittering green forest canopy overhanging atop the yard and the branches of the oak waving gently, wisps of hair blowing back, changed from my own deep brown to white gray through the years, he says, “Be present, and lean on your faith. Be grateful.”
That’s advice a son of yours can take, Dad. I am grateful for your life, the life you’ve given me, and for the rest of life you’ve yet to live.
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