#My late husband Fred was a privately but nevertheless strongly faithful man. He read the Bible at his bedside, lived a faithful life and took God’s promises to heart. He’d attend church but found his closest communion with our Maker while outside on his beloved ranch or out on the desert or mountains of our Northern Nevada home.
#Fred lived a healthy lifestyle. He ate wholesome, home cooked foods, got plenty of exercise from his daily work on the ranch as well as from his hobbies of hunting and fishing, and never smoked or used tobacco. Our idea of drinking was to split a beer on the porch after a long day haying during summer. Indeed, a six pack of beer or gifted bottle of spirits could last years in our home.
#So, it was shocking that in 2007, after a wreck with a horse that cracked his ribs, that a routine scan discovered evidence of a tumor in his bladder. We immediately sought treatment and from 2007 until the end of 2011, Fred endured 38 rounds of targeted chemotherapy along with 11 surgeries and procedures. The final surgery removed what ended up being a completely healthy right kidney along with the culprit for the cancer that kept reappearing in his bladder (his right ureter). The doctors were at a loss to explain the reason for his illness, as these cancers are typically all environmental, and Fred’s lifestyle lacked telltale ingredients such as smoking. Eventually, his medical team placed his case before a tumor board at a major teaching university. The board eventually closed in on a hypothesis that exposure to a now banned cattle dewormer (Warbex) was the likely cause of the initial cancer in his ureter wall.
#With the causal point of the cancer removed from his body in November of 2011, and no evidence of other spread, we pursued our lives along with careful six month follow up tests and appointments. We always seemed to hold our breaths for a week before each appointment but were absolutely faithful about never missing those check ups. We had nearly nine years more of healthy, happy life together that we all considered God gifted, and we made the most of that gift of time and lived very deliberately.
#In early 2019, while I was spending a couple days a week in Oregon helping our daughter manage her heavy college workload, I noticed Fred losing weight. I chalked it up to him having a bowl of cereal for supper when I was gone rather than the meals I prepared for him. One weekend in May when we didn’t have a college rodeo to attend, we spent the morning working calves and both felt exhausted by noon. We decided to take a nap. When we awoke in the late afternoon, Fred turned to me and without any real emotion told me that he was pretty sure that he was dying.
#I remember feeling dumbstruck and asking him why he would say such a thing. I asked if he were feeling ill, and he answered that he felt his body slowly weakening, more than just from age, and that his Grandpa Jones had been coming to him in dreams, and he was sure that when his time came, his Grandpa Jack would lead him home.
#He and I talked more about his steady stream of dreams of his Grandpa. Fred seemed unafraid and comforted by them. We’d just been to his regular six month cancer check up and gotten an all clear. I buckled down on making sure he was eating right, and he seemed to feel okay but not great as we moved into June and our daughter’s college graduation. We both thought a good check up right after graduation made sense.
#It was a busy time and we seemed to be doing something every weekend. At a college rodeo in Ellensburg, Washington that May, Fred contracted food poisoning and was very ill for two days. Doctors seemed unconcerned about his new symptom of throwing up blood, convinced it was simply a broken blood vessels and a byproduct of vomiting almost constantly for two days.
#When we got home, he was still having trouble swallowing. We scheduled an upper GI scope with the doctor, feeling very sure that Fred’s problem was nothing more than some age related narrowing of his esophagus. Fred was not yet awake from his procedure when I picked up his chart and looked at pictures from the scope. I didn’t need anyone to tell me that his condition was dire. I’d seen plenty of cancer in animals and I was certain of what I was looking at.
#Indeed, he had advanced cancer of the esophagus and it had spread throughout his body. We spent a month, searching in vain for a cure, and then settling his affairs with our legal and financial team in Reno. During the entire process, Fred remained calm and I believe, largely at peace. He hated the idea of leaving us, but he looked forward to what was to come.
#He continued to dream of his Grandpa Jack and knew that he would lead him home. He also recounted an experience of seeing brilliant green light all around his body one night we spent in hospital, and knowing in that moment that he would be healed in eternity. The next morning he excitedly told me about his experience and asked for a bottle of water. I gave it to him and he drank half of it. I asked if he thought he’d been healed and he replied, not in this life, but yes, in eternity. He had not been able to swallow anything for five weeks at that point, and would not be capable of repeating it again. But, it was clear evidence to him, that God had spoken and his prayers for healing in Heaven had been answered.
#We came home to the ranch and had 13 days together. He lost his physical strength but was clear headed until the end. He visited with friends and family who came to visit and never wavered in his faith. He seemed to turn inward in the last day, preferring to just being held by Patrice and I and his two favorite nephews. We told old stories and he smiled when he heard them. You could see the peace and happiness in his face, and after supper on September 23, 2019, he asked me for a little pain medicine, because it was hurting to take breaths, it was only his third request of the entire ordeal. I gave him a small dose of medicine and his body noticeably relaxed. We sat next to him and Patrice lay beside him, and again with his nephews Brad and Shane, sister Debbie and I, all of us touching him and watching him smile as we talked of funny, wonderful memories of our lives together. I honestly think that he waited for a moment when one of the stories made me laugh and I momentarily took my eyes off his, to take his last breath. And that was it. Grandpa Jones had taken his only grandson home.
#During the seven weeks of Fred’s final illness, he often repeated something to me…”let your faith be stronger than your fear”. That is the way Patrice and I have tried to live every day since.
#Kris Stewart is a rancher in Paradise Valley, Nevada.
