My mother died of cancer but she taught me to embrace her joie de vivre
The author, pictured with his mother at his high school football game (top) and a Florida State University baseball game (bottom). Two photographs – and memories – he cherishes now more than ever.
Jan. 26, 2022 | Story and photos by Steven Walker
Overcast and brisk, the March breeze at Dick Howser Stadium in Tallahassee pummeled me as Florida State took the diamond.
The Seminoles faced Oakland University, but my mind was elsewhere. Teenage angst, chronic anxiety and a wandering mind sidelined me from what was otherwise shaping up to be a relaxing weekend trip for the Walker family.
My mother, who insisted on sitting next to me, leaned over with her phone for a picture. I didn’t smile. I didn’t want to be there.
A disappointing photo of a disappointing memory. I often lie in bed at night wishing I could go back. I wish I would’ve smiled more. I wish I had more time.
I didn’t know it that Saturday, but I only had a little over a year left with my mom. She died just weeks after I graduated from high school. She battled breast cancer for seven years — my entire time in middle and high school.
I have about 6,000 pictures on my iPhone. Of them, there are probably fewer than 200 good photos. And of those, I have about three good pictures with my mom.
Her life was worse than mine, yet in those photos she smiled.
A joyful Debbi Walker was a familiar sight at the First United Methodist Church of Melbourne. Services would end at 10:30 a.m., but we wouldn’t leave until about 11. She needed to know if Cindy’s recovery was going well. She needed to know if Wesley made the basketball team.
She couldn’t think about tomorrow, only that today offered so much. The universe had given her a death sentence with a blurred-out date. She yearned to be present in the moment.
It’s easy to say in hindsight I should’ve done the same. But I had my whole future waiting for me.
As a junior in high school, there was never a shortage of things to occupy my mental real estate. Thoughts constantly flew through my head at a breakneck pace.
Did I remember my cleats? Where am I going to college? When will I ever need to know this stuff?
Such thoughts ought to be subdued sometimes. How else could you sleep? I know I didn’t.
I always felt hurried. It could be a relaxing afternoon — a baseball game in Tallahassee — but my mind would wander into tomorrow. It was exhausting.
My mom’s imminent death never seeped into my mind during those episodes. Perhaps I suppressed it to cope with the pain, or I was simply too busy. I don’t know why, and I likely never will.
What I do know is I never considered that I would look back at these memories wishing to do them differently. The baseball game was not the exception to the rule. A perusal of my mom’s memorial Facebook profile will show you I never posed for pictures unless forced. No candids. Lots of Christmas photos because the joy is implied.
The good photos came from when I had no choice but to live in the moment. As a senior, I started at quarterback for the football team. It’s hard to consider tomorrow’s realities when the one staring you in the face is a 250-pound behemoth eager to take your head off.
The teams we played were always bigger than us. We, the “Mighty Minutemen” of Cocoa Beach, were filled with scrawny surfers who didn’t want to do cross country. Too much running.
Winning was rare, except for the night that I dedicated the game to my mom before heading onto the field for kickoff. The name “Debbi” emblazoned my athletic tape as she cheered from the sea salt-rusted metal bleachers.
The other much bigger team couldn’t stop me. They ran at me, but I ran faster. They dove left, but I cut right. All the right moves until checkmate. We won 41-0 that night, the biggest win of our season so far.
After such a momentous win, everyone stormed the field to take pictures with the players. Girlfriends chased down their boyfriends. Parents found their sons.
My mom found me. She leaned in for a picture, and this time I smiled.
Nothing else mattered, and I was fully present in the moment. Cancer, college and crippling anxiety all seemed so far away. This was just a mom proud of her son, who was content to just exist.
After she died, this picture stayed on my phone’s lock screen for over a year. At one point, I wanted to change it to a different picture of us. That’s when reality set in. There aren’t enough good ones.
Entering my senior year of college nearly four years later, I’m faced with a similar situation.
Anxiety grips my life harder than ever before. On September 17, I received a text that the Tampa Bay Times had opened applications for their internship program. I’ve always dreamed of working at that newspaper. I didn’t sleep that night.
Just as I faced the unknown after high school, I now face the unknown of life after college. You can’t plan what you can’t control, and it kills me.
These are the best years of our lives after all, right? There are a million possibilities of what is in store for me after graduating. None of it is guaranteed. Living in the present is my reality.
I now see I need to be present — like my mom was. Her philosophy on life guides me into the unknown after college.
I don’t want to look for pictures of my life one day and say, “There aren’t enough good ones.”
I don’t want to look back and wish I had smiled.