Mother Transforms Grief By Transforming Room
I didn’t know Brett James, but I think I sense him as I sit in his room at Walden House.
Maybe it’s his parents’ grief I feel. The thought of losing a child brings a shallowness to my breath. Take anything I have but spare my daughters.
Brett was a Post Falls High sophomore when he was diagnosed with leukemia six years ago. While his classmates screamed at basketball games, Brett underwent chemotherapy. While other parents asked their teens about their grades, Dale and Barbara James asked, “Why Brett?”
Ten months after his diagnosis, Brett died. Much of Post Falls mourned the loss of the popular basketball player.
“We will never be the same people,” Barbara says.
But it isn’t sadness I feel in his Walden House room. Maybe it’s relief. Barbara found the nearly finished Walden House two months after Brett’s death.
It was much like the Ronald McDonald House in which she and Dale had stayed in Iowa while Brett underwent a bone marrow transplant. Walden House was warm and inviting, a place for sick people and their families to live during treatment at the North Idaho Cancer Center or Kootenai Medical Center.
Barbara knew from her four months in Iowa that Walden House needed more family space than one living room. Over three months, she poured herself into transforming Walden’s unfinished storage area into a comfortable family room.
“It was so good for me,” she says.
As Walden House celebrates its fifth anniversary this year, I know what it is I feel in the room with Brett David James’ name on the door. It’s peace.
His room is a place to be a kid, take off my shoes, grab the Nintendo and the remote control. It’s a place to work things out during difficult times. Thanks, Brett.
Stop by Brett’s room during Walden House’s open house April 17
Mr. Matt’s Wild Ride
Neither ice nor trucks nor rolling Jeeps could stand in the way of Matt and Haley Bevacqua’s Jan. 14 wedding.
On his way to work Friday the 13th, Matt hit black ice on I-90’s Stateline offramp, fishtailed, hit a dry patch and rolled his Jeep Wrangler about six times. It stopped upright, though sideways, on the offramp with a semi-truck heading for it. And Matt’s smashed door was stuck.
He jumped out the Jeep’s back, but the truck pulled over to help. Matt was cut and bruised but otherwise in good shape. He doesn’t usually wear a seat belt, but did that day, for some reason he hasn’t yet discovered.
“I wasn’t superstitious before, but I am now,” he says.
Adrenaline or passion or both pulled him through wedding rehearsals and the real thing. To hide his wounds, Matt wore more eye makeup for the wedding than his beloved.
Love is in the Air
To raise money, Lake City High’s student council is peddling love. It’s not as bad as it sounds. Bouquets of Valentine balloons are going for $3, or $5 with candy. Can’t beat the price. Call 769-0769 by Monday afternoon.
Chums
As a writer, I’m not inclined to accept that “a picture is worth a 1,000 words.” Except on rare occasions. What photos of you and your best friends are better than any story you could tell? Send yours with names and the occasion to Cynthia Taggart, “Close to Home,” 608 Northwest Blvd., Suite 200, Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, 83814.
MEMO: The byline did not run with the published story.