Jack was sitting very still in front of his towering bookshelf with notebooks filled with poems and stories he has written as well as various knick-knacks and souvenirs. His head barely moved an inch throughout our whole conversation.
“When the world starts to tip, I know that I’m starting to tip – it’s not the world.” Jack spoke so easily about the stroke that destroyed his vestibular system in 2001. His levity almost masked the gravity of his journey to recovery. He was told that he had to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair, that he would never be able to go camping and hiking as he once did. But he refused to let this stroke change his life. Over the course of a year, Jack learned how to stand upright by following the direction of vertical lines on the wall. He lifted himself off the wheelchair onto a walker. Pushing himself even harder, he slowly transitioned to two canes. And today, he only carries one cane.
Jack grew up in Northwestern Indiana, just off the tip of Lake Michigan. Right out of high school, he worked as a Latin teacher for three years before packing up to travel through Europe and North Africa with his wife in 1973. Almost five decades later, he still vividly remembers everything from this trip, especially being trapped in a campground in Athens when a student uprising overthrew Papadopoulos.
Eventually, Jack returned to America and settled down in Massachusetts, where he got a job as a US defense contractor for Raytheon Subsidiaries. After nearly two decades there, Jack resigned to pursue a new calling: becoming a pastor. While Jack practically grew up in the church, attending Sunday school and services each week, Jack didn’t realize his new calling until a series of serendipitous decisions led to a degree in theology and several pilgrimages. In pursuit of his new dream, he became an ordained pastor in 1994 for the United Church of Christ and moved out to Pennsylvania to serve his new congregation.
Jack had just started at this congregation when he had the stroke. “You either give up or you keep trying different things until something works. I just keep tackling whatever it is that I can find to do.” Jack has carried this philosophy since childhood. He grew up in a poor family where everyone was responsible for certain tasks, and if one person fell short, the whole family felt the consequences. Jack’s first job was mowing neighbors’ lawns, and all his earnings went into the family pot.
Thus, despite the physical challenges of stroke recovery, Jack dutifully served his congregation for over a decade. Being a pastor is not a light occupation – he was tasked with supporting those going through a hard time, worshipping leadership, writing sermons, teaching confirmation class, working with the youth, and being a unifying presence for the congregation. But the church community and the connection he felt with God gave him the strength to continue working.
Resilience is the inherent
Ability to always bounce back
When life throws you a curve
And tries to beat you down
(Excerpt from “Resilience,” by Jack Ivey)
One afternoon in 2007, Jack was at the church for a general meeting when he felt a searing pain in his back. When the pain persisted for over three weeks, Jack went to his primary care physician, who ordered an MRI and a CT scan; once the results came in, his doctor made an appointment for him with an oncologist. It took awhile for the reality of the diagnosis to sink in. Multiple myeloma. He initially only felt shock, which quickly morphed into a sense that his world was dissolving around him.
After the stroke I had to learn to walk again
After the cancer diagnosis my whole life changed
I had to learn to live with zero energy
I had to learn to live again
Jack knows he was dealt a bad hand these past couple of years. He credits his wife and daughter as being his rocks, as well as the constant and grounding presence of God. It meant everything to him that he was not alone in the worst moments of his life.
After thirteen years of chemotherapy infusions, radiation therapy, participation in two clinical trials, and two stem cell transplants, Jack is now in partial remission. “It’s like I’ve been given a chance to play my life as if it were an overtime, like in a sports event. In a way, that’s a gift that cancer has given to me, because I didn’t think that way before.”
Though my mother did her best to raise me as a Catholic, at a certain point I became dubious and suspicious of organized religion. But, hearing Jack speak about his spirituality, I couldn’t help but marvel at the beauty of his faith and the unrelenting strength and optimism it offered.
I asked him if he ever felt angry with God. He shook his head no, saying that he doesn’t expect God to dictate the events in his life – only that the Father would always be by his side.
We learned in our Brain and Behavior block that children who grow to be highly resilient versus children who do not typically differ in one key aspect – having at least one stable and supportive relationship with an adult. Perhaps our concept of supportive relationships should be expanded to include spiritual ones, and that inquiring about spirituality become a more standardized portion of the social history.
At the end of our interview, Jack turned around his computer to show me the candle he and his wife light everyday as a reminder of God’s presence.
“Life is a real kick. It would be a real shame to give up on it.”
Jeemin Kwon is an MS2 at the Perelman School of Medicine. Jeemin can be reached by email at [email protected].
