50+ Lifestyles

Offline for Awhile

By David W. Deuth, CFSP
President, Weerts Funeral Home

Early in the morning on the day after Thanksgiving, Linda and I were back in the car – not for Black Friday shopping as some may have done – we were headed back to Rochester so I could have another round of chemo. Things wrapped up late enough there that neither of us felt like a 20-hour day that included 10 hours of driving and an equal number of hours of appointments and chemo infusions sandwiched in between. We spent the night.

As we prepared to get an early start toward home on Saturday morning, we discovered an unexpected problem: a flat tire. I took pause and asked for help because of my very low blood counts in recent weeks. I called AAA and they came and put the donut spare on the car for me, for which I was grateful, potentially saving myself from another nick or cut and possible subsequent infection that I could not fight off effectively.

When I asked the AAA fellow if he could recommend a tire shop to fix the flat tire, he suggested a shop that was right on our way out of town. When we got there, we saw that there was McDonald’s right next door….good for a fresh cup of coffee while we waited to get the tire fixed. Perfect.

Before long, the tire guy called me to tell me the tire was fixed and the car was ready to go. When I went to the counter to pay for the repair, he asked if we were in town to visit relatives for Thanksgiving….and pointing to my very bald head, I replied that, no, I had just finished another round of chemo at Mayo and now that the tire was fixed, we could head back home.

Without missing a beat, he looked me square in the eye and said that there was no charge to fix the tire. “You have bigger things to worry about than this,” he said. “I’m glad we could do something to help.”

What?!?? Are you kidding me?? I again insisted on paying for the repair, and he refused. He handed me a receipt with a zeroed-out balance and THANKED ME for stopping by his shop. Woof. Humbled and grateful all at the same time, I walked away truly touched, realizing that this type of blessing doesn’t generally present itself on the otherwise perfect days of cloudless sunshine. Blessing duly noted.

Now I know that a tire repair is not a huge amount of money, especially as car repairs can go. But this man’s kindness, courtesy and genuine willingness to do something to help someone other than himself was not lost on me. He was a real blessing to me in the way he treated me; not because of cancer, but because of deep-down goodness on his part….what I have always liked to call “doing the right things for the right reasons,” Any other day, I believe, and this would have been a very routine transaction – nothing more. Blessing duly noted.

Last Thanksgiving, I sure hadn’t planned on including cancer and chemo in my Thanksgiving plans for this year. And yet, God continues to bless us and stretch us as we go further into this journey. We’re grateful for His goodness and unfailing kindness and abundant provision that we are yet only beginning to realize in such full measure. Blessing duly noted.

As I now embark upon the process of the Stem Cell Transplant this month, I’m afraid I’ll be offline here in the Quad Cities for a little while. This process will require me to become a temporary resident, so to speak, of Rochester for perhaps six to eight weeks; I will not be permitted to leave that town until I’ve reached certain medical thresholds and benchmarks. Having never done this before, I can’t say if I’ll be up to writing anything for February or March. We’ll take that as it comes.

In the meantime, we offer our continued and heartfelt thanks for your friendship, prayers and support as we continue down this pathway of remarkable life lessons and faith-stretching. We are grateful for each of you.

Remember Well…
And give thanks in all things.

David W. Deuth, CFSP, is a Funeral Director and the owner of Weerts Funeral Home in Davenport and RiverBend Cremation and Quad Cities Pet Cremation in Bettendorf.

You may follow his CaringBridge page at www.caringbridge.org/visit/daviddeuth.