“This is not so much a memoir of Johnny in the conventional sense
as the story of a long, courageous struggle between a child and Death.”
So opens a book written by a father two years after his son died of a brain tumor at the age of seventeen. The title, taken from my favorite Donne sonnet, was the reason I picked this book up.
It’s a sad story, but it really didn’t move me; it didn’t cause even one teardrop to fall. That bums me out and makes me wonder what’s wrong with me.
Perhaps I was too detached, too clinical in my reading. Johnny Gunther died of a malignant glioblastoma, the same tumor my sister had/has (part was removed and part remains). Whenever I give medical histories and mention the glioblastoma the nurse sighs and asks how long my sister lived. Defying all odds and attributable only to Divine Providence, she’s lived with this tumor nigh until thirty years. It was interesting to note the treatment prescribed in 1947 and see how much has changed.
The alternative diet therapy, considered quack treatment, turned to by the Gunthers in desperation added many months to Johnny’s life. What diet you ask? Saltless, fatless, sugarless, with lots of fresh fruit and fresh veggies, oatmeal and an apple-carrot mash. Add in multiple enemas a day. “The regime was certainly onerous. Johnny said wearily after the first week, ‘I even tell time by enemas.’”
Perhaps I didn’t connect because the family didn’t share my faith in and dependence on God to make it through this kind of crisis. However, I would say that was true of Joan Didion’s A Year of Magical Thinking and I was touched by her grief. Johnny, best described as a humanist, wrote an Unbeliever’s Prayer:
Almighty Godforgive me for my agnosticism;For I shall try to keep it gentle, not cynical,nor a bad influence.And O!if Thou art truly in the heavens,accept my gratitudefor all Thy giftsand I shall tryto fight the good fight. Amen.
Johnny was a bright, curious, kind and determined young man. The crowning achievement of his life was to graduate with his class at Deerfield Academy after missing the last 18 months of classes. He worked and read independently and with tutors and made up tests one by one. He joined his class for the graduation, turban around his head. He died two weeks afterwards.
One phrase about writing captured me (emphasis mine):
We discussed Sinclair Lewis and I told him about the ups and downs in the life of an artist,
of the deep, perplexing downdrafts a writer may have.
I read somewhere that this was standard high school reading. Do any of you remember reading this? Any further thoughts?
