Hannah’s and Connor’s Stories

I know parents have a lot of fears. Oh, absolutely. We had fears. Yes. What would you say is the number one greatest fear of probably every parent?

Yep. Losing a child. I would say that's the number one fear of most parents. What would you say is the number one greatest fear of probably every parent? Losing a child.

Yeah, I was thinking you'd say that. And, you know, I watched my mom go through that. And my dad, when my little brother died. I watched my parents go through that. When we lost my sister, she was a little bit older, but it was shattering to not only them, but our entire family and her kids. Yeah. And I can remember, you know, six years old, eight years old, 15, watching my mom, well, feeling my own grief, especially as a six-year-old, like, what just happened?

I didn't understand it. But watching mom and dad, and they were divorced, but both of them grieving. It was one of the hardest things I'd ever experienced. Not just me, but watching my mom and dad. And so today we've got two couples sitting in the studio who have both lost a child, same year.

Yes, if I'm right. We've got the deals, Ron and Nan deal with us, and Brad and Jill Sullivan with us. Welcome to Family Life today, you guys. It's good to be here. Thanks for having us. Yeah.

So we're going to dive into something a little different than we do every other day here and hear your stories and help families, you know, go through or be able to process and even walk through with other people, this kind of tragedy, you know. And many people know Ron and Nan a little bit, too. But Ron is the director of our blended family ministry here at Family Life.

You guys have been married, I'm guessing, 35 years? That's right. Bingo.

I just took a guess. That was perfect. What does this look like, you know, 35 years?

I think they look like 20 years. Yeah. I mean, it looks like you've got this marriage thing down. Like, perfect.

That's a program for another day. I didn't think so. And, you know, you brought really your friends with us. I thought it'd be fun to have you introduce Brad and Jill because we know them, but we just met them. And, you know, give us a little bit of their story.

Yeah. So, Brad and Jill have come into our life as a result of the loss of our son. I tried to describe them once to somebody and I said, you know, these are people, salt of the earth, big hearts who have gone through their own significant loss, and they are now just pouring into the lives of lots of other people who have gone through a similar loss. And it's just a story of servants ministering to people as fast as they can.

I would agree. And they've ministered to us. They have. And we are now helping in a role like doing a support group. Tell us about their ministry. What is their ministry?

It's a wonderful ministry. Well, they could tell us too. Yeah, you could. You could. Go ahead.

Well, sure. Our ministry is called While We're Waiting. And that name comes from the idea that we're all waiting for something that we can't see yet. While We're Waiting is based on a scripture, Romans 8 25, that says, But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance. And we're waiting to see our children again.

The deals are waiting to see Connor. We're waiting to see Hannah. And so this ministry is all about what are we going to do with our lives while we're waiting for that day that we're reunited with our children. Well, take us back. Tell us the story of Hannah and just walk us through the journey because that was a few years back, obviously, but we don't know the story.

So how did this all happen? Well, it was 12 years ago and Jill and I, we've been married 34 years. So, you know, we've had our started our family with with Hannah. She's our youngest and then our daughter, Bethany.

And I was an educator and coach, teacher, then got administration and was a principal. But Hannah woke up on February the 14th of her sophomore year in high school and she had headache and we sicked her stomach. We put her back to bed and she was up the next day.

Same problem. Long story short, we were in a in the pediatrician and then the ophthalmologist to get a check out her eyes. They thought it was a problem with her eyes and they did an MRI and they found a brain tumor in the tumor was right in the center of her head.

And a lot of our story is talking about how she handled this news from the beginning. I was her principal, so she was my favorite student, obviously. How old was your other daughter at that time? She was 13. And so I was both of my girls principal.

My daughter was just to talk a little bit about her. She was straight A student. Her goal was to be the valedictorian and she was on her way. She was number one in her class.

You know, that was never my goal. I'm glad that she had that goal. Yeah, so she's a great student. So I was proud of her as a principal and as an educator. But as a father, she she made us proud, as did Bethany.

Our girls, you know, our family was we had the white picket fence. You know, the good situation, you know, the you know, we were in church and serving in church. Bethany and Hannah were serving in church or being a part of church. Hannah going on youth mission trips, you know, just involved. And but on that February, we were in a children's hospital and waiting on surgery.

So I love to tell the story because it's really has helped me a lot. Brad, hold on there for a second. And Jill, take us back to the time that you heard this diagnosis that there's a brain tumor. When the MRI comes back.

I was with her. We had gone in for the MRI. And, you know, when you go for an MRI, you don't expect to get results that day. And they kept kind of trying to stall us to keep us from leaving after the MRI was over. They actually offered us free lunch tickets to go have lunch in the hospital cafeteria that day. Did that worry you?

Oh, yeah. Your mom radar starts to go off and, you know, there's something going on. But to be honest, I had never had an MRI before. I never had a child that had an MRI before. I didn't know what the typical routine was. I thought it was odd that they wanted us to stay and have lunch. But we quickly went, ate lunch, came back to the MRI suite because they said, come back by here after you have lunch. And when we walked in, the technician had kind of pushed the chairs together and she set us down. And she said, your ophthalmologist called and he's on his way over.

He wants to talk to you. It was kind of a neat story. Our ophthalmologist that we were referred to is actually somebody we had gone to college with. We went to Washington Baptist University and we knew Tommy Mosley. He was a friend of ours. Last we knew he was going to be a worship pastor, but somehow he had gone back to school and become an ophthalmologist. And that was the guy who came in and met us that day, walked into that MRI suite and sat us down and he said, Hannah has a brain tumor. They actually walked us into the little suite, the little area where the technician was and showed us right there on that film. It was stunning.

We were not expecting that at all. And of course, you know, Hannah and I both started crying. Hannah's 16 years old at this time. She understands everything that's going on. So she's sitting with you?

Yes. So she wasn't outside. It was like she's going to hear the news just as you did. She heard the news just as I did.

Wow. And Tommy was wonderful. He sat down with us and he prayed with us. He kind of walked us out of back way from the MRI suite so we didn't have to walk out in front of everybody. He even offered to drive me home.

I said, no, you know, I can drive. We got in the car and, you know, Hannah was 16. Her biggest concern at this point was, you know, what's going to happen?

Are they going to have to shave my head? Because Tommy told us, you know, she is going to have to have surgery. They will have to get this out. He said, you can either go to Children's Hospital tonight or in the morning.

Whoa, so they're moving quickly. Yes. He said she's not in any acute distress. So if you want to wait until morning, we can do that.

But we need to get her there. So I said, yes, let's wait until morning. So we started to drive home and, you know, she's asking me questions that I can't answer. I call him and I say, I need you to come home now.

And that's all I could say. And I just hung up the phone and he met us in the driveway. Yeah, I'm watching him drive up the driveway and I can see on their face that there's something going on and my daughter gets out, Hannah gets out and she looks at me and she says, Dad, I've got a brain tumor.

And that news just took the wind out of my lungs. Another non-coincidence is that our neighbor was a retired pastor that had really just loved our family and loved our kids. And I called Brother Gerald and he come over and we prayed together. He gave us a verse named 1-7, the Lord is good, a refuge in times of trouble.

He cares for those who trust in him. And we hung onto that verse and we then prayed together as a family and said, God, we trust you with this news and we give it to you. And we like to, you know, the Philippians 4-7 peace, we started feeling that peace immediately. We were devastated by the news that we were processing, but we started feeling that peace. And we were in Children's Hospital the next day and had talked to a surgeon and a night before surgery, I'd like to share the story about Hannah.

Before we were trying to go to sleep, she said, Dad, I got to tell you something. She went on to tell me about an experience in her youth group a few months prior with a disciples weekend that they had a leader there that shared with them how God allows storms in your life to bring you closer to him and also to allow others to see him through your storm. And she went on to say, Dad, you know, our waters have been calm.

We hadn't had any storms. But I want you and mom to know that I prayed for a storm that God might use me. And that was a comfort to us as we were processing that to know that our God is sovereign and he's in control. And he was preparing her. And I'll let Jill share about the news we got after surgery and the news they shared with us. So she went right into surgery that next morning? Yeah, the next day after that, she went into surgery and the surgery was very successful. You know, it's a very terrifying thing to send your child in for brain surgery because you don't know what the result might be. But she did very well. They were able to go in there and get the tumor.

They got all of it without causing any major damage or anything. The surgeon came out and talked with us and he said everything was great, best possible outcome. He says, but we are going to send this off for a biopsy depending on the results of the biopsy that will determine our next step.

So she recovered very well from her surgery. We went home actually just a few days later. But we knew, you know, we had this biopsy hanging over our heads. We went back to get her stitches removed and to find out the results of the biopsy. And when we walked into the room, there was our surgeon and another doctor. And then there were these other people in the room and we really didn't know what they were there for until later.

We realized they were counselors because they didn't know how we were going to react to the news we were about to hear. Our surgeon kind of gave us the surgery follow-up information and then he introduced us to the other doctor who was an oncologist. And he said, the biopsy results have come back and Hannah has a grade four glioblastoma tumor. You know, I'm the kind of person I'm immediately thinking, okay, how do you spell that because as soon as we walk out of here, I'm going to look this up and find out. I'm going to research this thing. And it was almost as if he could read my mind because he said, don't go home and Google glioblastoma.

He said, you will not like what you read. It's a terminal diagnosis, but it typically occurs in older adults. Your daughter is 16, she's healthy otherwise. We're going to do radiation, we're going to do chemotherapy and we're going to try to beat this thing. And we said, okay, you know, we're ready, let's do that. And, you know, Hannah took that news and just handled it with grace, without fear, she accepted it as her storm. So she started on this six weeks of radiation.

She would go to school every day because school was very important to her. And we were really feeling very hopeful. We thought this is really good, you know, she's responding well to the treatment.

She would get an MRI every two months and it was always all clear. So we felt like we're going to be okay. We're kicking this. We are kicking this.

We are doing great. But in the fall semester of her junior year of high school, that following September, she started having some of the same symptoms that she had had early on and some balance issues. And so I called up to Children's and I said, you know, there's something going on. It had just been six weeks since her last MRI and it was perfectly clear. But they said, well, go ahead and bring her in, we'll scan her and we'll see. Brought her in, they did an MRI. Usually they just scanned her brain. This time they extended it and scanned her whole spine. And, you know, I think we knew at that point that something was going on. They called us the next morning with the results and the cancer had returned and it was on her brain stem.

And she had tumors up and down her spine, so many that they call them snowdrift tumors. And they said, you all need to come in and we need to talk about our new plan from this point. And so the four of us went in the next day and they explained to us that she had less than a five percent chance of survival at this point. You know, Hannah was in on all of these discussions. Bethany was there for that particular discussion.

And they said, we're going to try another kind of radiation, a full body radiation, a full upper body radiation and a new kind of chemo, an IV chemo. We moved forward with that and she really never recovered from that point on. It was a difficult journey from that time. You know, the cancer was attacking her brain. And so, you know, she lost her cognitive skills and just her life skills and those kinds of things.

It's very hard to see your child decline in that way. But she kept her faith until the very end. And, you know, we were very proud of her. We say that she taught us how to live well and she taught us how to die well. And we were grateful that we had the opportunity to be her parents. She went to heaven on February 26th of 2009.

It was exactly one year from her surgery date. And we look back at that year and the way she handled that year. And she was the type that would worry about every little thing.

And she accepted that storm and without fear, like Jill said. But then when we would get a bad report from a scan and she'd see that we were emotional and it was difficult, she would look at us and she said, Mom and Dad, I'm okay. And she was okay because her Lord and Savior had her and was walking with her. And something that I am proud of is I'm an educator.

And we talk to our students about how important education is and what doors that could open. And what I am grateful for is that my daughter had a personal relationship with Jesus. And that knowledge gave her hope for eternity. She just, again, she taught us an awful lot and we're blessed. And again, we don't want to waste that storm.

We want to use it for good. Yeah, and that knowledge gives you hope as well. I mean, as parents, and I know Ron and Nan, you went through similar, same year. And I know our listeners have heard your story a little bit, but can you give us a little bit of a journey that you went through?

You said white picket fence. I always say it was a Norman Rockwell photo. We had the golden retriever to go with it. You know, these three beautiful boys at 10, 12, and 14. Here I was married to a minister.

We were going to church three times a week. The boys were going to camp. Let me just talk about Connor and the boys. They would meet each other in the hallway at night and kiss each other good night. Good night, brother. Good night, brother. Love you.

Love you. You know, Sunday nights we were doing devotionals. I remember this Sunday nights, and Connor would get his keyboard out, and Braden would play the guitar, and they'd bring their little Bibles out to that little living room.

And, you know, we were just, it was a sweet season, and we had that beautiful golden retriever to go with it. Where did Connor fit in with the three boys? He was our middle son. At that time, he loved everything Star Wars, everything Lego Star Wars. He was going to be the next George Lucas. He would be out on that trampoline with that stick.

Just a stick. He had lightsabers, tons of lightsabers. And one day, I watched him, and I was like, okay, this really looks weird. Somebody's going to say something. And I went out, and I said, Con, Con. And he went with one hand up, and I said, what are you doing? He said, I am choreographing this fight scene for my storyboarding of this movie that I'm going to make.

And I was just like, okay. He was all right brain, all artistic. The other boys played sports. When we would offer sports to him, we'd say, hey, would you like to play soccer? He'd go, why? I mean, he was just our artist, our creative kid. And at that time, I think back now, and I wish, boy, what I would give to have one night for him to read one more chapter, because he was reading chapter books to us at night. And he'd say, Mom, I just want to read one more chapter. Can I just sit out here and read one more chapter?

I think about that as an educator. He loved to read. He'd get lost in the story with me. What I would give for one more chapter, that he was a joy. He had given his life to the Lord early, and his favorite verse was highlighted in his Bible, Proverbs 3, 5, and 6. He loved his family. He loved his friends. He loved everything creative, and he was my buddy. He would sit on my right side at church and not share me with his other brothers. And he could sing, and he would take the lead. He had a sweet tenor voice, and I'd sing alto in.

That is one thing that I miss so much is that harmony in my life. But he would be 24 right now, a tall, beautiful young man. And I was so struck as Brad started talking about Hannah's first symptom. It was a headache, and that was Connor's first symptom. He had a headache, and we sent him to bed early and gave him a couple of ibuprofen and just assumed it would all be okay. How old was he, Ron? He was 12. And yet in our story, after he went to the hospital, he was unaware of anything that was going on with him. It was a quick ten days for us, and really he had no idea. Although I stood at his side and walked him through every procedure and whispered in his ear, We're here, and talked him through every procedure, he was really unaware of what was going on with him.

So it was kind of a different turn there. Connor had a MRSA staph infection. We don't know where he got it or how he got it. Somehow it just attacked his body. So the headache was the first symptom, but within a couple of days, he had a 105-degree temperature and the beginnings of pneumonia.

That's what prompted us to finally get him into a hospital where they started running tests, and it's still another couple of days before they even knew what was going on, but very quickly they determined they needed to sedate him, which is why Nan was pointing out he didn't know what was going on because he was unconscious. And were you petrified? No.

No. Because we were confident that he would be okay. We were.

I could not go there in my mind. You know, every time they'd say, It's a little pneumonia, and I'd think, Well, he's not a baby and he's not an old woman and we're not in a foreign country, so here we are. We had elders come and laying hands on him, and we trusted those scriptures that said, you know, you pray for the sick and they'll be healed. We had even gone to the point of taking pictures and making notes about people that had come to visit him because we knew he was going to have a story, and we wanted him to know about all the people and the prayers because he was unconscious. He didn't know. And so we were dictating that so that he would be able to have a testimony when it was all over.

Like, we were never scared. We were in Amarillo at the time, and we were praying for a bed to open up at Dallas Children's Hospital. And it opened up, and Ron and the boys got in the car and drove from Amarillo to Dallas. I got on a plane with Connor, and even on the plane when they strapped his head down, and it took probably four hours to get him from that bed. In the hospital.

In the hospital in Amarillo to the gurney, then the gurney to the ambulance. Even when we got on that plane and the pilot said, you know, how high can we go? Oh, don't go over 11,000 feet.

This little guy can't take it. And they were talking about how delicate he was, how he may not make it. And I'm sitting there going, may not make it? No. And really, honestly, still, my mind could not go there.

It just wouldn't allow me to go there. He did survive the flight. He did.

He did get to Dallas Children's. And it was just two days later, on the first day we had indications he was actually improving, other factors kicked in, and it all took a turn for the worst. They had put him on ECMO, a lung bypass machine, so he was up on five mattresses and had a garden hose in his neck.

Taking blood out and oxygenating and putting it back in. It was just a terrible sight, you know, to be honest. They came to us, and circumstances I won't go into, but we ended up knowing that the end was near. And we ended up having two hours with him in his room. He's still unconscious.

I mean, we never talk to him again once they put him under. Right. And we had the last two hours with him when his last heart beat.

Yeah. My parents were there. The boys were there. Ron's sister was there. Good friends were there.

We sang him home. How much time had passed from the day he woke up with a headache? Ten days. Ten days. And I just did the math.

Connor died nine days before Hannah. Yeah. And we're in two different parts of the universe, as far as we're concerned. Right. And the death of our children has brought us together.

And Ron, you really instigated this time together in studio for a couple days. What prompted you to want us all to be together to talk about this? As a parent, the journey after a child dies is a marathon, as Nan says. It is not a sprint.

It's nowhere near a sprint. It is a long, long road. And parents, I need support. I need a place to grieve. We have, as Nan describes, a very sacred garden that we honor and protect, and we have learned to put hedges and fences around and not let the wrong people in because they will step all over the flowers.

And yet there are other people you must let in so that you can grieve in community with others who know what you're going through. And we have been the beneficiaries of the ministry that Jill and Brad have created in While We're Waiting. And we know how it serves us. We now have the opportunity to serve as group leaders, and we're seeing how it benefits other people. And we want people to know about this. And to be perfectly honest, communities, church community, don't know what to do with us. We know what to do with each other, but churches don't know what to do. People just, they run and hide. And I've had someone say, you are the face of my worst nightmare.

It is a really isolating, hard place to be in, especially if you want to go back to church and you want to try to step out into community. I mean, really, honestly, other grieving parents are really the safest people at this point. Because we can laugh, we can cry, and we all know we're not over it. We're just moving through.

And we all know what that reunion is going to look like. And so these are the safest people after you've been through something like this. And it's not people that have lost, because I have. I've lost a sister as well. I've lost my dad.

It's just that thing for parents. And this is the type of community you need, because they're safe, we know each other. Even when it's a different age or a different way, the day you lose your child is the worst day.

Yeah, and I think we need to continue the discussion, because you've just opened up the wound, in a sense. And it's hard. And it's easy for the Church, and I've done this, maybe we all have, you take a passage like Connor's favorite passage, Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding, all your ways acknowledge Him and He'll make your path straight.

It's real easy to think, oh, that means no hard times. And yet you know that passage as well as anybody now, because it was your son's passage. And that path straight, that leaning in, that trusting, is a long journey. And so for the listener, the parent listening right now, that maybe is in the journey you are in, or has gone where you've gone, like we've gone, even with Ann's sister, we want to offer the journey to them. Keep listening, because we're going to say, okay, now where do we go with this?

Because it's not going to end in a day or a month or a year. It's going to be a journey, and if you try to do that alone, you can't. And so we need to talk further. Thanks for opening up your lives, really. It's a tender place to go and let our people in, and we look forward to having you lead us where we need to go next. Thank you for listening to our stories about our kids. We really do appreciate it. There's nothing that a bereaved parent loves more than getting to talk about their child.

And say their name. It feels so honorable. I feel so honored that you would share your stories of your kids, your precious kids. Thanks. . Sorrow and loss and grief are a part of life on earth, and yet, as the Bible reminds us, as Christians, we do not grieve as those who have no hope. We still grieve, but our hearts are comforted by the fact that we have a hope in Christ. Ron and Nan Diehl, Brad and Jill Sullivan, have shared with us today their experience as parents who have walked through the unbearable loss of a child. I'm thinking back to an interview that Dave and Ann Wilson did a month ago with Levi and Jenny Lusko about the loss of a child.

In fact, they've written on that in a book called Through the Eyes of a Lion, Facing Impossible Pain, Finding Incredible Power. We have that book available in our Family Life Resource Center. You can go to familylifetoday.com to order a copy, or you can call 1-800-FL-TODAY. Again, the website is familylifetoday.com. Look for Levi Lusko's book Through the Eyes of a Lion, or call to order at 1-800-358-6329. That's 1-800-F as in Family, L as in Life, and then the word TODAY. By the way, if you'd like more information about the retreats that the Sullivans host for grieving parents, you can go to our website familylifetoday.com.

We've got a link to the Sullivan's website, and all of the information is available for you there. Now, I know some of you have been thinking, since you heard us talking about it this week, about the possibility of a 40-day media fast, and you're thinking, I don't know if I can do that. I don't know if I want to do that. I don't know if I think that's a good idea for me. Well, if you are still on the fence, we'd love to send you a copy of Wendy Speaks' book, The 40-Day Social Media Fast.

You can hear her story, and she'll walk you through the process. We're making the book available this week to anyone who can help support the ongoing ministry of family life today. Every time you donate, here's what you're actually giving to. You're giving to change lives, change marriages, families and legacies that are being strengthened and established as people listen to this daily program, this podcast. They're coming to our website, familylifetoday.com. They're using our resources, attending our events, and you make that happen when you support Family Life Today. Make a donation today online at familylifetoday.com, or call to donate at 1-800-358-6329, 1-800-FL-TODAY.

When you do, ask for your copy of Wendy Speaks' book, The 40-Day Social Media Fast. We'll send it to you with our thanks for your partnership with us in strengthening and establishing marriages and families all around the world. And we hope you can be with us again tomorrow when we're going to hear more from Brad and Jill Sullivan about how God prompted them to comfort other grieving parents with the comfort they have received from him. They'll share about the retreats that they're doing for couples tomorrow.

Hope you can tune in for that. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Ann Wilson, I'm Bob Lapeen. Join us again tomorrow for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.