darwin moved to seattle a year ago. he works on the eastside, chills with the wallingford cgroup, enjoys taking photos and blogs here.
My faith has been growing rapidly the past few years and moving to Seattle without my college fellowship (Intervarsity) around, I wasn’t sure where I’d get my spiritual support. Though I was raised in the Catholic Church, I don’t think I really knew God personally until my sophomore year in college. That year in 2003, my older brother Oliver was diagnosed with terminal colon cancer at age 25. The doctors said he had about 2 years to live. My family was in shock, and I was struggling to find answers. In my dorm, I was invited to participate in a weekly Bible Study and started going to the larger fellowship meetings as well.
At first, it was all very new to me and a challenge to understand, but my family in Houston also made a transition to a more evangelical church that same year. God was starting to move in my life. My faith grew immensely the next two years, sometimes taking steps backward, but especially at retreats, I felt like I was getting to know the person of Jesus Christ. In my last quarter of college in May 2006, I went home to Houston to visit my family. It had been 6 months since Oliver had stopped taking the last remaining chemotherapy that was effective. He traveled to Germany in February for some alternative treatment as a last resort. I always had faith and hope that somehow God would heal him. But seeing him then when he was getting thinner and thinner, and knowing that medically there was nothing to do but wait really frustrated me. I asked him if he thought he would still be healed, and for the first time, he told me no. He explained that he believes it’s possible, but for him, it might not be meant to be. With tears in my eyes I sat speechless next to my only brother and tried to make sense of it all. I flew home in June after an IV retreat where I was able to commune with God and he helped me recover from a stressful quarter of depression where I almost failed to graduate. Oliver was happy to see me, though he looked like a skeleton. In less than a week though, his condition worsened, and he as admitted to the hospital. My family (Mom, Dad and little sister) stayed with him every day, and we even slept there on a Friday night. During those times, we all surrounding him, reading Psalms to him, praying and singing. At some point he lost the ability to speak because his throat was so dry and he had difficulty breathing. He would write to us on paper with what little strength he had left. One of his last messages was a heartfelt and simple, “I love u guys.”
On Saturday, July 1, the Lord called Oliver home that rainy afternoon. Looking back – the following days seem like a blur: the wake service, funeral, seeing lots of friends and family. I tried to channel my efforts and stay busy by building a simple memorial website at olivercruz.com and also setting up a cancer research memorial fund in his name at the hospital he had been treated at. Since then, it’s been a gradual process of healing – one that may never be complete until I see him again in heaven. But, God’s strength has really sustained my family and I. Leaning on him through the whole thing, we have grown both closer as a family and closer to Him. Oliver even told a friend of his that if he had a chance to do it all over again and be able to change things, he wouldn’t change a thing. The transformation in my family’s faith – including his own – was worth more than his life to him.
Though I still miss him dearly, I depend on Jesus to help me understand that everything has happened by His divine plan, and I rejoice that Oliver has gone home to our heavenly Father. Through Oliver’s life and death, God has used the experience to bring me closer to Him and allowed me to share my story with others for his glory. This is only a small part of mine and Oliver’s story, and I’d be happy to share more with anyone, just ask me!
