Unfinished Love…
An Interview with Sherry Tucker
Not sure where to begin. How does one deal with the pain of losing a young child to cancer? How does one learn to pick up the pieces of a broken heart, to breathe, to work, to just carry on? Meet Sherry Tucker. Mom, wife, businesswoman, author and community champion for hundreds of little children suffering from cancer.
Sherry and Dirk lost their 8-year-old son, Zach, to brain cancer almost a decade ago. Yesterday would have been his 18th birthday. I knew of Zach, because he went to school with my son at Lithia Springs Elementary and the Tucker family lives in our neck of the woods.
I met Sherry 6 months ago to conduct this interview, and yes, it has taken me so long to muster up the courage to tell their story. I thought it would be appropriate to write this piece on Zach’s 18th birthday and honor a young boy and his beautiful family.
As we spoke over ice tea at a local watering hole, I observed a deep sadness in her eyes that has settled into her being. She spoke with a guarded confidence knowing this would be a difficult conversation.
Born and raised in Indiana, Sherry and Dirk moved to Florida for the sunshine! They lived a comfortable, middle class life raising two beautiful children and enjoying the fruits of their labor. And it all changed in a heartbeat:
July 25th, 2005: A day that would begin a new journey for our family. On this day all the future hopes and dreams we had once dared to imagine dissolved into a black abyss of unknowns.
— Excerpt from the book, Unfinished Love by Sherry Tucker.
She spoke in quiet tones, of her journey over those awful 10 months watching her son, Zach go in and out of hospitals. Surgery. Radiation. Chemo. Loss of gross motor skills. Sherry and Dirk blamed their lifestyles, their sins, for their son’s disease. She spoke of his suffering, her bewilderment, her faith and his passing. That’s when I just cupped her hands in mine, and the tears flowed freely. Her 10 month journey through Zach’s cancer is captured in the pages of her book, that is a must read. She was kind enough to give me a copy.
There are no easy pages to turn, but this brilliant author, and now motivational speaker, has a stark honesty and a way with words that rips at the heartstring and brings her son and her family’s struggle alive.
Today her faith holds center stage and her foundation “Giving Hope Through Faith”, has served so many children and their families devastated by cancer. Care packages, golf tournaments, a 5K run. Fund raisers to ensure that her son’s passing was not in vain. I am proud to say that our Montessori Schools have been long time supporters of her foundation. The message: “Rather than mourn the absence of the flame, let us celebrate how brightly it glowed.”
Her message? Call the people you love and tell them you love them. Sherry’s quote by Mitch Albom, in the final pages of her book, sums it up perfectly:
“Life has to end…. Love Doesn’t”.
About Hemant Rustogi