LETTER TO FRED
Good morning, Freddy J. Crowell. The immediate, direct question needing an answer is: How are you? With a nice breeze coming through the open window, a favorite blanket over your lap, and the puppy Hope at your feet, life could be good. But really, How are you? The question is not, How are you feeling?
Your immediate, direct answer is: awesome, fantastic, grateful, and blessed to be alive this precious moment! Yet, this past week the Crowell lifeboat has been in raging seas much like the 56-foot BettyJune boat you experienced while fishing as an 18-year-old in the Strait of Juan de Fuca near the Olympic Peninsula. Crashing waves came breaking over the top of the boat.
Then, remember several years ago you vowed you would never go the chemo route with cancer. You saw your mom suffer in 1963 and your friend Chuck Hepworth suffer in 1983 with their physical deaths. You do not want this. Yet this past week, you came to the cliff because your oncologist needed a decision regarding further cancer treatment.
Cost counting has always influenced your decisions. Recollect how many life sales you have made and won: Recruited basketball players to U of Alaska in Fairbanks, convinced 108 campers to attend the first NBC basketball camp (while your college coach convinced only 5 campers to attend his camp), presented Jesus to over half a million campers the past 50 years to decide if He could make them the “best they could possibly be” as they met Him at the foot of the cross.
Yesterday you counted the cost for the crucial decision needed. Would you accept the doctor’s advice to clone 100 Fred Crowells statistically, meaning there would be a chance of living 18 months longer with his clinical trial medications? Or would you be willing to accept no harmful drugs and possibly increase longevity by only 9 months?
The best news, with multiple insights, is you are not 100 clones or even 50 clones. You, Freddy J. Crowell, are just one person, but created in the image of God. Jesus has given you the power and purpose to live beyond the human norms. Today, you are mentally and spiritually well, breathing and living with purpose and passion. You have the will to be right here right now. You are the miracle God made you to be until your last breath.
So be it. From Fred Crowell
