Cody's Story

I look at myself in the mirror everyday
I see the same person everyday
No different than anybody else
Just a person living a life a journey

Author: My Son
Cody Allen Ring
4th grade

Cody was 13 years old when he was diagnosed with Cancer, Burkett�s Lymphoma a very rare, but common Cancer in young boys of Cody�s age.

I can�t tell the whole story of what all Cody and all of us, his family went through to fight this, because the idea behind this is to honor Cody. For all that Cody went through to fight this, he never wanted to be thought of as being sick, he just wanted to be thought of as being plain and simply Cody.

Cody was only 13 when this all started, but he was not afraid of what could happen to him. His Faith carried him through all that he had to battle.

When Cody was able to be around his friends he didn�t want them to look at him as if he was sick. He just wanted them to look at him as they always had, just as their friend. The one thing that worried Cody was not that he was going to be OK, but he worried that everyone else would be OK if he wasn�t here with them.

You see, Cody was my son, but he was also my best friend, so on December 7, 2004 I not only lost my son, but I lost the best friend I think I will ever have, I mean we had our disagreements and we both always thought we were right and neither one of us wanted to admit we were wrong, but the Love this Family shared, meaning Cody, his Dad, his Brother, me (his Mother), Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, and the list goes on and on, we all lost a very special person that day.

Cody�s Faith brought to his life a very special person which came to be the Pastor of our Church, Rev. Willie Deuel, not only was he the Pastor of our Church, but he was like part of our family. Oddly enough and strangely enough I had known his wife, Katie for several years. You see, she had taken care of me, my husband and Cody as our Doctor for years. So was this just a coincidence or was it fate that brought us all together when we were going to need each other more than ever?

Well you can call it fate, but I think that I will call it Faith and I think Cody would agree with me on that one, cause Faith in God is something that Cody had plenty of, he was Baptized Methodist, but he was so interested in all beliefs, whether it was going to a Baptist Church to go to Bible School, or going to Church with his Aunt and Uncle at the Pentecost Church, because he wanted to understand what it was to speak in tongue and the holy ghost, his bibles are marked page after page where he sat and read scriptures, but in looking I would have to say that the Book of Psalms was his most interested Book in the Bible to look at. He read it, he studied it, and he drew strength from it and our Rev. Willie Deuel not only did they have Faith in common they had music in common also. Cody had gotten a guitar for his make a wish and whether we were here or at the Hospital that guitar and his amp. was with us and Cody just waiting for Willie to come and play for him when he wanted to hear the music, but just wasn�t up to making it for himself. So in Cody�s passing the guitar that was played for him by his Pastor and Friend is still being played for many, many people from all around by that same person that brought such great joy to Cody with that guitar which was dedicated to him in Cody�s honor so that Cody and Willies music lives on, and if you have enough Faith and we could only see it. I bet you that there is not one stoke of the strings that Willies fingers make that Cody�s is not there his hand on Willies, still learning; or is he now teaching?

I was told by a friend of Cody�s after he had passed about a conversation that a bunch of the boys had one day as they took a ride on their bikes over to the levy when Cody had to be in about the 4th grade around the time he wrote the opening poem. There was oh about 5 or 6 of the boys and they were sitting on the levy and one of them asked the question, if you knew that this was your last day on earth what would you do? Well as the story was told to me the boys began to answer and they thought of great things what they could have, where they could go, and Cody being the youngest of the boys answered last; he said �if I knew that this was my last day on earth I would go to Church, make everything right with God, I would be Baptized and make sure that I was going to be OK.�

Well, he did just what he said he would do, but at the time he was doing it all I didn�t know of the story. Before the Bone Marrow Transplant he was Baptized Methodist, he found the Holy Spirit and learned what it was to speak in tongue the Pentecost way, he did it all. He did just what he said he would do.

I didn�t want to get into what I thought Cody would rather have left out, but to all his friends who read this don�t think for one minute that when he didn�t want anyone to come to the Hospital it was because he didn�t care, it is because he cared so much that he wanted to be remembered here at home on the front porch or on the 4-wheeler, or the Chopper with his Dork cap on, because he loved all of you his friends to much to let your last memories of him be somewhere other than home and happy and not sick, just a kid like any other kid having fun.

I didn�t want to get into the personal part, but I have to on this one part, the night before we went to St. Louis Cody asked some difficult questions, asked some difficult promises to fulfill, and the reason they are hard to fulfill is he isn�t here to help me, but I hope this will! That night which was really morning I was getting ready to change his dressing and flush his Central Line, he was on the computer chatting as usual, so he asked me to wait and I said no problem I had to get everything ready anyway. Well he finished on the computer and came and laid down so I could do what I needed to do and he took my hands in his and asked me to wait a minute he needed to ask me something. So, I said OK, thinking that it was about what was about to happen, then he said if things don�t go the way that we have planned, will you be OK? He was so worried about all of us, so I told him, I was going to stand on my Faith that everything was going to be OK, but that if things didn�t turn out the way that we hoped for whether he was here with me physically, he could never be taken from my heart, but I also told him that if God had let him know something or if he ever felt it in his heart that it was time to let go, that he had to promise me that he would not struggle or fight to stay here for me, that he would go peacefully with God and that it would take a very long time, but I would be OK. Then he asked me if his room could always be his room no matter what and I promised with all my heart that it would always be his room and nothing else, and he made me promise that if something was to happen that the Central Line in his Chest be taken out and I made sure of that and his last was that everyone else be OK and know that he was OK and I have tried with all my heart to do that. I just hope there isn�t anyone I have let down or left out!

I think Cody gave something to us all, something very special UNCONDITIONAL LOVE He loved us for who we were Forever and Always

*********************************************

MyVision

I went outside I remember it being so dark in the sky not many stars just darkness and as I stood on the back porch I closed my eyes and looked to the skies and started to talk to God. I told him that I knew I had done all that I could do and that I had to put Cody in his hands and what ever decision he made I would try to understand if he could heal him or if he had to take him from me, but that I just wish that he could give me a sign a feeling of knowing something. When I finally finished my conversation I opened my eyes and every where you looked it was still pitch black but over Cody's bedroom there was the biggest white cloud in the shape of a mans face that I know was only one person God, he was giving me my answer as I stood there looking at it I stepped off the porch so I was looking directly at the back side of the house where Cody's room is and was amazed, shocked, wondering if I was really seeing what I was seeing so I blinked and it was real it was there, as I looked at the cloud it started to move but never away from Cody's room and it swirled and moved to make what I can now explain as an outline, unlike the face being made of the clouds. The clouds when they moved outlined the next person and it was this Baseball Player standing on the pitchers mound his cap cocked just a little to the side but the bill bent just so perfectly curved in a full position with his arm pulled back with the baseball in it just waiting to throw his pitch. I knew in my heart what God was telling me, but I so much wanted to believe he was saying Cody was going to play ball again in which I was right he was telling me that but with the images one being solid of the clouds and the other an outline into the sky meant that he was going to be playing on Gods team.

The day that Cody died, Ricky & I were standing on the front porch again right in front of Cody's room we both looked to the sky, there was the biggest brightest shooting star going by and I know it was Cody just letting us know he made it.